Seeker: Dear Ramji, I’m still very much on the Vedanta bus and read all the new satsangs as they appear on ShiningWorld. I wanted to reach out and thank you for being a voice of calm rationality and balanced perspective during this time of global crisis. I’ve just finished reading Sundari’s wonderful article in the latest newsletter, and found it very thoughtful and helpful.
Even more helpful was your recent satsang, posted in February 2020: Freedom and Bondage Are Not Real. I sent you a donation for this one! It’s like you were writing to me directly, and I found every single point you made therein to be helpful. I’ve wrestled with exactly the same issues you covered. You really unpacked the whole teaching in one incredible satsang, thank you!
In my case, I have provide financial consulting services to people struggling with too much debt. It’s a stressful gig for sure and I suffer from “compassion fatigue” from listening to all the hard-luck stories and trying to keep my clients calm. It’s been a high-wire act balancing the workload with adequate rest, recreation, maintaining my health and of course time for continuing with Self-inquiry. But as you noted, the problem is dualistic thinking at the root of this perceived tension between work and freedom.
Every point smacks me right in the head: “If you don’t do something that needs to be done, Isvara will get someone else to do it. You are dispensable in every way. You needn’t take yourself seriously.” I should have this tattooed somewhere on my torso or in reverse letters on my forehead so when I look in a mirror there it will be to remind me that that person isn’t even real. I’m still far too attached to a story that is nothing more than a collection of thought-objects arising in awareness. Silly me. I already knew this, but needed your helpful reminder to stop taking myself so seriously.
Relative to the 5-10-15 model you have discussed elsewhere, I would say that I’m in the 15-year stretch, working on actualizing Self-knowledge from moment to moment. I would also say that my suffering has greatly attenuated in recent years, thanks in no small part to your teaching, but I do still focus way too much on the problems of the waking-state jiva story. This creates unnecessary psychological blowback, and I have felt some of this in reaction to the coronavirus scare. But – “If you are clear, then the person you’re been conditioned to think you are will appear as non-different from any other person, and in fact from animals, plants and obviously inert object like stones and sand.” Amen.
I’ll stop here, lest I end up quoting the whole thing back to you. ☺
Thanks again for this beautiful satsang! I hope you and Sundari remain safe and healthy during Isvara’s latest pandemic, and also hope to see you in person again one day soon.
