Susan: I’ve been out of the loop for a few months. I have had some health issues and I’ve been reading all the relevant satsangs on Shiningworld, the one you wrote on fear & I’ll health which I get…almost! The karma bit is tricky, but I think I get it. Then maybe not. Is this karma playing out? I know it’s not my karma if I am the Self. Yet a jiva has karma?
Anxiety & overwhelm take me over sometimes. I seem to be visiting doctors & hospitals with pills a lot none of which are helping. I’m asking for help from Ishwara …James says Ishwara made me so Ishwara can look after me. I’m wondering. I feel the anxiety & overwhelm are the problem & I’m trying to work on this. My sleep is poor.
Sundari: The teaching on ill health and the body is one that we all need sooner or later. We do not choose the Subtle and Gross body we are born with, Isvara gives us the body we get according to the prarabdha karma (the momentum of past actions) due to it. There is nothing quite like ill health and the doctor/hospital loop to cause anxiety, which can feel overwhelming, my sympathies. It is easy to forget to apply Self-knowledge in situations like this as the mind gets highjacked by rajas and tamas. Keep in mind that Isvara did create the jiva, but like the jiva, Isvara as creator exists thanks to you, the Self. Isvara does look after the jiva despite tough karma playing out.
But remember that Isvara is not a person doling out the good or bad stuff, it’s an impersonal mechanism that delivers the karma due to the jiva. How we respond to karma is what matters. If you are identified with the jiva, which you are here, then karma comes to you, and that is very tough. If you know you are the Self, you observe the karma playing out for the jiva but are not identified with it. Applying the knowledge means mind (guna) management and karma yoga are required. This is not easy in situations like this, but it is your only real lifeline.
The body is not real, yet, although the body depends on the mind and not the other way around, a body sick or in pain affects the Subtle body making peace of mind (sattva) very difficult. The Subtle Body has a similar relationship to the Gross Body as Consciousness has to mithya (the apparent reality). There is an interdependence from the jiva’s perspective—but not from Consciousness’s point of view because the body and Consciousness exist in different orders of reality, and they never meet.
The Subtle body, which contains the Gross body, is mithya or apparently real (not always present and always changing) and Consciousness is satya, real (ever-present and unchanging). The Gross Body is ‘within’ the Subtle Body and the Subtle Body is ‘within’ Consciousness (you). When the body experiences chronic pain, there is no point denying it. The point of understanding that nothing in the mithya world is real is not denial. Denial will not make mithya (the effects of ignorance or duality) go away. Only the ability to discriminate satya, the Self, from mithya, the objects that arise in you, will mitigate physical or mental pain by seeing it as not-Self. If the body is in pain, you are not in pain and you are not the pain. You are the knower of the pain.
The pain (karma) comes to the Subtle Body, which a jnani knows belongs to Isvara. The dharmafield or Total Mind (Isvara srsti) remains unchanged if one is “enlightened” or not, which means prarabdha karma will play out according to the laws that govern the dharmafield. As health or illness is a result of prarabdha karma, if we super-imposes what belongs to Isvara onto the individual or jiva then we are thinking as a person, not as Consciousness.
This means that you think the karma comes to you and therefore the suffering belongs to you—because you are identified with it. If you know that you are Consciousness, you see the suffering taking place in the mind (Subtle Body). So, you are free of the suffering, both mental and physical. When moksa has obtained, you are trigunaatita, beyond the gunas, so the mind does not condition to them.
That said, karma is a difficult topic, and it depends on who you think you are. It is real if you think it is real; karma is often almost impossible to understand because the one trying to understand it is in the dharma/karma field and part of the field. It is trying to understand the mind of Isvara as a jiva. It cannot be done. Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita: “On the topic of karma, even sages are perplexed”.
There is no karma for an enlightened person (jnani). The individual or jiva identified as a jiva accumulates karma that seems to come to the body/mind sense complex. But when moksha happens, the karma burns up. However, we must look at what “burning up” actually means. Karma does not burn up for Consciousness as there is no karma for it because nothing ever happened. It is not a doer. Karma is not real, from the perspective of Consciousness.
Karma is just an idea in the Subtle Body that causes suffering. So “burning up” karma happens when the jiva is no longer identified with the Subtle Body and knows that it is Consciousness. This does not mean that karma does not still play out for the jiva. Remember the body belongs to Isvara: it is prakriti – matter, made up of the 5 elements. The momentum of past actions is Isvara delivering the fruits of jiva’s actions, and it plays out as long as the jiva is alive. When the prarabdha karma ends, the body dies.
Karma “burns up” for the Subtle Body, because it is only ever “in” the Subtle Body, not the physical body or the Self. Because the body is just meat and inert there is no karma for it either. It seems to take place in the physical body because the physical body is “attached” to the Subtle Body. Because Isvara is Consciousness, from its point of view (Causal Body) there is no karma as mentioned. Isvara is called karma phala datta: which means “the one who delivers the fruits of the action”, which implies that Isvara is a doer, which is incorrect. Karma is simply the endless playing out of the gunas.
There are illnesses that are not the result of one’s state of mind and are not under the control of the individual. Take Ramana for instance: he was a great saint who lived a pure, sattvic life and had a great state of mind, yet he died of cancer. There is no avoiding the fact that our bodies are part of our environment and not separate from it. There is a constant flow of shakti from one to the other, positive or negative. We ignore the laws that run the dharmafield at our own cost. Ramana did not care about his body or its state of health, he was a great saint. For most of us, we do care because a body in constant pain is very hard to ignore and a great burden to bear. So we do what is necessary to take care of it.
Of course, it takes extreme dispassion to deal with chronic illness or any pain we can do nothing about. This is where dispassion and karma yoga are so important from the jiva or jivanmukta level. One can work with Isvara regarding illness and body pain by one’s attitude to the thoughts that give rise to illness/pain and to the thoughts which come as a result of illness/pain. Coping with chronic pain, which is rajas, makes the mind dull, tamasic. Even though it is very difficult to maintain a sattvic mind when the body is in a lot of pain, it can be done with the right attitude and Self-knowledge.
For some who have made pain an identity, pain becomes a cop-out; a way of justifying how hard done by the doer is, legitimizing complaint, blame, and victimhood. Or just a way to hang onto binding vasanas, to camouflage them with talk about Self-knowledge. That said, there is always something ‘wrong’ with the body, even when we are experiencing good health. It is not static but fluid, like a river, always changing and in a state of flux, and in a constant symbiotic relationship with the environment (Isvara, the gunas). It is a product of the gunas. The body you had a year ago, a month ago, or yesterday is not the same body you have today because the gunas are always changing, constantly revolving. Thus, nothing in mithya ever stays the same. We have no control over it other than to look after it to the best of our ability.
But no matter how well we look after the body, Isvara is the final (and only) determiner of how long the body will sustain life. The body is on loan to you; you are not meant to and (definitely) will not be allowed to keep it! Take appropriate and timely action to look after it but surrender it to Isvara, who will take care of it. The right attitude, which is an attitude of gratitude for the gift of life ‘in a body’, is the best and sanest approach to the body and to life, along with a knowledge-based lifestyle. It is a privilege to be born with a human body because only in a human body can moksa obtain. And when the time is right, the body will be withdrawn and returned to the five elements from whence it came, and you as Consciousness, will not be affected by that one bit.
Even though taking care of the body is intelligent if you want to feel good and live life well, ultimately our problems as a jiva do not come from the body or its good or bad health. All our problems come from ignorance, from desire and fear thoughts, i.e., from binding vasanas.
Susan: Sorry Sundari it sounds like I’m dumping! I’ve managed to keep my sense of humour most of the time it’s a good release. I’ve a fair grounding in Vedanta cos I’ve been at it for I’d say 10 years or more.
Sundari: It is quite Ok to dump as there isn’t anyone here to be dumped on! Keep up your sadhana, a devotional practice, and mostly, karma yoga. Surrender to Isvara what belongs to Isvara, the jiva, and her karma.
Hang in there, never fear, nothing ever happens to the Self. The fear and distress the jiva feels while understandable has nothing to do with you. Keep your Self-perspective on it and definitley your sense of humour!
Much love
Sundari
