Hi James,
A question on desire if you don’t mind. I understand the problem with gratuitous desire, the way in which it covertly inhibits recognition of our inherent bliss and therefore the value in knowing its limitations and rationale for not indulging it to reduce the karmic drive and reveal the innate bliss. How does this apply to essential desires? i.e. sufficient food, sleep, sound physical health/absence of physical pain, etc?  I ask because I have a physical health condition picked up from years of stress and shift work (pain, lethargy) which is improving (slowly) with medical assistance and lifestyle adjustments. Obviously there is a persistent desire to be free of this condition as it maintains prominence in me, awareness, throughout the day. Does this mean that full appreciation of my inherent bliss will likely not occur until the condition is adequately improved?
I’m at a point thanks to the teaching where self-knowledge is pretty firm, no obvious doubts are lingering and there is little to no psychological pain. Life generally has smoothed out significantly. However, there is a persistent desire to be free of this physical pain and so I’m wondering if that’s why a sense of bliss/wholeness remains elusive? It’s like Sat and Chit are assimilated but Ananda is dragging the chain haha. Any insight would be much appreciated.
Michael
Hi Tom,
The ananda is always present. You needn’t wait for it. It is the nature of the Self. But it remains in the background as long as the mind, the instrument of pleasure and pain, is focused on it. It’s a both/and, not an either/or. The bliss of being is the reason you want to get rid of the karmic pain, which seems to be impeding it. Your desire to see the equipment free of pain is ananda in the form of devotion to the self. You love yourself and want it to be a pleased self. So it’s a natural, essential desire. It’s Isvara, the desire that it not opposed to dharma.
Shift work is a bitch. It’s fear based. One is always asked to do more than necessary to avoid lawsuits, which diminish the bottom line. The body pays, as you know. By God’s grace I got fired from my first shift job when I was eighteen and vowed to only to what I wanted to do when I wanted to do it from that point on. I kept that vow till today, so I escaped the unnatural discipline imposed by a greedy, fearful overpopulated society and have experienced virtually no pain in my eighty years. Yes, we want the stuff that everyone wants but in my opinion it’s easier to adjust to poverty than to middle class life with all it’s seemingly necessary responsibilities.
Anyway, the karmic pain, which happened before you made adjustments to your lifestyle will manifest no matter what, but it’s mithya and doesn’t affect you, Existence/Awareness. So offer the desire to be rid of it to Isvara and, as it seems you are, continue to manage your gunas i.e. make lifestyle changes, which is to say, cultivate more sattva. And you can be thankful that Isvara called your attention to your lifestyle and stepped into the breach with Vedanta so you can take better care of your mind and body. At the same time, you can offload any possible regret for inflicting the pain on yourself on Isvara too, in so far as it wasn’t your intention to do so.
Fortunately, things are gradually improving. The only technique that makes the pain easier is focusing on the Self in the form of the thought I am the non-experiencing witness of the pain. It takes energy to keep the mind locked on the Self, which of course is a downside in so far as it produces mental tamas, which is another kind of pain, but it more or less works.
Love,
James
