Maurice: I’ve been doing what you told me to do…take a stand in awareness.
I know I exist as reflected awareness and my true nature is awareness. So I’ve been doing a lot of negating. Examples: My true nature is not this body. My true nature is not this thought. My true nature is not the taste of this food. My true nature is open limitless ordinary awareness. At the same time as the Buddha said: “our thoughts create this world”. So, I choose thoughts that fulfill my dharma as reflected awareness.
I have had this overwhelming sadness for the last month. This continual feeling of hopelessness. There was an old movie with Harrison Ford, called Blade Runner. At the end there was a quote: “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.” I feel like this a lot.
So, I negate that as well. I am not this sadness, I watch this sadness from my true nature- the place beyond thoughts, feelings, actions, words but it just seems to continually return. I also seem to be losing interest in my normal activities. In work, sex, exercise etc. Is what I’m doing normal or is this approach flawed in some way.
Sundari: It sounds like you have fallen into the pit of the void. It happens to many qualified inquirers who are Self-realized but not Self-actualized when the truth of life being zero-sum sinks in. Self-knowledge is not firm yet. They ‘hit the wall’ so to speak and they realize that there really is ‘nothing out ‘there’. We call it ‘the void’ because all objects are seen to be devoid of substance and meaning, which of course, they are. In particular, when the person they once took themselves to be is revealed to be no more than a construct, a mirage, a guna-generated program. What to ‘do’ when you realize the pointlessness of all doing and you are not the doer? Knowing that we are the Self does not magically translate into the disappearance of the jiva with all its stuff. That can take years and years for some in the last stages of self-inquiry. Nididhysana is the purification of the remaining vestiges of mental/emotional patterns once Self-realization has taken place. Only when this stage is complete does Self-actualization take place naturally.
The ‘all is emptiness’ stage is created by tamas, which presents another Self-actualization problem that usually, but not always, affects older self-realized people who have had families and/or careers. Jobs and families solve the problem of financial and emotional security, but they don’t take care of the doer problem, so the tendency to act has no place to go when you realize the zero-sum nature of life. The risk here is that the doer slips into a depression because you cannot in good faith distract it with the mindless samsaric pursuits that previously occupied it, i.e. jobs, entertainment, sex or endless family events, etc. Recently the pandemic has made this much worse because the mind is forced to face itself and has nowhere to hide or seek distraction. Things on the world stage can seem pretty gloomy looked at through the lens of tamas.
What all serious inquirers dedicated to the last stage of self-inquiry, nididhysana, are aiming for is to transition directly to perfect satisfaction – tripti. Unfortunately, this can only take place if you are totally qualified when Self-realization takes place. I.e., all the jiva’s binding conditioning (mental and emotional patterns) have been transformed into devotion to the Self, meaning rendered non-binding. This is seldom the case when Self-realization takes place, which is why nididhysana, is for most inquirers, the most difficult and the longest stage.
Swami Paramarthananda, calls nididyasana ‘requalifying.’ You never know when, during the manana phase, firm Self-knowledge will take place and you never know how long nididyasana will take. In fact, if Self-knowledge makes you a perfect spontaneous karma yogi, it doesn’t matter because time doesn’t exist for you. So, if you don’t experience perfect jiva satisfaction when Self-knowledge is unshakable, you need to remain humble and keep up the practices that qualified you for understanding as they will eventually remove the obstacles to limitless bliss.
Jivas are a flawed bunch and there’s not much that can be done about it. We are all a mixed bag on that level knowing how the gunas work conditioning the mind. Nobody is doing anything, so there is no blame, either. Our jiva program plays out the way it does, and we are either tied to it or not. At the same time, being free of it does not mean we stop thinking and feeling; all that changes is the import we give to our thoughts and feelings, and how they impact us. To be truly free I must be free to be sad, upset, disappointed, angry, etc., as well as happy and peaceful.
But if negative feelings loom large and take up residence in the real estate of my mind for longer than it takes to recognize that they are there, I am clearly, not that free. Freedom means I see my thoughts and feelings as they arise and the knowledge kicks in instantly to dissolve them. It is good that you seem to be objective about the repetitive bad feelings appearing in your mind and thinking the opposite thought, even though they keep returning. Nobody said freedom from and for the jiva is easy. It is not, which is why faith in the teachings is such an important qualification. If that fails you, Maya is right there waiting to take over the mind.
Hold fast to the knowledge and keep discriminating. This stage passes when you finally realize that you are the fullness observing the apparent void, and the apparent sadness. Life under the spell of duality, Maya, is hard and heartbreaking, Maya is relentless in its daily grind. Nothing is permanent, everything in life is always in the process of decay, of entropy, of leaving us, which is why freedom from dependence on objects for happiness is the only true salvation. When you are free then you can see that life is actually benign and inherently beautiful because you are. You never change, your fullness never begins or ends. Then, there is nothing to fear or be sad about.
As my Italian mom used to say, forza e coraggio. Be strong and have courage. You have the only security that matters in this life, and that is Self-knowledge. You can trust it.
Much love
Sundari