Marvin: Ramji, wanted to ask for a prayer again, to give Isvara a good talking-to or asking for me. In a way I’ve taken you as a guru in my mind and heart as best I can. Things seem to be awry and am at the last straw looking for something. I’ve been trying the karma yoga but I feel I’m not even able to act properly, so don’t really know where to start. The mind feels jumbled at times, so I’ll just jump in. Yeah, so everything feels messed up and I can’t quite put my finger on it.
It’s funny, as we’ve discussed before, I’ve always felt lucky and sometimes I wonder if things actually were going my way or if they seemed to be going my way. So with hindsight and looking back, wracking my brain, this idea nags: Did things go a certain way to make me ask if they were out of my control or did I control things to go a certain way?
In a state of confusion, at one point I asked for things to go topsy-turvy in one of those weird moments of thinking, “Hey, perhaps something different or going full force, trying everything and seeing Neo New-Age stuff, and not discriminating correctly will actually do something, so since normal isn’t working, ask for abnormal and everything opposite and like some saints say, ask for pain and suffering and take on the pain of the world to be some super avatar and for powers and all that crap, and deals with devils and anything in my mind to be open to show, hey, non-dual so everything is okay even if I don’t like it like it, and spirits gather and wierd ideas like that.”
I realize now at the time I didn’t understand a lot of Vedantic teachings. I feel I’m matured a bit there from the suffering that’s ensued and trying to undo it all by really focusing, but now I can’t really focus, it’s wierd. In a strange way, things really did go bad quickly and real bad for me, at least subjectively. I know perhaps nothing really happened but maybe by going there mentally I actually got a little manic and have always been a bit odd, so that doesn’t help. But objectively things seems to have really gone strange for those around me as well, people actually saying so. I’ve been trying to pinpoint the source of the craziness in a normal way, like perhaps I got the disorientated feeling from when I got my concussions or burying this stray cat in backyard, probably having that strange bacteria cats have that are also a parasites that affect the brain and makes one, in some people, think something is off or being attacked by entities and making wrong decisions without the ability to control at times, pretty common apparently.
Some wierdo that would come to the house when my parents moved to Texas talked about curses and wicca and all that crap. Or even the periods of roaming the streets and being in shelters and homeless (I believe I mentioned this before). At first I was okay with this because of romantic notions from movies like Into the Wild, don’t know if you saw it, and I thought I’d quickly jump back, not knowing that becoming homeless can affect some people’s minds. I mean sleeping in shelters next to a bunch of violent, crazy people and hearing horror stories can play on a person.
After a while being in proximity to people felt unbearable, as if their personalities and craziness was rubbing off on me and all thoughts that entered my head seemed to have power over me. I’ve read a lot of the satsangs over the years and when people sent crap like this to you about feeling crazy or whatever, I thought that was stupid people feigning strangness out of some neediness, but now feeling some of these things I feel it just seems unacceptable. There’s like a knot or something missing, and it feels like that ghost feeling I’ve told you about, where I might become susceptible to anything and thoughts scare me, like an anxiety or trauma. Like what if I’m some wierd, gay, crazy person or anything, and I don’t know and something might happen later that isn’t me. So you can see my predicament in some sort. I’ve tried reliving and remembering to undo what I thought I’d done, I mean in the moment it actually felt like I tapped into something, but didn’t think it through and going back and undoing doesn’t seem to work.
I’ve gotten some insights and feel I’ve gotten a lot from Vedanta, but now since I do it, get away from the shit in one’s head, it comes with associating Vedanta with pain, so it kind of defeats the purpose for me. So I’m really asking from a God-person to ask God to put things back in order in my life for me to get through and not have this crap, whatever in any way that it is. I’ve tried for the past five or six years to get life started, work girlfriends, literally nothing works or pans out; it’s like one step forward and all these unforseen things block my way and smash everything to the point I have nothing and can’t do anything. Body deteoriates with injuries, not particularly healthy eating habits, probably some messed up sex vasanas from one-night stands and going to strip clubs out of anger at having no proximity to anyone or maybe it’s the other way around, not having girlfriends ever really has pent me up, and so I haven’t naturally worked on that animal drive. I don’t really know, there seem to be two ways to everything and each path seems wrong.
A voice in my head says doing everything wrong will bring right to my life, and I know that’s not right, I can’t meditate or quiet down or anything and all this relating to Neem Karoli Baba crap that’s taken me to this BS spiritual path… I’d want that to go away. It is just in the head and trying to be a watcher just doesn’t do it anymore. I don’t know if I’ve said everything but I really do hope there is something to the God idea and maybe he knows my mind without the bad and that prayer or at least actually just asking for prayer can be an impetus for me to act with confidence.
So I’m asking for success and to undo the crap and be whole. Really for some space or an awareness in me to catch the right moment to start life, without crap from parents or even old friends or me (the jiva) to bring me down. To feel that grace or awareness I thought I know and was confident in and not look back in fear. So this is all embarassing, I’m hoping this doesn’t have to go in the satsang section, and I really feel shitty asking but well, maybe something, sometimes I do feel a ray of sunshine and think, hey, it’s there, there’s just some block you’re not aware of but it can be overcome, like finding some cool small Ganesh murti outside full of other murtis in a kiddy pool left out, so I take one as a symbol to remind me, hey, that’s random, I found that, maybe I can see it as a “sign” negating the bad ones.
Ramji: Hi, Marvin.
Wow! I don’t know where to start. On one hand, I can see the real you – awareness – writing this because you can’t describe the confusion of your mind if you are totally caught up in it. On the other hand, it seems you are pretty well identified with it. I told you the solution before but you didn’t listen. I said get a job at McDonald’s or some place similar and go to work every day like a real person and stick with it until you understand how spoiled and lucky you are to have had the opportunity to indulge your fantasies and passions. After work you go home, cook a sattvic meal, read the scriptures, do your meditation and make your prayers into vows to live properly, and when one of the girls at work falls in love with you, you take it seriously and stick with her until you know what it feels like to be a normal person and love like a real person.
God can’t change your karma, because God is only a facilitator of the actions you have done in the past. If you want a different life you have to do the actions that cause God to deliver a better life. Prayer is not just a mental act. It is action. As long as you keep living like you do, God will just give you more of the same. Acting out your fantasies is totally tamasic. Confusion is the result of tamas. If you associate with tamasic people, you just reinforce the tamasic aspect of your mind. I can’t do anything about it, because you don’t value my advice. You are too lazy to get off your butt and do the work. So you want me to ask God to fix the problem for you. The good news is that you are getting close to hitting bottom. Sometimes it has to get worse until you wake up. I love you, Marvin, but I am a Vedanta teacher. I don’t have any special powers or any special connection to God, just the power to do actions that produce sattvic results, as do you. Vedanta only works for qualified people; you know that. Why don’t you develop the qualifications instead of looking for magical solutions?
If you keep going like this your mind is going to continue to disintegrate and you will lose whatever initiative is left. Did you read the latest newsletter? Read Christian’s portion about the man named Ade. See the attitude. I strongly suggest that you do the mind control course of my disciple, Christian Leeby. Go to the home page of ShiningWorld and click on the graphic on the right at the top that says “Mastering Mind Control.” Take the course and stick to it.
~ Love, Ramji