Hi Stanley,
I edited your excellent letter for publication on the website and made a few comments. Here it is:
It feels a bit like writing to a friend after listening to your voice all these hours. I am studying Vedanta based on the teachings on your Full Set hard drive now for roughly 3 years (heard everything at least 3 times). Probably you do not remember me. I sat in the back row at one of your satsangs and was ready to receive Shaktipāt in deep meditation :☺. That started my way with Vedanta. Thanks a lot on clearing me up about all these enlightenment myths!!!
James: You’re welcome.
I am listening to your teachings on a daily basis, often 2-4 hours a day and attend the Vedamurti Vedanta group for a year now. So I build up a quite strong Vedanta Vasana to confront some nasty vasanas. Most everything cleared up listening to your teachings. So sorry for writing without having a real question. Vedanta transformed my search. I still did not attain Moksha, but I am well aware that what I am searching is always here. It is myself which is existence itself. I see the world as mithya, which is satya apparently shattered, viewed through an ignorance filter. All I can seemingly do is to remove this to “find” myself in the “place” where I have always seemingly been. Or to discover there are no places at all. There is no place, no time, no space, no here and there…Vedanta ended the “Hardcore Sadhana Game” which destroyed my ability to sleep. I stopped it all! I have doubts about my guru because of the ideal he promoted which caused so many people to torture themselves to achieve some kind of holy personality. He presented the spiritual path as a painful climb up a mountain path full of obstacles to find something that I am already! He did a lot of good too because it led me to Vedanta.
James: Life is a spiritual path and sometimes it is difficult, but teachers shouldn’t make it out as either too easy or too difficult. They should talk about the qualifications. It is very easy if you are qualified and very difficult if you aren’t.
Some weeks ago it struck me that the world is “empty”. Meaning I am the joy. I was kind of shocked that I was searching joy…me…”out there” all my life. For some days all came to rest. I became much calmer, nothing to get in the world. You refer to the world being flat, it being just some kind of “screen”. And things only seemingly stick out when we identify with our reality. Meaning only projection makes the world 3D? I can see that the moon is not real. I am still more struggling with my central heating or bed not being real,- although I realise it is all just sense perception in my mind. None the less, if I would try to sleep outside in winter…:) But no complaints here, I go happily on listening and reflecting to your teachings/Vedanta.
James: Yes, the 3D effect is only created because we identify with the senses. When you identify as Awareness all the hills and valleys disappear. Unreal central heating takes care of unreal cold by God’s grace so you don’t have to worry about it.:)
I like your art. One day maybe you can animate one of my charts, make the cosmic wheel spin! I always see it moving and changing. Thanks for sending it. Thanks for writing. I wish you all the best in every way.
Love,
James