From Seeker To Teacher

My Satsangs with Ramji and Sundari

Edited by Isaiah Sanders

OM. I bow to myself in the form of the my teachers, Ramji and Sundari, who dispelled the darkness of my ignorance with the light of knowledge.

INTRODUCTION At the end of two or three years of intense spiritual seeking, I was completely exhausted and frustrated. For all of my studying, meditating and spiritual practice, I felt like I wasn't any nearer to my goal than when I started. In fact, I wasn't e en sure I knew what the goal was. I told myself that if something didn't change soon I was going to call it !uits. "hen, by grace, I found my teacher, #ames Swart$, also known as %am&i. 'ittle did I know that my spiritual &ourney was !uickly coming to an end. %am&i, along with his wife Sundari, wielded the time tested teachings of (edanta to help me destroy the ignorance of my limitless nature. "hey used these teachings to show me that I was, and always had been, free. )hat follows are my satsangs with %am&i and Sundari between February *+,* and #anuary *+,-. At first I started to compile these exchanges to preser e them for myself. Although, as I began to edit them, I thought that perhaps they could be of a benefit to others as well. "he personal details about myself or my path are of no particular alue other than entertainment and by no means should someone compare themsel es to me. .owe er, the nature of ignorance is completely impersonal and is the same for e eryone. For this reason, people often share the same types of !uestions. I think the real alue of this text is seeing the methodology of (edanta used by skillful teachers to address these uni ersal !uestions. /Isaiah Sanders

FEBRUARY 2012

Chinmaya, religion and Is ara Isaiah0 I'll start by saying that &ust by reading some of your satsangs, and articles o er the last month I ha e learned more about (edanta than I ha e in the last year. "he way you explain things really puts things in perspecti e and connects the dots. I look forward to reading your book. E en though I ha en't read it yet I wanted to ask you a few general !uestions. .ere's a little biographical information about myself. I was born and raised in the 1idwest. I was brought up in a 2hristian household from day one. "here was church e ery Sunday, )ednesday, and many other times in between. Attendance was not optional. For the most part I was pretty enthusiastic about it all. I oraciously read and studied the 3ible. 3ut I always had A '4" of !uestions that no one e er seemed able to answer. I guess I somehow suppressed these doubts and mo ed on. In high school I really became a poster boy for 2hristianity, carrying my 3ible at school and playing music in 2hristian bands. I was ery $ealous. "hen, in a flash, during a church ser ice shortly before starting seminary college, I suddenly felt as if there was no 5od and e erything I had learned was a total farce. I felt totally empty. Somehow I managed to suppress this and continued on to seminary. I thought somehow academic study of my religion would cure me. 3ut no matter how many classes I took, or independent trips I took to the library, none of my persistent !uestions were e er answers. I finally posed this dilemma to one of my professors I respected. .e couldn't answer my !uestions and said, 67ou ha e to ha e faith.8 From that point on I turned to atheism, sex, drugs and rock n' roll. "o make a long story short, after 9 or six years of this and going through periods of paraly$ing anxiety and suicidal depression, I finally came back to a spiritual search. :ot really &ust to end my suffering but because I became curious again. I hapha$ardly bought #ewish, 1uslim and 3uddhist books and scriptures. As an afterthought I bought a book I had ne er heard of called the 3haga ad 5ita*. I ended up reading that one last and e en though I didn't understand any of it, something &ust clicked inside me. "hus, my &ourney towards Ad aita (edanta- began a little less than two years ago. 3eing as I
1 A teaching, or a gathering where a teaching is given 2 Bhagavad Gita, The song of the lord. One of the three scriptures of the Vedanta canon, along with the panishads and Brah!a "utras # A $od% of &nowledge that uses a specific teaching !ethodolog% to re!ove one's ignorance of the non(dual nature of realit%. Advaita !eans, not(two, indicating the non(dual nature of realit%. Vedanta !eans, end of &nowledge, i!pl%ing it is the &nowledge that ends %our search for &nowledge

now li e in the 3ible 3elt South, there has been no one to guide me along other than myself so I ha e taken it upon myself to read any and all things Sanatana Dharma; related. "his in turn led me to start periodically attending a local temple and a local 2hinmaya 1ission chapter about < months ago =it's about a *.9 hour dri e for me or else I would be there all the time>. "his is where my !uestions come in. 3eing a former disciple of Swami 2hinmayananda9, do you feel like your teachings differ from his in content or &ust style? #ames0 :ot in content but in emphasis. "here is an article on my website called, 6)hat is Ad aita (edanta?8 that will help you understand. "his is a ery tricky !uestion and I want to get to know you better before I explain it properly. Isaiah0 It seems a little different when I read his stuff and yours. I noticed that your chart is different too. )here his says 3ody, 1ind, Intellect, yours says 3ody, 1ind, Ego, right? #ames0 7es, mine is more sophisticated and can be used to aid in all of the basic (edantic prakriyas@. Swami&i was a rishi< but he was also a (edanta re i alist like Shankara or (i ekananda so he simplified and populari$ed the teachings. I had the good fortune to with him e ery day in and out of the classroom so I got the benefit of a more refined (edanta. Isaiah0 Also, your (edanta teachings do not seem to ha e so many of the associated .indu trappings where 2hinmaya 1ission seems ery much concerned with the promotion of .indu culture. I don't personally ha e any problem with .indu culture, but not coming from that culture makes it hard for me to distill the knowledge of (edanta from the associated symbols and rituals. #ames0 I lo e .indu culture but it is not necessary for (edanta or mokshaA. I did not like his =2hinmayananda's> emphasis on .induism but it was important to gi e (edanta the support necessary to sur i e in materialist times. It was a aluable ser ice but not directly related to (edanta as a means of self knowledge. I ha e become ery successful a (edanta teacher in the )est because I ha e remo ed the Sanskrit and the .indu trappings. (edanta is knowledge, ideas, and can be expressed in any language.
) * / 0 1 "anatana dhar!a, the eternal dhar!a. The na!e given to the religion and &nowledge of the Vedas A !odern lu!inar% of Vedanta. +ounder of the worldwide organi,ation, -hin!a%a .ission. A teaching or teaching !ethod A seer. One who understands the non(dual nature of realit% and their non(separation fro! it. +reedo!. Also could $e called enlighten!ent.

It translates ery well into English. Isaiah0 And that leads me to the !uestion of religion. Swami 2hinmayananda, %amana 1aharshiB, Cayananda Saraswati,+ are all .indus right? And Ad aita undeniably comes from Indian culture and religion. #ames0 :o, you ha e it backwards. .induism comes from Sanatana Dharma, the Vedas11, which predate .induism. "he people you mention are all .indus but they knew that the (edas are &ust the knowledge of karma and consciousness. )hy this science of reality appeared where it did nobody knows. Isaiah0 So what is the role of practicing religion? #ames0 For purifying the mind to prepare it for moksha, for obtaining things in maya12 or for gaining hea en and a oiding hell. Isaiah0 Is .induism as a world religion beneficial for learning (edanta? #ames0 It can be, but it is not necessary. It depends again on your moti ation. For moksha it is not necessary. And you can get lost in it because it is a ery attracti e religion, makes you feel ery good. Isaiah0 Is it an aid? #ames0 It depends on your goal. Isaiah0 Dersonally, I really like going to the temple but I hardly understand what is going on and it is rarely explained. #ames0 7ou will benefit greatly by my book. Isaiah0 .owe er, it does make me feel good and I feel like I am Egetting closeE to the source of (edanta. In other words, I ne er wanted to be the kind of person who wanted to &ust try to take a few ideas I liked away from the whole and lea e the rest. I' e always wanted to be authentic and it seems like many in the west &ust take a few
2 14 11 12 A great saint of 3ndia. 5erhaps the world's fore!ost conte!porar% teacher of Vedanta The four scriptures, 6ig, 7a8ur, "a!a and Atharva. Veda !eans, &nowledge. The apparent power in awareness that !a&es it possi$le for awareness, which is for!less, to see! li&e so!ething it is not, li&e the creation. .a%a is also referred to as ignorance.

ideas away from yoga and (edanta and disrespectfully discard the rest &ust to suit themsel es or their own pre&udices. 4ne of the reasons I like your teachings so much is because you seem to really respect and lo e the tradition and you don't &ust water it down to &ust Ebeing in the nowE or something similar. #ames0 7es, I really do lo e it. "he real culture is culti ating the mind to prepare it for moksha assuming this is what you want. "his is done internally. External ritual can be ery helpful. (edantaFs most potent religious practice is karma yoga which is a religious attitude based on a certain understanding of the nature of reality. I share your iew about the general approach of )esterners. "hey are like tourists bringing back a sou enir from an exotic land and then sticking on the shelf of their minds along with all their )estern dust catchers. Isaiah0 Another !uestion regarding the practice is the worship of Isvara,-. I ha e read your satsangs about the nature of Isvara as the self coupled with the power of maya,;. Isvara is the entire created reality, the creator and the total mind. 7ou say that Isvara is often personified for the purposes of worship. 1y !uestion is0 Is worshiping Isvara beneficial? #ames0 7es, definitely, but it depends what you are worshiping Isvara for. 7ou can go for Isavaras stuff, all the things in the world, or you can go for Isvara. Isaiah0 Am I &ust worshiping maya? Am I glorifying the apparent reality instead of trying to get knowledge of the self,9? #ames0 "he apparent reality is the self so you are worshiping the self when you worship things in maya, people for example. %eality is non/dual. 3ut the self is not maya. 3ut if you worship maya without the understanding that it is you, awareness, then you will only get what maya has to offer. Isaiah0 3ecause if I'm worshiping Isvara then I'm &ust worshiping something that is still dependent of it's existence on the self. #ames0 #ust worship the self directly then. 7ou do that by gaining knowledge of the self. "he only access to the self is through knowledge because you are the self already.
1# The self 9 awareness, appearing as the creator 1) A power that resides in awareness. Also &nown as ignorance, or that which !a&es the i!possi$le possi$le, i.e. !a&es non(dual awareness appear to $e so!ething other than what it is. 1* :nglish translation of Brah!an or At!an. Of the nature of $eing, consciousness and li!itlessness

Isaiah0 3y worshiping (ishnu,@ for example, am I reinforcing the whole idea of, EI'm here and 5od is o er there and we are somehow separate,E or is it &ust an una oidable situation due to our inability to concei e of the Self in our minds? #ames0 7es. It is a preliminary step. )orship the self though the form. "here is another article on the website that you should read. It is called, 6Symbols of the Self.8 7ou might also benefit from watching my 3haga ad 5ita ideos. Isaiah0 4r if Isvara has an existence &ust like you and I in the apparent reality, is asking Isvara for help like me asking you for help? #ames0 7es, indeed. Isvara is the self controlling maya. 7ou are in maya and want out so you get Isvara on your side and let it know what you want and Isvara will create the circumstances that will lead you out i.e. bring a teacher. "hese are good !uestions. 7ou are on the right track. Isaiah0 Coes it benefit me to seek the aid of the All Gnowing and 4mnipotent? It seems like you may ha e said in one of the satsangs that you needed to know Isvara to be happy in this life =sorry if I mis!uoted that>. #ames0 7es, definitely. 3e clear that you want to know Isvara and pray for it. If your moti ation is pure it puts you in harmony with Isvaras will. 7our desire for moksha is Isvara under the spell of apparent ignorance. Dray to Isvara, the pure self, and it will direct Isvara, controller and and regulator of maya, to create the conditions necessary to remo e your apparent ignorance. Isaiah0 'astly, &ust as there are indi iduals in the apparent reality with different capacities and abilities =e en though they are all awareness> are there also higher spiritual beings =gods, goddesses, devas17> with higher knowledge and capabilities that you can ask for help or guidance in the same way I ask you for help and guidance? 4r are they all &ust personifications? #ames0 "here are but what you get through them comes only from Isvara, so why not &ust go to the source?

1/ A god in the ;indu pantheon and a s%!$ol of the self. .eans, that which pervades ever%thing. 10 Gods

!hank you Isaiah0 "hank you ery much for your reply. It's nice that you take the time to help people with their !uestions. For somebody who has been looking for guidance it is a huge blessing. I had one follow up !uestion. 7ou said0 James: Yes, definitely. e !lear that yo" #ant to kno# Isvara and pray for it. If yo"r motivation is p"re it p"ts yo" in harmony #ith Isvaras #ill. Yo"r desire for moksha is Isvara "nder the spell of apparent i$noran!e. %ray to Isvara, the p"re self, and it #ill dire!t Isvara, !ontroller and and re$"lator of &aya, to !reate the !onditions ne!essary to remove yo"r apparent i$noran!e. It &ust sounded like there are two EtypesE of Isvara. I thought Isvara was &ust the self identified with the creati e power of maya =So Isvara is the created world and the power that regulates it>. In that case am I praying to know the power that creates and regulates the uni erse? 3ut when you refer to EIsvara, the pure selfE do you mean rahman,A? If so, can you pray to rahman if rahman is not a doer? #ames0 "here is one self, consciousness. )hen it identifies with maya the world comes into being. "he pure self is rahman, meaning limitless. rahman is not a doer but it responds to prayer because it is conscious. It responds as Isvara.

"hakti#$, hea en and hell Isaiah0 I forgot to ask something. 7ou said it depends on your moti ation when practicing religion. I &ust wanted to reply to that. After being exposed to some of the scriptures of India I &ust desperately wanted to understand them more. In my past 2hristian experience, for example, if you wanted to learn bible you went to a church. So I sought out the only two .indu temples in Arkansas and went there to try to learn. 'ittle did I know they don't do much teaching there. So my moti ation ultimately was knowledge. )hile it was ob ious that most people were there &ust to Eget blessedE for some material gain I didn't care about that at all. I &ust wanted know what it all meant.
11 The self, !eaning, li!itless. 12 <evotion or love. Often erroneousl% thought to $e a separate path of %oga for e!otional t%pes. ;owever, since devotion is nothing $ut actions =&ar!as> it falls under the categor% of &ar!a %oga.

I bugged the hell out of e eryone I came in contact with and to my surprise most people =aside from the priest> either couldn't answer my !uestions or didn't seem to understand where I was coming from. Also, I was interested in culti ating a sense of de otion since the 5ita and saints like %amakrishna seemed to speak so highly of it. So I didn't really want anything from 5od per se, I &ust wanted to show appreciation. #ames0 "hat is karma yoga and it will purify your mind. So it is good. Isaiah0 7ou said that religion can be for gaining hea en or hell. Are there really hea en and hell realms =like Vaik"ntha*+ for instance?> 4r are they &ust figures of speech for states of mind? 3ecause I certainly ha e felt like I was in hell many times right here in this life. #ames0 "hey are dream states, i.e. states of mind. "hey are here and now. "hey ha e been personified as ha ing a physical location.

Is ara%s stuff Isaiah0 In a pre ious e/mail you said, '(here is one self, !ons!io"sness. )hen it identifies #ith &aya the #orld !omes into *ein$. (he p"re self is rahman, meanin$ limitless. rahman is not a doer *"t it responds to prayer *e!a"se it is !ons!io"s. It responds as Isvara.+ 3ased on what you ha e told me and what I ha e read in the satsangs this is what I think is being said, please correct me if I am wrong0 So rahman is not &ust a mute witness. )hen you pray to it it can only respond as Isvara because rahman is not a doer. 3ut it does respond. So praying to Isvara is the same as praying to rahman =because they are both awareness>. And by praying you become aligned with the will of Isvara. :ow does the will of Isvara mean being aligned with what will lead to knowledge of the self? Is that what Isvara wants? #ames0 7es, because limitlessness i.e. freedom is its nature. It is apparently
24 The real! of Vishnu

constrained by ignorance. Self knowledge is re!uired to remo e self ignorance. Isaiah0 So when praying to Isvara =for getting IsvaraH meaning the self right?>, you said if your intentions are pure then it will pro ide conditions to facilitate this =like a teacher>. )hen asking Isvara for Isvara only =and not Isvara,s stuff> does the response of Isvara facilitating this transcend the -iva,s21 karma? #ames0 7es, assuming the -iva is !ualified to understand the teaching and it reali$es its identity with Isvara. It neutrali$es the -ivas karma because the karma stands in the account of the doer of the karma but self knowledge has negated the doer and established awareness as -ivas identity so there is no place for karma to go. Isaiah0 I only ask this because it almost sounds like the intelligence of Isvara is weighing the sincerity of your re!uest and then based on that granting that conditions be rearranged to respond to that re!uest. #ames0 It is rather like that in so far as whether you hear, reflect and assimilate the teachings depends on your !ualifications. .owe er, if you want moksha badly enough Isvara will gi e you the circumstances and the understanding necessary to de elop them. Isaiah0 4r is it an impersonal matter of sincere cause and sincere effect? #ames0 "o see it this way is e!ually alid. Isaiah0 I &ust wonder because it seems like in the satsangs that you are saying asking 5od for 5od itself stays right there with 5od =your self> and other re!uests for 5od's stuff get di erted to another route0 the impersonal karma machine. I know I keep picking on this issue but I am really trying to deconstruct many years of conditioning to think of 5od in anthropomorphic ways. #ames0 Isvara &ust gi es you what you want based on your actions and the appropriateness and timeliness of said actions as they impact on life, which is Isvara. If you want big muscles and you pump iron Isvara will gi e you big muscles. If you want moksha and you expose your mind to the teaching, always assuming that you are !ualified, you will get moksha. If you want to be !ualified Isvara will pro ide the circumstances and the understanding necessary to interpret the circumstances that will cause a particular !ualification, like dispassion, to de elop. Isvara is karma phala data,
21 The self apparentl% identified with the individual

gi er of the results of action. In the case of moksha commitment to in!uiry is an action that leads to self knowledge which is the result of in!uiry.

& story, a 'uestion Isaiah0 )ell, like I said before, o er two years ago a desire for spiritual knowledge reawakened in me and I set out to see what I could find. After doing research and study in Gaballah, Islam and 3uddhism I came to the 3haga ad 5ita. I could barely understand it and yet it still completely capti ated me. (ery !uickly my life changed. I ga e up long standing bad habits, took to a meditation routine and de oted almost all my spare time to studying any book I could find about the Indian teachings =while still reading 5ita> and doing internet research. I wasn't entirely sure what I was looking for so I got anything that seemed good or was recommended reading. I'm not saying I didn't get anything from it, but as much as I daily poured o er these teachings and commentaries I &ust struggled. And struggled some more. I couldn't seem to connect the dots but I was completely obsessed with trying to understand. I &ust couldn't stand not knowing. I still can't. 3ut I' e always wanted to know. "o know how things work, what they mean and what to do with that knowing. )hile I still entertain some egoistic notions of Edoing stuffE that stuff has really &ust paled in comparison to ha ing the knowledge of what is. It seems pointless if you don't know what life is about. I suppose I ha e always been geared towards -nana** yoga but because of certain things I had read I was &ust led to belie e that de otion or bhakti were the ways to go =like %amakrishna saying *hakti is the way for the .ali Y"$a*- etc.>. 4r that thinking of 5od as a person was the way to go culti ate de otion. E en though that appealed to me emotionally =probably because of my 2hristian de otional roots> it &ust didn't make sense and I couldn't understand how that was leading the way to understanding. I &ust didn't see how *hakti and -nana were the same. %elated maybe, but not the same. "he idea of Shankara and -nana yoga haunted the back of my mind but I tried to make myself a *hakta2/. "his endea or did end up leading me to a .indu temple. )hile the worship was an excellent experience =except the sitting on the floor thing>, I was really hungry for teaching. 'uckily, some of the people at the temple were members of the local 2hinmaya mission chapter. "hey directed me to a study group and there I was introduced to (edanta for real. I was gi en some of Swami 2hinmayanda's books. I could tell there was immense wisdom in them but the way it was presented &ust wasn't
22 ?nowledge 2# The current period of ti!e according to ;indu cos!olog% 2) A devotee

coming together as a clear picture for me. I heard discourses from isiting a!haryas*9 and swamis but it still wasn't coalescing into a clear picture as to what was the goal or what you were supposed to do. 1aybe it was &ust the problem of language but it still seemed like it was some kind of yogic experience. 4ne day writing in my &ournal I asked myself E)hat is enlightenment really?E I hadn't reali$ed how unclear this was to me. Surely I should ha e known what I was dedicating most of my time to. 4 er the course of this whole process it had been said again and again the importance of a teacher was paramount. "his seemed ob ious because I didn't know what I was doing. I fretted o er this a lot because I really wanted to understand the teachings. 3ut I heard many times to not look for a teacher. 3ut I still looked. Finally, out of exasperation I &ust ga e up. I figured if it would happen it would happen. At this point my practice had hit a big dip. It was disillusionment time. I &ust didn't see how you could study something like (edanta if there was no one to teach it. I &ust tried to find 2hinmaya mission teachers' discourses on youtube and watch those. 4ne time while watching one of those ideos I noticed a ideo from Stillness Speaks in the sidebar about western masters of non/duality. 4ut of my incessant curiosity I watched a ideo of a EmasterE who shall remain nameless. )hat he said really bothered me. "he gist of it was that e erything &ust EwasE and you should &ust EbeE. )hile this was true he was also saying that spiritual practice, study, and in!uiry were &ust stuff the mind wants to do and really had no purpose but to exhaust you. At some point he experienced the E&ust beingE and then it was clear to him. At the point where he said he reali$ed that meditation was the same as eating a cheese sandwich I wondered to myself why people instead of buying his book full of Enot teachingsE and paying to go to his classes of Eno teacherE didn't &ust go eat a cheese sandwich instead. I think I had &ust gotten a dose of :eo/Ad aita*@ and I didn't e en know it. It seemed like Eckhart "olle channeling Grishnamurti or something. Either way it really rubbed me the wrong way on a deep le el because he was saying you should help yourself but presenting no means to do it. "hen I noticed a ideo of a bearded fellow named #ames Swart$. It then clicked in my mind that a long time before I had come across you in my incessant internet searching. At the time, in my $eal for EauthenticE teachings I disregarded you because you weren't Indian and your name wasn't something like #amesSwart$ananda. I didn't think that a western white guy like myself could know this stuff. So after stewing for a few days o er the whole :eo/Ad aita incident I looked you up. "he first thing that came up was an article you had written about :eo/Ad aita. It was what the doctor ordered. "his led me to your website and other writings and since then the dots ha e been coming
2* Teachers 2/ A ter! used to denote !odern teachers of non(dualit% who disregard the traditional, ti!e tested !ethodolog% of Vedanta

together. Enlightenment has finally been defined. It wasn't experience. After a lot of struggling many of my misconceptions stemming from yoga ha e disappeared and it has made e erything much clearer. A lot of (edantic concepts that I ha e grasped at ha e started to come into focus. "his has been a big relief. (edanta is deli ering so many of the answers I ha e searched for for the ma&ority of my life. So that being said, is it okay for me to ask you to be my teacher? I honestly don't know if that is considered to be some kind of faux pas or if I'm supposed to go through some kind of screening process but I really feel like I ha e a strong desire to learn and the way you handle the teachings is excellent. Dlus, if I belie ed in coincidence I would say it is coincidental that my wife and I decided to mo e out to 4regon last year after isiting. )e hope we will be able to mo e out there by the end of this year if all goes well. In the meantime I will be buying your book as soon as I can and I ha e downloaded all of your 5ita talks and your talks from 3erlin. It is super awesome that you ha e that stuff a ailable for free. Geep up the good work. Deople need this stuff. #ames0 2ool story. "hanks. 7es, (edanta puts it all together into one beautiful mandala of meaning. 7es, I will try to teach you. It should be easy as you understand the alue of (edanta. 5et the book, .ow to Attain Enlightenment, and start with it. And keep reading the website. If you can afford it I ha e a hard dri e with the ideos of the teaching. It has the basic Self In!uiry series of B C(CFs plus IJAs that parallels the book. It has the 3haga ad 5ita, twenty se en ideos about 9+ hours, Viveka!hoodamani*< done this #anuary in India and 0tma odh*A, plus 1D-Fs of the ideos and 1D-Fs of other teachings and all my writings and Swami CayanandaFs *+++ page 3haga ad 5ita .ome Study course which is an ama$ing work. All in all there are about ,++ hours of serious teaching. It is almost as good as hearing it in person, some say better, because you can back up and listen again until you understand. "he cost is K*++ plus postage, K,9+ if you return the hard dri e. "ake your time with the book. ConFt mo e on until you can sign on to the logic at e ery stage. And write me after you ha e read it if you ha e !uestions. (o dispassion Isaiah0 5reatL I was really trying to ha e some dispassion last night about how you would reply but it didn't work ery well. I couldn't wait to get to work to check my email this morning. So thank you and I will get the book as soon as possible and the
20 A Vedanta scripture attri$uted to Adi "han&arachar%a 21 Another Vedanta scripture attri$uted to Adi "han&arachar%a

other materials when I can afford them. )hen you mentioned Swami Cayananda's 5ita translation was included on the hard dri e I thought of something0 I usually keep a 5ita on my meditation altar for reading a little after doing meditation or -apa21 =or before bed>. %ight now I' e got a copy by Swami Drabha ananda and Swami 2hinmayananda's translation and commentary. I &ust wondered if when I get into studying your book do I need to be spending much time reading 5ita =I don't really understand it without explanation anyway>. If so, do you recommend ha ing the Swami Cayananda ersion? )hat I'm wondering is does his ersion more closely align itself with the way you teach? #ames0 7es, the Cayananda 5ita is the best there is. I align perfectly with it. I mentioned why I shifted from teaching a la my guru, 2hinmaya to Cayananda in the )hat is Ad aita (edanta article. "he 5ita has e erything, particularly karma yoga and *hakti which some of the texts that are intended for sannyasis23 presuppose and therefore omit. 3e sure to take your time with my book.

22 Ver$al or !ental chanting of !antras #4 6enunciates

MARCH 2012

Re ealed knowledge Isaiah0 I' e been reading your first book on meditation online and listening to your talks from last year in 3erlin. A few !uestions ha e arisen0 )hen talking about the reasons to be able to trust (edanta you said that is re elation. "he rishis EsawE or EheardE the mantras. I was wondering how this was different than a mystic or prophet seeing or hearing a oice or ision like those of the 3ible or IurFan. I ha e no reason to doubt (edanta as of yet, it's &ust a big sticking point for me because I ha e always doubted the authenticity of 3iblical teachings because they ine itably come through faulty human beings. I know you said that the rishis didn't channel the mantras through themsel es but I didn't understand how anything that they heard or saw couldn't be channeled through them or ha e to be processed through their own experience and perception. Mltimately, to me, where (edanta came from doesn't necessarily matter as long as it works. 3ut for the sake of argument, if someone takes me to task o er it I like to ha e my ducks in a row. #ames0 It really doesnFt matter where it came from if it works. "he point of this discussion of the pro enance of (edanta is that it is not a philosophy or a religion or based on mystic experience. I explain it a bit differently in my book, .ow to Attain Enlightenment, so as not to scare )estern skeptics and materialists and anti religious types. 4nce you get into it you will see that it is not mysticism or religion or a philosophy but simply a means of in!uiry based on pure knowledge. Isaiah0 In your meditation book you talk about the Self de eloping a process to in ol e itself into the elements and world and then e ol e itself back out it. )hat I take from that is that the self de eloped a way to experience =ob&ectify> itself and then reali$e itself again? #ames0 )ell, there are two basic creation theories, the gradual e olution theory and the instantaneous pro&ection theory. "he whole idea that it would forget itself and then go to all the trouble of remembering itself is definitely a stretch. It doesnFt really matter because the method of in!uiry remo es the notion that the creation is reality irrespecti e of how it came about. Isaiah0 I guess I &ust wonder why that whole process would e en take place at all. It makes it seem like the self had some desire or moti ation to EcreateE the world and

experience itself. #ames0 "here is no reason. 1aya is described as 6what make the impossible possible.8 It didnFt forget and it didnFt remember. It &ust seems to. Isaiah0 .ere's a 5ita !uestion. )hy does it seem like the opening erses of the ,*th chapter are saying that it is better to contemplate 5od with form instead of formless. "his always has confused me and made me feel like I need to think of 5od in anthropomorphic terms. )hile thinking of 5od that way is emotionally comforting it always makes me think of 5od as some thing or being that is outside of myself. #ames0 It is some being outside yourself if you think of yourself as a human being. 1ost people, like Ar&una-,, think they are human beings, doers, so they need to use forms to symboli$e the self until their minds become subtle enough for them to meditate on the formless by contemplating the implied meaning of the words of (edanta. If you ha e a contemplati e temperament, you donFt need forms. 7ou can meditate with knowledge only. Isaiah0 In one of the satsangs you discuss with someone the demise of 4sho. "hey in turn ask you about the unpleasant demise of %amana, Grishna and #esus. In part of the reply you ask why the person has in!uired about the demise of Grishna because it is allegorical. I &ust want to get something straight0 do you think there e er was a man named Grishna who existed and taught the 5ita? #ames0 7es and no. If you are in the prati*hasika state of reality, the dream state, it happened. If you are in the empirical reality, vyvaharika, it may ha e happened. "here is some 6e idence8 that such a war did happen but nothing conclusi e. "he 1ahabharata, in which the 5ita is inset, is call an itihasa22, not a %"rana22 because some think it actually was an historical e ent. "he dream state is &ust as 6real8 as the waking state when you look at it from the point of iew of awareness. If a person sees an angel it is there and it is real for them. So the !uestion of what is real depends on oneFs state of mind. It doesnFt matter if it happened or not because the purpose of the 5ita is for moksha. Isaiah0 4r are all of the itihasa &ust %"rani! legends designed to bring truth in story
#1 ?rishna's disciple in the Bhagavad Gita #2 Translates to as it was re!e!$ered. A !%thological stor% containing historical ele!ents. ## A class of !%thological literature that teaches the ideas of the Vedas and <har!a "hastras in stor% for!

form? I only want to ask because I ha e always had trouble belie ing they were authentic e ents but 2hinmaya swamis swear they are factual truth. As a side note I thought it was interesting that you ga e a reply about the fate of #esus as if it really did happen. Co you feel that the 3iblical stories are actually historically based? #ames0 It happened if you think it happened. "hese are &ust eternal ideas in consciousness. "hey ha e meaning whether they happened in the empirical reality or not. I donFt need to know whether something happened or not. I only care if the meaning of the story somehow rele ant to what I am seeking. )e are after knowledge here. Gnowledge is beyond the world of happenings. Isaiah0 I got your book .ow to Attain Enlightenment today in the mail. I also got a copy of Cayananda's 5ita =translation only, no commentary> for daily reading. Sometimes I get going in too many directions so I was thinking about doing this0 for the time being I would stop reading your meditation book and satsangs and &ust read ..".A.E. while occasionally listening to your 3erlin talks. Co you recommend doing anything differently? #ames0 :o. 7ou can read my 3haga ad 5ita translations without commentary. %ead it out loud and identify with Grishna.

Rendered irrele ant) Isaiah0 So really, the gist of what you are saying is that when you &ust go after knowledge all of the picky religion type !uestions about creation, prophets, historical accuracy etc. will &ust fall away on their own. )hen you start to see from the antage point of awareness those !uestions become irrele ant. #ames0 "hat is correct, Isaiah. A religious attitude is a must but to follow religious thinking without discrimination is dangerous.

Isaiah or awareness) Isaiah0 I hope all is well with you. I ha e read o er the first chapter of the book and listened to the corresponding 3erlin talk a couple of times. )hen I first started going

o er the Eno ob&ect happinessE teachings I thought, E4h yeah, I heard this with 2hinmaya mission, I' e got this.8 3ased on my own life experience I can see that it makes sense. 3ut upon examining my current thoughts and actions I can see that I am still ery moti ated and inclined to act on the idea that happiness IS in the ob&ect. I really can't see anything I do that doesn't seem to confirm that I still think that. I want to remo e this old &ob so I can be happy. I want to get this new &ob so I can be happy. I want to get away from where I li e now to be happy, I want to get a new place to li e so I can be happy. Sundari0 Ignorance is hard wired, it is tenacious and aggressi e. E erything in maya seems to be designed to keep one a sla e to the system, so donFt be too hard on yourself. %eali$ing who you are as whole and complete non/dual awareness is the easy part. Actuali$ing this in apparent reality =mithya> is the hard part. If you examine your language in the last few sentences, you repeatedly say that 6I8 want to 6get toNaway8 to 6be happy.8 First of all, which 6I8 is talking here? As awareness, ".E 6I8, is your nature and as such is happiness. "here is nothing that you need and nowhere to get to. 7ou are it, so how can you get to where you already are or get what you already ha e? "he reflected self, the 6small IFF =ultimately there is no di ision but until you know who you are, it is ery important to be ery clear about this distinction> will ne er be happy, satisfied or fulfilled. "hat is why it is dri en to seek what it already has, namely, freedom, happiness i.e. your true nature. Mntil the knowledge of who you are is hard and fast, you will be like the rat in the story of 4anesh2/, who symboli$es your likes and dislikes, fears and desires. "he rat will be on top of you, 4anesh, dri ing you relentlessly, instead of 4anesh, who symboli$es self knowledge, being the master of the rat, your likes and dislikes. Isaiah0 I say I know that there is no inherent happiness in the ob&ect but e ery time I get upset I want to gorge myself at my fa orite restaurant and eat &unk food so I can feel better =drugs and drinking are in the past so that is what I do now>. Co I need to deal with this issue before going further into (edanta or does this fall away with continued in!uiry? Sundari0 (edanta is a means of knowledge and as such is not designed to resol e whate er psychological problems may be dri ing your beha ior. "hat is why the !ualifications are so important. "he most important !ualification though is the desire for freedom, which is ery strong in you. "hose who find their way to (edanta ha e
#) The elephant god in ;induis!.

usually tried e erything and are so fed up with who 6they8 are that they are desperate to free themsel es from the torture of the ignorance of their true nature. 7ou do need to understand what triggers and moti ates this beha ior and the emotions that emerge from it. I would imagine you get caught in a cycle of destructi e and negati e thoughts as a result. All addicti e beha iors and distractions are an attempt of the limited, reflected self to experience limitlessness. "hey will ne er deli er anything more than temporary gratification. 7ou can only reali$e your nature AS limitless. "he knowledge itself does do the work, but only if karma yoga is taking care of your emotions. Isaiah0 Mpon seeing that most of my pursuits =if not all> are an attempt to complete my percei ed incompleteness it has made me start to look at my life ery differently. Sundari0 "his is essential, and you need to ask yourself who is looking at your life differently? Isaiah0 E erything seems ery fri olous if not pointless. 4r I feel like I don't want to do something so as not to reinforce the idea of ob&ect happiness. 7et, I still ha e to act. Sundari0 "his shows that dispassion is de eloping. E erything in maya is fri olous. It is a pro&ection, a $ero sum game. It is Isvaras lila25. )ho is it that still wants to act? Awareness, your true nature ne er acts, only Isaiah acts. Isaiah cannot not act. "he point is to remain mindful of who is acting. Isaiah has no choice but to act, &ust remember that the results are not up to him. "here is no problem with doing when you know you are not the doer. Dractice karma yogaL Isaiah0 At that point I wonder, what is the moti ation? If it isn't to gain completeness or happiness because those things are not in ob&ects then why would I do anything? Is it &ust a matter of preference such as EI would prefer not to be homeless so I will workE or EI prefer not to be single so I will maintain my marriage?E Sundari0 "he completeness and happiness already exist in you, awareness. "he problem is not whether or not you act or whether or not you are seeking pleasure in the ob&ect. "he problem is that you think 6you8 are doing it. )ho are you? Awareness is not a doer, remember that. &ayaNignorance is a power that exists within awareness. As such, it is the cause of the apparent reality =mithya>. It is a beautiful, purposeful creation in which it is possible to attain success, i.e. freedomNhappiness by reali$ing your true nature as awareness. As
#* 5la%. A !etaphor for the creation.

awareness, the non/dual essence of e erything, you are not affected, enhanced or contaminated by anything in the creation. 7ou are always free of it, always free of Isaiah. "he only real purpose to do anything in maya is for you to free yourself from limitation and your identification with the subtle body, i.e. Isaiah. .a ing said that, discrimination is one of the ery important !ualifications and you need to apply it to e erything. "here are definitely situations and people that are best a oided and discrimination is essential. %emember also that we all ha e our apparent nature to deal with as well, so applying dispassion is ery important too. 4nce your personal ignorance of your true nature is remo ed through self in!uiry and the knowledge that you are whole and complete non/dual awareness is hard and fast, maya remains and will still condition the subtle body. "he $"nas26 still operate and the vasanas27 will still be there. )hate er you ha e not resol ed before self reali$ation will ha e to be reali$ed after self reali$ation. "here is no getting away from it. It will not bother you once you know you are awareness because you will know it has nothing to do with you. 7ou, awareness, will be experiencing the ego with its psychology and all its peculiarities, not the other way around. Dlease hear this. Awareness, you, will be experiencing Isaiah, not Isaiah trying to experience awareness. Isaiah0 It seems like the only important thing to do is self in!uiry and e erything else is playing make belie e. Sundari0 7es indeed, self in!uiry is the only game in town. :othing else is real, the definition for real being that which has an independent reality and is eternal. )ithout you, awareness, there would be no creation. E erything exists in you but you are free of e erything. Isaiah0 Is there any room for kama27 in this scenario or is that the root of the problem0 that I am identifying with the en&oyer. Sundari0 As it stands for you the knowledge of your true nature is not hard and fast. 4nce the self is reali$ed, kama is no longer a problem. In the 5ita, Grishna speaking as
#/ The three energies that are the su$stance of creation. "attva is &nowledge and intelligence. 3t is the revealing power. 6a8as is energ%. 3t is the pro8ecting power. Ta!as is su$stance or !atter. 3t is the veiling power. #0 nconscious tendencies #1 5leasure

awareness, says, 6 I am the desire that is not opposed to dharma.8 As awareness, Isaiah can ha e desire without desire, i.e., without pain. 7ou will en&oy e erything because you will know it all to be you. 7ou will en&oy Isaiah and gi e him full reign to wander as far as he wants to in mithya because you will know that he always comes home to you, awareness. Isaiah0 In other words, I am ha ing difficulty applying these concepts to my apparent reality. Sundari0 7ou cannot 6apply these concepts to your present reality8 as awareness is not a concept. It is futile to try. "his is the little self, Isaiah, trying to experience the 6big self,8 awareness. "he effect can ne er understand the cause. 4nly self knowledge has the power to re eal that awareness is your true nature by remo ing ignorance of who you are. Isaiah0 I am ha ing trouble doing Enormal stuffE or e en being nice to people because it seems like I only do that because it reinforces my idea of myself being a Enice person.E Sundari0 Again, which 6I8 is talking here? Isaiah is talking here and he really is 4G, e en with all his tendencies. )hate er he does or does not do will not change who he is as awareness, one bit. Stop beating yourself up, you are fine the way you are. "his is not about being perfect, it is about remo ing ignorance of your true nature. 4nce you know who you are, you will treat e erything and e eryone accordingly as you will know that e erything and e eryone is you. 7ou will also follow dharma impeccably and you will know what needs to be done and do it. Isaiah0 I ha e been reading the 5ita out loud as part of my daily prayers and trying to identify with Grishna. I can see why you recommend Cayananda's translation, it is ery clear. Sundari0 5ood, keep it up. Isaiah0 I feel like I ha e had much ra-as21 and tamas/3 these last few weeks and it is hard to sit down and assimilate the teachings. I ha e been prone to lack of concentration or sleepiness. At night I ha e been ha ing ery i id dreams and I awaken often. In the morning I feel exhausted. "hen I am tired, agitated, or &ust plain spiteful during the day. I ha e noticed too that my ego appears to ha e ballooned in si$e in regards to me being
#2 The pro8ecting power of !a%a )4 The veiling power of !a%a

a Eknow it allE now that I ha e learned &ust a few things from (edanta. It seems like this pattern has increased since I ha e really started to dig into the teachings, watch my mind and examine my moti ations. Co you ha e any recommendations on what I can do? Sundari0 If you know you are spiteful and a know it all, are you really spiteful and a know it all? It sounds to me like you are really fighting yourself and wearing yourself out with negati e thoughts about yourself. 1y suggestion is you keep up the honesty without beating yourself up. It is a great ad antage to be able to be totally ob&ecti e and dispassionate about what is happening with Isaiah, but being negati e about it is destructi e. "his would be a good time to make a ery honest in entory of your lifestyle, not so as to critici$e yourself, but &ust to determine how to make it more sattvi!;,. 8a-as and tamas are often a conse!uence of an unhealthy samsari! lifestyle. It cannot be emphasi$ed enough how important the practice of karma yoga is, especially on your feelings. If you are not that clear what karma yoga is, isit #ames's website and look it up, or re/read his explanation of it in his book, .ow to attain Enlightenment. %ead up on the !ualifications as well, especially discrimination and dispassion. Geep up the in!uiry, isit #ames's website and read the satsangs that are posted O you will see that we all go through the same struggle to free oursel es. ConFt gi e up on you, you are beautiful. 7ou are the self.

)1 Of the nature of sattva, characteri,ed $% peace and clarit%

APRIL 2012

*arma yoga and discrimination Isaiah0 I' e made it through your book and talk series through the lo e teachings. I' e had a few !uestions come up. Since we talked last time, I ha e tried to practice more karma yoga and discrimination. I was wondering though0 If I am awareness and awareness is not a doer then what is it exactly that decides to do karma yoga and implements it? )hy does it appear that I =awareness> ha e control o er Isaiah? #ames0 Awareness does control Isaiah, not as a doer but because without the self there is no Isaiah. So Isaiah is always dependent on the self. 7ou are confusing the self =satya/2> and the apparent self =mithya>. "he self does not need to do karma yoga but when it falls under the spell of maya or ignorance it can choose to do karma yoga if it wants to set itself free. Isaiah0 As far as discrimination goes, I belie e you said at first it is helpful to discriminate between the self and the Enot selfE or the ob&ects in your awareness. 4r to discriminate between Ebig meEawareness and Esmall meE the 3.1.I. ;- complex. Since e erything is awareness, this practice has been alternately helpful and confusing. It has been ery helpful in regards to pointing out what is EunrealE or constantly changing but other times it makes it seem like there is something other than awareness. Any ad ice on how I can see this practice more clearly? #ames0 )hat is constantly changing is unchanging awareness seen through the 3.1.I. entity. Awareness seems to change but it doesnFt. "he reason for the practice is to break your attachment to the ob&ects appearing in you. 4nce you are free of your attachment to the ob&ects, you reali$e you are the sub&ect, the self. 7ou can negate e erything except the self. "hen you reali$e, 6I am the self.8 "hen, when you look at the ob&ects from the selfFs point of iew, you reali$e that all the ob&ects are the self, they are you and therefore you are free of them. And you can en&oy them without attachment as they are you. Isaiah0 .owe er, I did notice something the other day. I happened to get in an argument with someone and they were critici$ing me harshly. E en though what the
)2 @hat is real i.e. the self )# Bod%, !ind, intellect.

person was saying may ha e been true I &ust could not take it personally. I didn't reali$e it was happening at first but when I did, I felt like they could ha e &ust as soon been critici$ing the chair I was sitting in. I couldn't own the criticism. "he body and the chair both &ust seemed to be ob&ects in awareness. Is that what discrimination is supposed to be? #ames0 7es, absolutelyL 7ou ha e got it perfectly. :one of it is personal, it is all Isvaras lila. "hat is the ision of non/duality, the criticism and the chair are all the same, all &ust awareness.

(o doer and the +not,selfIsaiah0 "hanks for your reply. I &ust wanted to make sure I was clear on your point. 7ou said, '(he reason for dis!riminatin$ *et#een self and 'not self+ is to *reak yo"r atta!hment to the o*-e!ts appearin$ in yo". 9n!e yo" are free of yo"r atta!hment to the o*-e!ts, yo" reali:e yo" are the s"*-e!t, the self. Yo" !an ne$ate everythin$ e;!ept the self. (hen yo" reali:e I am the self. (hen, #hen yo" look at the o*-e!ts from the selfs point of vie#, yo" reali:e that all the o*-e!ts are the self, they are yo" and therefore yo" are free of them. 0nd yo" !an en-oy them #itho"t atta!hment as they are yo".+ So as I understand it, discrimination should goes something like this0 EI am complete, whole, ordinary, actionless awareness. Isaiah, his thoughts, emotions, desires and all other ob&ects are &ust ob&ects in me, awareness. I am them but they are not me. "hey are dependent on me, the self.E "his would be the initial practice to break attachment to ob&ects. "hen, in time, the understanding that e erything is actually the self flows naturally from that. #ames0 7es. "he 6not/self8 teaching is an intermediate but necessary stage in the process of in!uiry. It is important to note that the negation is not merely intellectual. In other words you canFt &ust dismiss the ob&ects without ha ing actually tried to make them work. For example, you can say that romantic lo e is 6not self8 but you will still long for it if you ha e not tried it and understood its limitations. 4r you can say that money is 6not self8 and still be attached to it. "he :eo teachings that willy nilly dismiss e erything as 6unreal8 are ill/considered for this reason. A mature person will ha e

more or less eliminated e erything as 6not self8 through intelligent li ing. :ow that seeking has become a lifestyle followed by many young people, you find so called 6enlightened8 young people who claim they are beyond the ego and itFs interest in ob&ects purely on the basis of the belief that denial of ob&ects constitutes enlightenment. 3ut if you obser e their beha ior you find them chasing things they ha e ne er experienced &ust like the unenlightened. Isaiah0 I also wanted to ask about the Eno doerE teaching. Is the ego taking responsibility for action similar to a person in a car saying EI am dri ing?8 3ecause the person would &ust be the conscious being, who only initiates an action. "he whole car would be the body where e erything takes place, the parts would be the organs and means of action =like wheels, engine, axles etc.> "he gas would be the energy =prana petroleum> and the road or landscape would be the field where the dri ing occurs. So in this case, the idea that EI am dri ingE is &ust a notion, because the dri er is &ust a piece of the pu$$le. It would be like the wheel saying EI am dri ingE. :one of the parts can actually claim to be doing the dri ing. "herefore there is no dri er. #ames0 Excellent, IsaiahL I lo e this metaphor. Isaiah0 In reference to a person, would that be like the ego saying EI am walkingE or a foot saying EI am walkingE when in fact they are &ust one many factors in ol ed in the walking. "hey can't claim ownership to the action. And furthermore, ownership to action cannot be claimed because reality is non/dual, making action impossible in the first place. #ames0 "he purpose of this teaching is to show that the doer is only one small cog in the karmic machine, that all the parts are re!uired for action, the point being that the doer need not take responsibility for anything other than the appropriateness and timeliness of its action. "aking responsibility for something that is not in your hands is foolish. Isaiah0 A continuation of that thread is a !uestion I ha e about free will. "he ego is supposed to ha e choice regarding its actions, right? 3ut if e erything is the result of past actions and vasanas there may actually be no free will, correct? "he ego may think it chooses when in reality it is &ust playing out it's programming. If this was the case it would be terrible to be Isaiah because he would &ust be playing out life like a puppet on vasana strings. 3ut since I am awareness, if Isaiah has no free will then no big deal. )hat is your take on that?

#ames0 5ot it in oneL "he ego has free will if it thinks it has free will. )hen you look at it from the point of iew of the total, the karmaNdharma field, the field causes action, not the indi idual. )hen you understand that you are awareness you are !uite happy to let Isaiah mindlessly dance to Isvaras tune. As long as Isaiah thinks he is Isaiah he has limited free will.

(o pat answer Isaiah0 I wanted to follow up on this response. 7ou said this about discrimination0 'It is important to note that the ne$ation is not merely intelle!t"al. In other #ords yo" !ant -"st dismiss the o*-e!ts #itho"t havin$ a!t"ally tried to make them #ork.+ I &ust wanted to be clear about this. For instance, in my adult life I ha e ne er experienced financial security or a &ob that I en&oy. I am aware that I ha e a desire to experience these things. Co I need to pursue them more ardently in order to see that they don't work =to negate them as 6not self8>? If so, is the reason for experiencing these things so you can resol e the idea in your mind that maybe, &ust maybe, happiness might &ust be in those ob&ects? I will say, howe er, that discrimination has helped a lot in this area. )hen I feel anxious about financial security I remind myself that I am the self. "he anxiety is an ob&ect in my awareness and the anxiety is rooted in the false belief that I am incomplete. Also, when it comes to me thinking about a career =musician actually> I remind myself that playing or not playing music can't add or take away anything from me, the self, because the self is fullness and complete. )ill this practice not work on it's own or do I ha e to experience the financial security and music career to really see that I don't need them? #ames0 "here is no pat answer for this, Isaiah. It depends on your maturity le el. I suspect that you do not ha e to go through those things to reali$e there is nothing in them. It depends on your maturity. An immature person cannot see the logic in renunciation of action so he or she &ust has to work it out in the world. A mature person can trust common sense and the words of the wise and forgo action. If you really want only liberation, then there is no !uestion. 7ou will take the words of the wise as your own and act accordingly. 7ou say that discrimination has helped a lot so I suggest that you stick with it. If you want a bit of supporting logic, it is good to know

that there is a downside to financial security and a career in music, as there is with e ery worldly pursuit. So in the fullness of time you will not ha e gained anything except a bit of disillusionmentPor maturity if you get the message.

Samsara is not worth it Isaiah0 I was hoping you would say that. I would rather take the words of the wise and trust the logic of experience. Samsara is &ust not worth it. I &ust finished the book yesterday. As I got to the last few pages I eagerly anticipated a bla$ing experience of enlightenment to occur and then....nothing happened. So with all due respect I would like to re!uest a refund for the book so I can put that money towards ha ing Galki rewire my brain. 4kay, that was a little (edanta &oke 0> )hile it was really good to get an o er iew of the big picture with the book I could tell that I probably needed to stop right around the !ualifications and karma yoga section. I can see now that there is a tremendous load of vasanas and I am acutely aware of the intense pressure they are exerting on the subtle body. I know now why my meditation practice o er the last two years has yielded ery little results. "he extro erting vasanas are too strong. In the past this would ha e really pissed me off. I would beat Isaiah up for ha ing too many vasanas or feel extremely ra-asi! about EdoingE better or Etrying harder spiritually.E 3ut at least ha ing the idea that I am the self I can start accepting Isaiah as being &ust fine. "his is a "%E1E:C4MS relief. I can also start accepting e eryone else =and the world> as being &ust fine too and this is also a huge relief. I think the teachings ha e &ust facilitated some basic maturity to start happening and I think this is setting a good ground for continued in!uiry. 'ooking back I can see that I ha e years worth of undigested, unassimilated experiences that are finally coming to light and clearing up. I ha e had experiential constipation and ha e taken a good dose of the (edanta laxati e. 4 erall, I ha e started to pare down unnecessary possessions, many of which I had been hanging on to because I felt they somehow defined me. "his was not easy because I thought I was getting rid of a part of myself. A lot of physical tension built up in the body when I got rid of old clothes, useless spiritual books and unhelpful ra-asi!Ntamasi! cd's. 3ut it kept coming to mind that whether I had those things or didn't, I was still the self.

So o erall, discrimination and karma yoga are helping a lot. I am &ust going to start reading the book again and keep working on the karma yoga and discrimination until my mind becomes more sattvi! and until my !ualifications impro e. And really, for the first time, the fact that Isaiah needs to clean up his mind and impro e his !ualifications is completely okay with me because I am starting to understand that he is &ust fine and that I am free of him. #ames0 :ow you ha e it, IsaiahL 5ood for you.

MAY 2012

.ualistic means to a non,dual end Isaiah0 I was wondering0 If self/in!uiry exists in duality, and e erything in duality has limited results then how does self in!uiry permanently remo e ignorance? #ames0 Self in!uiry doesn't remo e ignorance, knowledge remo es ignorance. Gnowledge is the fruit of in!uiry so you need to in!uire. Isaiah0 Also, if ignorance is an ob&ect then how does it's remo al facilitate freedom? #ames0 3ondage to ob&ects is caused by ignorance so when it is remo ed you are no longer bound to ob&ects. Isaiah0 2an't the ignorance return after it's remo al like other ob&ects? #ames0 It can if the self is known to be an ob&ect. 3ut it canFt if the self is known to be you. .ow can you forget yourself? 7ou ha e to be there to forget or remember. Self knowledge is not memory based. It is direct knowledge.

(o doer) "ut what will I do) Isaiah0 I'm not sure how to word this exactly but I'll try my best. For some reason this all came down ery hea ily on me yesterday. I know i ha en't gi en you time to reply to my last email but I &ust wanted to get this down while I could. )e ha e talked about the doer, free will etc. before and this is a continuation of that idea. 4kay, so the teaching says this0 "here is one self. 7ou are it. It is not a doer. As 0tma odh says, Eit has no sense organs and is therefore not in ol ed in the world.8 So while the apparent reality is dependent on the self for it's seeming existence, the self is ne er in ol ed in maya in an acti e fashion. It is &ust the light of awareness that illumines it's existence. :ow, whate er is EhappeningE in the apparent reality is the play of Isvara, Isvara,s vasanas, karma and the $"nas. Again, all of these are dependent on the self but the self is not taking part in any of them. So, if I am the self, I am ne er taking part in maya other than lending it's existence. So e en thinking that I am Isaiah who is doing things is ignorance. In the apparent sense Isaiah is a piece of Isvara.

Anything that is happening to him at anytime is, and always has been &ust the play of the vasanas, karma and $"nas. "he reason he is writing now, the thoughts he is thinking, the typing of his fingers, the fears and desires he is feeling are all &ust the results of karma, vasanas and $"nas. If the sense of EIE is &ust a notion then he is ne er choosing to do anything. It &ust seems that way. E erything is &ust playing out in the light of me, awareness. )hether Isaiah chooses to do -apa or watch %ambo mo ies is not up to him. "here is no way that Isaiah can choose to do karma yoga, study scripture or meditate because karma and vasanas are determining that. I know that the scripture talks about the grace of 5od concerning enlightenment. 3ut really, whether Isaiah mo es his arm, thinks a thought, takes a breath, goes to work, or takes a crap is the grace of 5od. It's all happening or not happening according to Isvara and the forces go erning maya. So if my true identity is the self, I am ne er choosing to do karma yoga or in!uiry or for that matter choosing not to do them. I couldn't e en if it was possible to ha e a desire to do them. I ha e no in ol ement in the world because I ha e no mind or sense organs. I am and always ha e been &ust the ordinary awareness of what appears to be happening in maya. )hether Isaiah knows it or not he is the self. )hether he knows it or not is not up to him. It is determined by the forces of maya. So really, the !uestion is, what is there to do? .e can't acti ely choose to practice spirituality, and e en if he could, I am the self and the self doesn't acti ely do anything. )hether Isaiah does spiritual practice or attains enlightenment is immaterial. It is a notion because I am the self and therefore self aware already. It has nothing to do with Isaiah. .is flashlight cannot illumine my e ery present sunlight. 4kay, that's the best way I can put it =or rather the best Isvara can put it>. If I ha e gone down the wrong rabbit hole please pull me out with your sagely guidance. 'astly, in a personal note I reali$ed yesterday how much your guidance means to me. 7our teachings ha e been a real light in the darkness and ha e gi en my life the perspecti e and meaning that I ha e been looking for for a good part of my thirty years here. And on top of that, you're &ust a cool guy. 4ne bright shining cool guy. It surely is grace to ha e become ac!uainted with you. #ames0 5ot it in one, Isaiah. "he only possible trap is that Isaiah might use the knowledge I am actionless awareness to a oid doing what has to be done. I donFt get the sense that this would be a problem because it seems Isaiah is !uite happy to work

out whate er Isvara puts on his plate.

JULY 2012

/ffect of knowledge on e0perience Sundari0 I hope you do not mind me answering, #ames is a bit snowed under at the moment. I will pass it on to him first for a full (edanta clearance. Isaiah0 I hope your trip to :ew 1exico is going great and that you and 1rs. %am find a suitable abode. I'd be lying if I said I didn't think that it was great that you may mo e closer to Arkansas. 'ast year my wife and I isited 4regon for the first time and we were thinking about mo ing out there. I was primarily concerned with finding a place that had the best opportunity for spiritual teaching so I was looking at places in 2alifornia as well that had local chapters of 2hinmaya mission with resident teachers. 3ut when I came across your teachings and saw you were in Dortland my mind was made up to go to 4regon. .owe er, Isvara had a different idea because due to certain circumstances there isn't a possibility for us to mo e out there. So I took it as prasad and decided to &ust work out the karma that was presenting itself. "hen lo and behold it so happens that %am may &ust mo e closer to me. "humbs up for karma yoga. 1rs %am&i0 )e did not find anything in :ew 1exico as we really did not ha e the time to look properly. )e will be back next year though and we will stay on in a few different places to 6feel them out.8 )e will see what ha$avan// has in store for us. I ha e written a blog about our trip which you can read on the home page of Shiningworld website, if you want to. Isaiah0 So anyhow, since I work in the field of nutrition it was cool to hear that you ha e an interest in it as well. If there is any way that I can be of ser ice to you in that capacity please let me know. I will do my best. "he topic of how foods affect the mind and bodily energy is fascinating to me so I hope we can talk more about it in the future. I'm glad to hear that food is a bit of a struggle for you as well. "hat seems to be one of my most difficult vasanas. It tends to be a matter of general excess or of binging on eating sweets or nutritionally de oid foods like chips. 'uckily I don't tend to gain weight but it does seem to create problematic energy states of tamas or ra-as. 4f course, falling off the wagon and eating &unk foods also agitates my mind but I'm currently approaching that with karma yoga. 4 erall, how influential ha e you found food to be on self in!uiry? I ask this because sometimes I wonder if I fixate on it too much due to my line of work.
)) 3svara, the lord.

Sundari0 I am the newly appointed food :a$i in our household, although %am&i has been interested in nutrition for a long time. .e has a battle with the fat man, which I do not ha e and he has struggled in the past to make that vasana unbinding. It is pretty much ameliorated now though, e en with my beady eyes watching his intake he is pretty good on his own. It &ust took determination and igilance to make it unbinding, &ust like it would any other asana. )e definitely both find that food affects our energy, how can it not. )e are not fanatical though, as that is an e en worse effect than food contra entions. )e regulate things on a daily basis, but basically our diet consists of a lot of raw fruit and egetables, protein in the form of chicken, fish, tofu, eggs. I stay away from bread, pulses and most grains as they do not agree with me, but we like couscous and pasta. )e a oid all dairy products but now and then en&oy some cheese. I was a egetarian for many years but that no longer agrees with me. )e donFt ha e any lofty beliefs about what we should or should not eat, e erything is the Self and we eat what works. 1y basic philosophy is buy the best you can, as fresh as possible and do as little as possible to it. (ary the formulas and keep some things as staples. I add lots of raw foods like the superfoods hemp, spirulina, cacao and maca, lucuma, flaxseed and acai to our breakfast, blended in with raw fruit. )e call it our swamp &uice or Shrek &uice. %am&i has no cra ings now as he eats properly, getting good nutrition from the food. "hanks for the offer of help, I will keep that in mind. I am thinking of starting a lifestyle blog on Shiningworld for people to write in and share their knowledge. .ow would you feel about contributing to that? Isaiah0 Also, I wanted to follow up on our little talk about whether or not self knowledge felt like anything. Mpon thinking about it more, I don't really belie e that self knowledge is an experience. .owe er, is it wrong to think that it will affect my experience as far as reducing agitation in the mind and reducing the o erall pressure of likesNdislikes? In your book you describe knowing who you are being Ethe end of suffering.8 I had taken that to mean either the reduction of agitation, likesNdislikes, fears etc. due to understanding or &ust knowing that those things ha e nothing to do with me and therefore, agitationNfearNfeeling of inade!uacy is reduced. 2an you please clear this up for me? Sundari0 7ou ha e concluded correctly. Self knowledge does not feel like anything and it is not an experience, although as you correctly point out, it is the reduction in the 6o erall pressure of likesNdislikes8 that does feel 6like something8 and is an experience. As you well know, desire is painful and the reason e eryone seeks so hard to rid oneself of it is for this reason, not to gain the ob&ect per se. 5aining the ob&ect gi es one a temporary feel good fix which ne er lasts.

5aining the knowledge that this is futile as all ob&ects are inert, definitely feels good and yes, this is the release from existential pain that %am&i talks about. )hen you know that all the ob&ects are you, you gi e up desiring them. 7ou can then ha e contact with them happily, not F4% happiness. "he pain comes from seeking desperately to ha e the ob&ects to complete you in the ain hope that the completion will be permanent, which it ne er is. )hen this knowledge is firm, all agitationNfearNfeeling of inade!uacy is permanently remo ed, not &ust reduced. If it still does arise it is probably related to prara*dha/5 karma working itself out, or the knowledge that you are whole and complete is not yet firm.

1ood and e0perience Isaiah0 "hanks for your reply Sundari. It's too bad you didn't find a place to settle but &udging from the blog it looked like it was a great trip. If you e er happen to come through Arkansas on one of your trips you are both welcome to stay with me and my wife. "here really isn't anything to do in Arkansas except fish, camp and hike so you might like it. "hey don't call it the natural state for nothing. 4kay, now that my commercial for Arkansas is o er, let's start this satsang 0> Anyway, it's funny you refer to yourself as the food :a$i because I ha e often referred to myself as the :utrition :a$i. I sometimes tend to ha e fanatical food tendencies so your suggestion to relax about it has been noted. 1y wife, who is a ery sensible eater without any help from me, has often told me the same. I seem to be inclined to extreme swings in beha ior on certain issues. )hen I first starting working at the health food store I had, for maybe fi e or six years, been li ing a life of total food indulgence, binge drinking, random pill taking, endless caffeine consumption and chain smoking cigarettes and mari&uana. )hewL "alk about binding vasanasL :aturally, these habits caused me a great deal of physical and mental problems. So when I found that I could alle iate these sufferings by dropping bad habits, eating better, and using itamins, minerals, and herbs I had found my new religionL 4 er time I became extremely anal about e erything that did =and didn't> go into my body. After starting self/in!uiry I can see now how a lot of that beha ior =beyond the limits of sensibility> has been moti ated by fear. A fear lack =of not getting enough nutrients> and a fear of the resulting physical infirmity. Alongside those fears is a ery strong
)* The &ar!a that deter!ines the current incarnation of an individual.

a ersion vasana for suffering. So o erall, self/in!uiry has really helped to shed light on how I approach my health and why. :ow some of the compulsions ha e started to loosen. It does help to really understand that I don't depend on the body. I know #ames likes to !uote Shankara saying, EI li e without breathing.8 Derhaps I should make my motto, EI li e without eating.8 Still, I wanted to ask about the priority of nutrition in regards to in!uiry because I didn't want to trade one compulsion for another. In other words, I didn't want to &ust shift my attention from trying to get certain nutrients and a oiding certain toxins to trying to get sattva and a oiding ra-as and tamas. So I suppose the key is to be aware of nutrition but to not put too much emphasis on it. 2ontinuing the food theme, I noticed you mentioned you both eat chicken, fish and eggs. I know %am doesn't necessarily ad ocate egetarianism but he doesn't seem to speak ery highly of the alue of animal protein in his book. 1y wife and I are both egan although we don't feel offended, self righteous, or &udgemental if other people aren't. It's &ust a personal choice. Although, I ha e noticed that since starting in!uiry my sense of in&ustice and a need to Echange the worldE has decreased and almost disappeared. Still, I feel uncomfortable at the thought of harming animals andNor contributing to the the en ironmental problems caused by modern animal farms =although I still feed my dogs dog foodL .aL>. I often ha e trouble e en killing insects. Am I o erreacting or is this &ust some kind of emotional asana playing out, &ust my personal nature? I &ust want to make sure that I'm not clinging to something unnecessarily. Also too, I want to make sure I'm not being unduly influenced by the idea of ahimsa/6 that floats around in the yoga world and in .induism. E en the dharma shastras talk about people eating animals yet many .indu swamis discourage it. Is it purely a matter of possibly getting too much ra-as or tamas? I need some food for thought on this matter 0> I also ha e a !uestion about purifying ra-as and tamas0 E en if you change your ra-asi!Ntamasi! lifestyle to a more sattvi! one, can the residual ra-asNtamas take awhile to burn out? As I mentioned abo e I used to ha e an extremely ra-asi!Ntamasi! lifestyle. Slowly o er the past couple of years this has started to shift to more of a sattvi! lifestyle. 1any of my bad habits ha e ceased. I rarely watch mo ies =which was difficult for a film school graduate> and only occasionally listen to music =which was difficult for a musician> because they took up so much time and often were of ra-asi!Ntamasi! nature. I eat pretty decently compared to your a erage bear. I ha e no social commitments other than to see my father and step mother once a week and the occasional family trip. 1y mornings and e enings before and after work are mostly spent listening to teachings, studying scripture, praying, meditating etc. 1y &ob is slow
)/ Aon(in8ur%

paced enough that I often can &ust study (edanta on the clock. 3ut still, I seem to ha e a lot of damn ra-as and tamas. I don't get it. Derhaps I ha e not made enough changes? Any thoughts? Finally, your comments on self knowledge and experience were clear and helpful. "hanks. And yes, I would be interested in contributing to your lifestyle blog. It would be interesting. I often think about (edanta's relation to my &ob because I see people being totally destroyed by ra-as and tamas e eryday. 4besity and fatigue are always the biggest issues. Fatigue is number one. )hen I talk to these people I say, E)ell, your adrenal glands are depleted and you need $inc, pantothenic acid, itamin 2 and tyrosine to support them.8 3ut I'm thinking, E3ut ).7 are your adrenals depleted? 8a-asL 7ou won't slow down. 7ou can take these pills and they will help but if your lifestyle remains the same then you will end up right where you started.E So it's always a challenge to ease these ideas into my work because most people &ust want the !uick fix of popping some pills, not ad ice about changing their lifestyle. "hey &ust want to know what to take to get them out of their tamas and back into their ra-as. Cispassion has helped me a lot in this area, I used to get ery bent out of shape when people didn't change their ways. Also, I ha e started to be able to see them all as the self and appreciate them for the beautiful, shiny people they are. :ow when I see obese people at work I &ust think, E)ow, the self sure is fullLE 4kay, one last !uestion. 2ertain places and en ironments can be sattvi!<ra-asi!<tamasi!, correct? I ask this because I ha e noticed o er the last month or so that no matter how I'm feeling before I get to work, after awhile I start to feel dull, sleepy, and hea y. :aturally when you work with a lot of sick people, old people set in their ways, and dogmatic religious fanatics =I li e in the South mind you>, you come in contact with a lot of tamas right? )here I work is not ery big. Is it that the people are making the en ironment tamasi!? If my work en ironment is tamasi! should I be concerned about it? Actually, now when no one else is there I get online and play chants from the 5ita to try to lighten the place up. I don't know if that will work but I thought it would be worth a try. Sundari0 I really like your email and the way you think, your discrimination is really excellent. 4ne needs to ha e walked the walk to ha e the depth of understanding you ha e. It is a tough one because when you ha e hauled yourself out of those vasanas, it is hard to a oid becoming anal. And of course it does take a long time for their effects to wear off and work themsel es out of the subtle body. "here is nothing I can tell you about this as you are well aware of it and in touch with how Isaiah deals with all of this.

I find the issue of the body an interesting one, mainly because I ha e a good one, ha e always looked after it and it definitely ser es me well. 1y answer to those who negate the importance of taking care of it and call it anity, is this0 it is tough enough to be 6in8 a body, why not ha e one that works well? It is a gift from Isvara, to take care of it is the same as taking care of any part of the creation and honoring it with gratitude. As you say, why suffer? I get what %amana was saying with the statement he =apparently> made when the physicians finally attended to his cancer, about 6mud on mud.8 I know this is true, but still, this mud walks and talks and !uite en&oys being healthy. I am much a erse to fanaticism of any kind though, as I belie e that that is e en more harmful =and a '4" less fun> than eating badly. So, although I ha e taken care to eat well, informing myself about nutrition and taking responsibility for my health at a young age, I am not a fanatic. 1y daughter is the same, I ha e brought her up to understand that she is not the body, but to respect it. She is in the health and fitness industry, studying :utritional and Sports Science and wants to start her own )ellness 2entre. It is patently ob ious that one can manage the $"nas better by taking note of what works for the body, what effects are produced and ad&usting lifestyle habits to suit that. It is &ust common sense, one does not ha e to be fanatical about it. )e ha e found that it is better not to ha e a fixed formula, because the body changes daily. It is &ust the fi e elements, only food itself. Mntil recently we were eating mostly raw, but found that we started getting bloated and uncomfortable, so we re/introduced more steamed and grilled food. I used to be able to eat all grains and pulses, now I ha e to be selecti e. Iuinoa, which is touted as a health food, has a protein called a saponin which is used in immune tests, it is so hard for the body to digest. I became ery interested a few years back when egetarianism no longer suited me, in the paleolithic as opposed to neo/ lithic diet. According to that school of thought =and the science is ery well backed up> egetarianism and especially eganism should be considered a diseaseL It holds that all grains and pulses contain proteins similar to gluten, that are mostly indigestible and the root cause of rampant inflammation in the body. )hich, as we all know, is one of the root causes of all disease, along with hyper/acidity. "he paleo diet holds that since the introduction of the agrarian age, man has li ed longer because he is in control of his food source, but a in much depleted state of health. It does not take much to see that this is true. 4ur food chain is totally screwed up and will ne er come right again, it is &ust not possible. .ealth care worldwide is in a terrible state. It also claims that although the body can make protein from carbohydrates, it is extremely taxing for the body and it is an inferior source of protein. 4ne can dri e oneself !uite cra$y with all the contradictory information, so I keep it

simple. I try to eat organic =strange term as this means growing ? > as much as possible, although this is no guarantee of good nutrition as most organic or otherwise grown food is picked unripened off the ine, not allowing for full maturation of nutrients. I a oid all bottled and tinned stuff, all bread and most grains. I lo e pulses, so I still eat them although I pay a price for it. I steam or grill ery lightly if I do cook anything. )hen we finally do find a home I will buy a dehydrator as we can then 6cook8 food below ;B degrees 2elsius, before the nutrients get destroyed. I ha e added the raw superfoods like I mentioned in my last email, which we find is fantastic. I ha e a mixture which we call Shrek or swamp &uice which I told you about, which works like a bomb. 1y daughter says she is going to patent it and sell it in her health food restaurant one dayL As the body is always changing, we adapt with it, sticking to some of the things we know we ha e to ha e, like a good source of itamins and minerals and of course, omega -Fs. )e eat as much raw as possible, but we do include some animal protein. I know that there is a big thing around ahimsa, that is why I used to be a egetarian. I did not become one because I necessarily felt that it was a superior way to good nutrition but because I did not want to eat anything that had a heartbeat. )ell, I admit I still feel bad about it in some ways, but really if ones looks at it, &ust my breathing causes some creatures to die on account of it. I was ery tortured about it at one time, but e erything is no less the self, from an amoeba to a human.. )hat if Isvara put some things here for us to eat? And also, nothing dies as we know. Admittedly, I would not want to be on the menu myself, but actually if I look at it, I will be e entually anyway. I like what 2hinmaya had to say about egetarianism, which was that eating an antelope is &ust a egetarian once remo ed. I donFt &udge it and I donFt feel &udged for it. I feel that teachers like Cayananda go o erboard about it and it gi es rise to a lot of moral high ground which is &ust as harmful. 7ou ha e to work out what works for you, I donFt think there is a right or wrong about it. %am&i is ery keen on starting a lifestyle blog as these !uestions come up a lot. I ga e up trying to con ince anyone to become more informed as a lost cause many years ago, so I ha e no interest in proselyti$ing. 1ost people really donFt care enough and itFs their business. For those who do though and it is hard to a oid if one is serious about (edanta, it would be great to ha e a source of info for them. I would like it to include other areas of lifestyle and habits as well, like exercise, li ing and working space . If you would like to start off a blog on this topic, I will collaborate with you and we can put it on my blog site, with your email address, so that people can contact you. I donFt necessarily belie e in promoting either egetarianism or eganism, but unbiased information about good nutrition and exercise. I will in ite other experts to contribute

and it can be a good way for people to share their iews and knowledge. )ith regards to your !uestion about the remaining ra-as and tamas, yes it does take a while to work the residual effects out of the subtle body. )e are in touch with a few serious ex/drug addicts and they go through a torrid time. "here is not much that can be done about this other than to make the necessary ad&ustments to oneFs lifestyle and to obser e the $"nas and their effects. "hey will do what they will do because they do not belong to Isaiah, they belong to Isvara. As you probably know, they ha e ery predictable patterns with correspondingly predictable thoughts that arise with them. "hey work the same way in e eryone. "he trick is not to identify with them. I am a great ad ocate of tri$"na vi*hava/7 yoga because it is the best tracking de ice there is to find where your likes and dislikes still bind and the doer is still in ested. "hey go ern the creation of both. I am encouraging %am&i to write a whole text on them because it has ne er been done and they are so important to understandL I ha e been interested in psychology for as long as I can remember and ha e studied all the traditional and non/traditional ways of thinking, not finding the answers anywhere, until (edanta. "he $"na teaching is the best way to understand and resol e all psychological issues. I like your comments about the way you see people now, thatFs great. 3eing free means that you accept things as they are and donFt find fault with them. :o/one responds ery well to that attitude. And it is not up to us to change anything anyway. "hat is Isvaras domain. See e eryone as the self and you ha e no problems. I definitely agree with you that certain places produce energy that is conduci e to certain $"nas. I am super sensiti e to my en ironment at this stage, so I still feel it. .owe er, once the mind is dead, meaning that once it is no longer conditioned by either ra-as or tamas, all likes and dislikes ameliorated and not disturbed by any particular thought, then this passes. %am&i is like that. .is mind is pretty dead, so his subtle body is aware of what is going on in his en ironment, but is unaffected by it. I am still getting there. "his is what self Oactuali$ation is all about. 7ou are really doing great Isaiah, well done. I had a good giggle about you being a musician gi ing up music and mo ies being a film graduateL Actually, we lo e watching mo ies, ery select ones. "here is one you ha e to see if you ha e not, itFs called Derfume. If you donFt ha e it I will try to get you a copy. It is the most ama$ing analogy of the self. )e donFt listen to music much, as much as we lo e some of it, the mind still has to modify. 7our knowledge of the scripture is great and you ha e a lifestyle conduci e to in!uiry, a great wife. 5ood for youL
)0 7oga of the three gunas

AU UST 2012

1our times good Isaiah0 )ell, I thought I was sitting pretty last time we talked on Skype. Some binding vasanas seemed to be under control and in!uiry was humming along smoothly. "hen, D4)L "hose vasanas and an unexpected situation at work came up and totally whipped my =apparent> ass. In!uiry ne er stopped, but a good dose of stressful ra-as and dulling tamas made things a little difficult. 1y &ob that was formerly !uiet enough for me to study (edanta on the clock is in total uphea al. A problem between my boss and the landlord made my work en ironment much more hectic hectic and stressful. 1ore duties and longer hours are expected of me when we mo e to a new location. I am e aluating whether or not these changes will be conduci e to continued in!uiry. ha$avan hasn't offered any alternati es yet so I am sitting tight. "he whole situation has been a good opportunity for karma yoga, which brings me to a !uestion0 )hen I do an action I say in my mind, E1ay this action be offered to the self =or lord>. "he results are up to the 'ord.8 It's my understanding that part of the purpose for doing karma yoga is to loosen the idea of the doer. .owe er, isn't it only the doer that can offer actions as karma yoga? 3ut still, the doer is &ust me apparently assuming a form. "he action is me in a form. And Isvara =the field> gi ing the results is &ust me in a form. So would it be okay to think, E1ay the self be offered to the self by the self. Coes this sound right? And furthermore, aren't the results actually up to me, awareness, in the form of Isvara? #ames0 7es, absolutely. Garma yoga causes in!uiry. It has happened. 5oodL It seems the doer has been neutrali$ed by this practice. Isaiah0 1y next !uestion is about discrimination. As I understand it, beginning discrimination is Eself and not/selfE to separate me from the ob&ects in me. I ha e been using this discrimination a lot and it seems like it has subtly and naturally progressed into something like Eme and me apparently assuming a form.8 It has become difficult to think of anything as Enot selfE lately. Cefinitely unreal, but not Enot self.8 Is this the way it should progress? I want to make sure I'm not getting off track and not using the Eself and not/selfE discrimination when I should be. #ames0 7ou are right on track. 'ike karma yoga, discrimination results in non/duality. 61e and me8 is non/duality. Couble 5oodLL

Isaiah0 1y third !uestion is about worship. I know that I get some kind of emotional satisfaction from ob&ectifying myself as (ishnu or 5anesh etc. It feels good to do p"-a/7. 3ut the *"ddhi/1 is not ha ing it. )hen I say something like, E5anesh, you are the self which is fullnessE the intellect inter&ects and says, E3ack up and rephraseL Say I A1 ".E SE'F, which is fullness.8 So now I basically &ust sit in front of the symbols and use them like bullet lists to talk about myself. I look at (ishnuFs blueness and say, EI am limitless,E his crown and say, Ethe three worlds depend on me,E the conch and say, EI am the source of the fi e elements,E rahma-i53 and say, EI am the source of 5od the creatorE etc. Coes this sound like the right thing to do? #ames0 And, wonder of wonders, *hakti leads to in!uiry which leads to non/duality. "hree times 5oodLLL Isaiah0 3ecause there is something in the mind that ob&ects to this, especially that last part when I assert myself as being the source of 5od. )hat is it that wants to ob&ect to this? It seems like there is a fear that the ego is going to co/opt this whole idea for itself. #ames0 Ignorance in the form of the ego, ob&ects. Isaiah0 Furthermore, on the sub&ect of 5od being dependent on me, this really has been throwing off the whole prayer thing for me. I'm awareness and although -iva is me I am not limited by it. So it seems like when there is prayer, I am accepting myself as limited -iva and asking Isvara for help with moksha. "his seems to be like a split personality sometimes and gets confusing. I know that -iva is the one that needs to be freed from apparent ignorance but I am not -iva insofar as it doesn't limit me. Awareness is awareness. I am awareness. I am free. So as much as I en&oy prayer it seems like it's taking a stand in ignorance, not in me, awareness. 2an you clarify this for me please? #ames0 "hese four examples show that you are free. It seems like (edanta has destroyed the duality between -iva and Isvara. Four times 5oodLLLL "here is no 6split personality.8 "here seems to be two sel es, the reflected self, the -ivaNego and awareness. In fact they are one as scripture says and as the knowledge from your in!uiry indicates. Isaiah0 Se eral of these !uestions ha e been difficult for me to formulate because of
)1 @orship )2 3ntellect. The discri!inating facult% of the su$tle $od% *4 The creator in the ;indu trinit%

the whole Esplit personality thing.8 It seems like a constant fluctuation between myself as awareness and myself and the -iva appearing in me. #ames0 "his means that there is a 6third8 awareness, that because of which you know of the 6awareness you8 and the 6-iva you.8 "his is why moksha is simply knowledge. 3oth the awareness you and the -iva you are ob&ects of knowledge. 7ou are the knowing principle often called G:4)'EC5E in (edanta i.e. simple awareness. Isaiah0 As awareness, what the -iva does or doesn't do really doesn't matter to me. 3ut other times is seems like what the -iva is doing is ery important because it is the one suffering the seeming ignorance. 3ut at the same time it is &ust me assuming a form so should be &ust fine the way it is right? #ames0 2orrect, again. Isaiah. Isaiah0 "his feels =see, again assuming the -iva point of iew of feeling> a bit like a snake swallowing it's own tail. I know that this last part wasn't really a !uestion but if you could offer any insight it would be nice. #ames0 &oksha is a snake swallowing its own tail. "he eater and the eaten are one.

2e doesn%t get it Isaiah0 I read o er your last email se eral times. At the risk of sounding dumb I wanted to ask you something. 7ou said0 '(hese fo"r e;amples sho# that yo" are free. It seems like Vedanta has destroyed the d"ality *et#een Jiva and Isvara. =o"r times 4ood>>>>+ Cid you mean that based on your e aluation of my understanding that I ha e reali$ed myself as the self? #ames0 I meant that e erything you said indicates that your understanding is non/dual.

!he doer and it%s doings Isaiah0 I hope all is well with you and the 1rs. 3ut really all is always well isn't it? So, I'd like to follow up on the email below. 7ou said that in!uiry into karma yoga SEE1S to ha e neutrali$ed the doer. I'd like to make sure that it is definitely neutrali$ed. So the !uestion is, how is it known for sure that the doer is neutrali$ed? At this point the doer, e en though it still FEE'S like it is EmeE doing, is known to be &ust a thought ob&ect that appears in me, awareness. I understand that whene er EIE pops up in the mind that it is &ust me appearing in the form of a thought. "he funny thing is that the only EIE that can understand this is the doer isn't it, since I =awareness> am not a thinker. Since this is all about knowledge I wasn't sure if there were any noticeable changes in experience that should be present. I am aware of the ego definitely wanting there to be a change in experience. .owe er, there hasn't really been any big changes other than the understanding that I am not the doer. 2ertainly, there has been a degree of relaxation concerning what occurs in me, since I do not control experience and the experiencer. Shit &ust happens and it is known to me. )ell, in a non/dual reality, shit :E(E% really happened anyway, right? And so how does this fit into sadhana? Sadhana either appears in me or not, right? If I'm not the doer, I'm not. I'm actionless awareness. Con't get me wrong, the doer seems to think that as long as it's doing it should occupy the ma&ority of it's time doing in!uiry, meditating and studying scripture. And that is what it does. 3ut the whole idea of Egetting to work on myselfE or Epracticing spirituallyE is &ust a thought owned by the doer, not me, awareness. "here's no work to be done and if there was I wouldn't be doing it. As awareness, e erything that the doer does or does not do is totally fine isn't it? "he only one that would want it to be different would only be the doer, not me, unconcerned awareness. So if the doer is ha ing a good time, okay, if it's ha ing a bad time, okay. If it's Eimpro ingE spiritually, okay, if not okay. I am aware that the doer does not like this idea but what can I, awareness, do about that anyway? So speaking of the doer and it's doings I wanted to mention this0 "he other day while doing -apa something happened. )hile contemplating Eaham *ramasmi51E there were flashbacks of e erywhere I had gone and what I had done that day. And suddenly it became ery ob ious that there was an unchanging factor in all of those experiences. It
*1 A !ahava&%a, or great sa%ing of Vedanta. .eans, 3 a! Brah!an.

appeared as a presence obser ing the e ents. And then the thought popped up, as natural as anything, that said, E.ey, that's me.E "hen there was a distinct experience that the body sitting there doing -apa and feeling things was so ob iously not being felt or experienced by me because it was known to me. "hen other memories from the past popped up at random and as the situations and body changed there I was, unchanging and experienceless. It seemed &ust plain, natural and ob ious. #ust an experience that yielded an understanding. I know you say that experience is only as good as what you understand of it so I wanted to run this by you. At this point (edanta has logically shown that there are no other identity options other than awareness and this experience has backed it up. 3ut I know you say that ignorance is ery intelligent. So please expose any ignorance in my understanding.

I !"## "$%er&ec% here a$' make (ome comme$%( re)ar'"$) %he #a(% %hree (a%(a$)(* I$ +Fo,r %"me( )oo'-. Ram&" c#ear#/ (%a%e' %ha% I !a( 0ree* 1he$ he %o#' me %h"( I %ho,)h% %ha% I m"(,$'er(%oo' h"m a$' ha' %o 2,e(%"o$ h"m "$ a$o%her e3ma"#* 1h/4 Beca,(e %here !a( (%"## a 5er("(%e$% 'e("re o0 %he e)o 0or a$ +e65er"e$ce o0 e$#")h%e$me$%*. There ha' o$#/ 7ee$ a remo8a# o0 ")$ora$ce a$' "% '"'$9% 0ee# #"ke a$/%h"$) (o I co,#'$9% 7e#"e8e h"m* I %h"$k %h"( "( "m5or%a$% %o 5o"$% o,% 7eca,(e 5eo5#e a#!a/( a(k- +Ho! !"## I k$o! I9m e$#")h%e$e'4. The a$(!er "(- "0 /o, are !a"%"$) 0or a$ e65er"e$ce- %he$ /o, ma/ $o% k$o!* A(k /o,r(e#0- !ha% 'oe( k$o!#e')e 0ee# #"ke4 F,r%hermore- co$("'er %he "'ea %ha% a 5ar%"c,#ar e65er"e$ce !"## come a$' 8a#"'a%e /o,r e$#")h%e$me$% 5re(,55o(e( %ha% /o, !"## reco)$":e %he e65er"e$ce a$' ,$'er(%a$' "% !he$ "% ha55e$(* J,(% #ook a% %he %h"r' e3ma"#* A0%er a## o0 %he co$0,("o$- Is ara ha' 5"%/ o$ me a$' 'ec"'e' %o )race me !"%h a$ e65er"e$ce* 1h"#e %he k$o!#e')e %ha% I !a( a!are$e(( !a( a(("m"#a%e' 0rom %h"( e65er"e$ce ;%he 'e0"$"%"o$ o0 e$#")h%e$me$%<- I still !a($9% (,re I !a( e$#")h%e$e'* The e65er"e$ce came a$' "% '"'$9% e8e$ he#5* F"$a##/- a0%er (5eak"$) !"%h Ram&" o8er Sk/5e he )o% %he 5o"$% acro(( %o me- %ha% k$o!#e')e- a$' k$o!#e')e o$#/ !a( e$#")h%e$me$%* M/ ")$ora$ce ha' 7ee$ remo8e'- a$' I k$e! !"%ho,% a 'o,7% %ha% I !a( %he e8er 0ree- ,$cha$)"$) (e#0* To 7e a7(o#,%e#/ c#ear- "% '"' $o% 0ee# #"ke a$/%h"$)*

.o it again Isaiah0 I &ust wanted to thank you for all of your help, support and skillful wielding of the teachings. 7ou took me from being totally confused, frustrated and ready to !uit the spiritual life to moksha in @ months flat. I think the doer's initial resistance to this EhappeningE was partly based on it's idea that it would take a really long time. "he doer was in it for the long haul and ready to C4, C4, C4L It was super pissed and incredulous that the search was o er. )hen you first told me it was like, EFree? Surely not you. 2ouldn't beL 3etter go C4 somethingLE It was funny that you had to tell me again o er Skype =e en after the akandakara vritti52 no less>. E en after that the ego was &ust pitching a fit and tossing around all kinds of fears and nonsense like E)hat if you really A%E:'" enlightened?E 3ut it was so ob ious that all of those thoughts were &ust insentient ob&ects appearing in me that it really didn't matter. I e en tried to forget that I was awareness to see if I could. And well, I'm sure you know how that turned out. "his whole last week at work has been incredibly hectic and chaotic. 3ut experientially speaking, there has &ust been a great sense of peace and rock/like solidity. E erything &ust appears and resol es in me and often times it's rather humorous. So anyway, I'm sure you' e heard this story a thousand times so I'll stop here. Again, thank you so much for e erything. #ames0 It was fun. ItFs a shame that you canFt get endarkened again so we can do it o er.

/nlightenment, fame and fortune Isaiah0 In the course of in!uiry all of my long standing and raging hard/ons of desire for wanting to do art, music and film ha e become limp, flaccid and impotent. "hey no longer obtain. "here are no ambitions left in my life =and it feels better than ha ing
*2 An un$ro&en 3 thought

ambition>. .owe er, there has been one inclination that has remained throughout it all0 to teach. 3ecause really, if the only meaning in the world is me, then why not &ust talk about myself? :othing else has any allure. And really, e en though it is &ust an ob&ect appearing in me, I lo e (edanta. :ot &ust because it works but because it ob iously stands head and shoulders abo e other spiritual paths. It so logically and easily peels back the mass of EspiritualE bullshit that accrues in the mind to re eal what was always there. )hy it is so obscure I ha e no idea. So, that being said I' e had my shingle printed up ad ertising my supreme wisdom, skillfully photoshopped a halo around a picture of my head and redubbed myself Sri Sri Isaiahananda&i 1ahara&. I'm currently working on my website 0> %am&i0 Ah, yes, first enlightenment, then fame and fortuneL Isaiah0 3ut seriously what I really was thinking was this0 ,> 2ontinue my small duty at work to maintain my meat suit *> keep my head down and continue in!uiry and study -> "ry to 'EA%: how to teach and see if I can e en do it effecti ely. I'm not saying I can but I'd like to try. I don't ha e a ca e or forest to retreat to but I' e got a really simple life and a pretty !uiet room in my house where no one bothers me. I'm &ust going to keep listening to your teachings and studying (edantic texts. If you ha e any pointers will you please let me know? %am&i0 Sounds good. 7ou will be a good teacher because your understanding is ery clear and because you ha e passion for the topic. "here is not much to it apart from obser ing the personFs doubts and applying the appropriate teaching to the doubt. 7ou need the o er iewPthe whole mandala of satya and mithya, the chart, in your mind so you can pinpoint doubts and work down from the Self or up from the world. Mse the organi$ation of the teachings in my book as a template. ConFt worry too much about Sanskrit. 7ou need &ust enough to intimidate the student =s> with your knowledge0> 7ou ha e my blessing. Isaiah0 And finally I ha e a couple of !uestions. )hen the avidya52 of who you are is remo ed, are there lesser or different forms of ignorance that are then rooted out of the mind by continued application of the knowledge? #ames0 7es. "he effects of ignorance continue. Ignorance is an orientation. )hen I go
*# 3gnorance

to England I almost always nearly get hit by ehicle e en though I know full well that they dri e on the left. 3ut the tendency to operate on the right is still there. So remain igilant and use the knowledge until the mind dies. It will become automatic after a while and no conscious effort is re!uired because you ha e established the vasanas for the right orientation, i.e. functioning as the self, not as a person who knows the self. Isaiah0 )hen -nana yoga and karma yoga are in place is there really anything else that is useful for the purification of the mind? #ames0 :o. "here is only knowledge and experience and those two co er it. In fact karma yoga is &ust knowledge. It does not re!uire conscious effort except at the beginning when there is a residual sense of doership. Isaiah0 After you know who you are is meditation still useful as a tool for purification of the mind? #ames0 4nly in the sense that it is a sattvi! acti ity. Gnowledge and the yogas purify the mind. 1editation steadies it. .a ing said that if you ha e a ra-asi! mind meditation can eliminate it once the meditation vasanas are established. 4ften knowledge alone is not enough to control a ery ra-asi! mind. "here are stubborn -nanis5/ who suffer the effects of ra-as because they refuse to meditate for some strange reason. 8a-as is an insidious state of mind. It comes with a lot of hidden tamas in the form of a kind of stubbornness, a refusal to change. 8a-as almost in ariably comes with a kind of arrogance, a feeling that the way I do it is the best. 8a-asi! people are their own worst enemies. "hey resist meditation because they are so addicted to doership and action. "hey are always worried about something. It does not seem like they are accomplishing anything. "his is why we prescribe karma yoga for ra-asi! types. E entually their minds calm down but it is a long hard slog. If a ra-asi! -nani is ery intelligent, he or she will almost in ariably shun meditation as a waste of time. "hey prefer actionPteaching, writing, etc. 1y guru was a good example. .e was ery ra-asi! and he suffered a lot from it. 3ut he didnFt care because he felt that accomplishing things was more aluable than feeling good. I meditate all the time. It looks like I am ery busy writing when I sit in front of the computer but I am not. A ra-asi! person would think I am tamasi! but it is not true. I am sitting in the silence en&oying. I sa e my tamas for sleep. I hold my mind on the self and let a little energy drain off in the form of (edanta thoughts. 1y mind only gets ra-asi! when a ra-asi! mind comes into my energy field. "hen I ha e to battle with it. I am not nice when ra-as is operating. I truly hate ra-as. It is so painful.
*) A &nower of the self

SEPTEMBER 2012

Rajas and tamas Isaiah0 I am glad to hear your tra els are going well. I hope to someday make it to one of your retreats. "hank you for your blessing to teach. "hat means a lot to me. I think it may be awhile because I can see there is still much work to be done with the mind. I know you ha e said there can be a danger if there is unpurified ra-as and tamas in the mind. "here is still !uite a bit of ra-as and tamas present in it manifesting as agitations =unsteadinessNrestlessness> and fears. So your suggestion to continue meditation is duly noted. I ha e ne er been against meditation, it's actually where I started into the realm of (edic wisdom. I &ust ne er got ery 6good8 at it. 'ike your book said, if I couldn't get the mind to calm down I would go on to something else, like -apa. 3ut now I make myself sit for ;9 minutes twice daily whether it works or not. #ames0 3y 6teach8 I mean share what you know. ConFt worry about the ra-as and tamas. 7ou donFt ha e to be 6pure.8 Durity comes as you life a life of discrimination. As for 6meditation,8 you are not trying to get anything except learning to sit and en&oy yourself without doing. Isaiah0 I had a !uestion about ra-as and tamas in the mind. For the most part I ha e cleaned up a lot of the ra-asi! and tamasi! factors in my life =not all though>. Cespite this, can the ra-as and tamas also &ust be prara*hda karma? I did li e an extremely ra-asi! and tamasi! lifestyle for many years. E en though they can be dismissed by in!uiry and I know the only possibility for my identity is awareness, doubts about it and fears still arise in the mind. #ames0 "hey are karma. "he $"nas color e erything on e ery le el. Slowly sattvasi:e them by li ing a simple life. Isaiah0 About learning to teach0 you said it is good to ha e the satya<mithya mandala in the mind. If I wanted to really understand the gritty details of the cosmology what is the best text to study? #ames0 2heck out Danchadasi. I ha e a new copy. I will send it with this email. Isaiah0 Coes the cosmology come from samkhya?

#ames0 7es. Isaiah0 As for Sanskrit, I was planning on taking a course or buying a book on it because I &ust like it. I ha e an abiding interest in (edic culture. 3ut as far as the specific Sanskrit terminology of (edanta, where do you learn that? #ames0 I think the best source is the 3haga ad 5ita .ome Study 2ourse of Swami Cayananda. Cayananda has a glossary of Sanskrit terms. I think Cennis )aite has a good on in the 3ook of 4ne or one of his other books. )rite him. Isaiah0 I know that you ery successfully teach (edanta without all of the terminology but I would wager you know it. #ames0 I know the most important terms. Isaiah0 "hat's &ust the kind of 6person8 I am. I want to know e erything I can about (edanta, all the ins and outs. 4ut of my own interest and also to be able to co er the bases with any students in the future. 1aybe this isn't necessary for teaching but my ego is really bored and still a little pissy about the whole moksha thing. I thought at first that the ego &ust didn't like the end of seeking but I' e found this was only partly true. It didn't want to gi e up the studying of (edanta. #ames0 :o reason why it has to. It is good work. 5ot to keep the ego busy doing noble work. Isaiah0 It &ust wants to be a sage and be able to clearly communicate about the only thing that is real and meaningful0 me, awareness. "hat idea makes it ery happy and it seems like that is a desire that is okay for it to indulge in. Especially since the whole standing on the street corner smoking cigarettes or molesting kids in the park options aren't ery appealing 0> #ames0 I agree. Isaiah0 1y wife is going to be heading back to cosmetology school for the next ten months. )e talked it o er and she ga e her stamp of appro al to me dedicating the ma&ority of my spare time outside of work to my continuing education at the E(edic .ome Mni ersityE with Drofessor %am presiding. #ames0 2ool wife.

Isaiah0 As usual, thank you for your help and guidance. Seeing as this meat suit finds itself in the 3ible belt South =I actually li e between between - churches and there are -++ more in a town of *A,+++ people>, this is my only opportunity for satsang. So it is much appreciated and !uite a blessing to be in contact with such a great teacher. #ames0 )ell if I let you down, you ha e #esus at hand. :ot to worry.

!he self,reali3ed person Isaiah0 I ha e been watching your excellent ideos on the 3haga ad 5ita. )hile watching, a !uestion has come up that I ha e been mulling o er for awhile. In the text there are passages that describe the self/reali$ed person. 7ou mention a few times that if you do not ha e these !ualities then you are not enlightened. .owe er, I was wondering, if enlightenment is the understanding that you are not a person at all but in fact pure awareness, then of what rele ance are these lists of characteristics? E en if a lack of certain characteristics are obser ed in the mind, they are known to you, pure awareness. If you know that you are ne er affected by the apparent mind that you seem to appear as, then why would there be a need for concern about the characteristics of one type of mind or another? Are these descriptions like other instances in the 5ita when Grishna is trying to meet Ar&una where he is at on the spiritual path? #ames0 7es. "hey are addressed to an ego that is happy to claim that it is enlightened merely on the basis of it's knowledge 4F the self. If you actually are the self, then the 6!ualifications8 mean nothing. "he !ualifications are also needed to explain to an in!uirer why in!uiry is not bearing fruit. "hey indicate that sadhana is needed. "he big issue in this whole business is the distinction between indirect and direct knowledge. If the knowledge is indirect, if the ego is claiming enlightenment based on an epiphany or a belief, the !ualifications apply in so far as they are a statement of self knowledge in terms of life for the -iva in the apparent reality. If the knowledge is direct there is no -iva i.e. the three bodies ha e been negated, so there is no apparent reality whatsoe er. "here is only the self. So there are no !ualities or !ualifications. "he !ualifications, like the karma yoga and the $"na teachings, are both sadhanas and statements of self knowledge.

(on,duality and relationships Isaiah0 .appy belated anni ersaryL I'm glad e erything has gone well for you in this last year. 7ou and Sundari are both bright, shiny 6people8 0> I'm not sure if you actually wanted to be busier but I am happy to hear that Shiningworld is taking off. It's cool that more people are taking an acti e interest in (edantaL It's no surprise really, it's such a great means of knowledge. And the way that you teach it is clear, direct, and to the point. I was thinking the other day how happy I was to ha e been presented with a guru like you. 7our do it yourself ethic and willingness to gi e out the knowledge F%EE'7 is truly inspiring. I always wanted to see spiritual teaching presented in that fashion but alas, I had resigned myself to thinking it was a pipe dream. In a world full of spiritual businessmen, pretense and poseurs, %am&i, Sundari and Shiningworld are a breath of fresh air. :o worries about missing any emails. I am glad that you reply to any of them at all. It is a great ser ice to me. And speaking of which, if there is anything I can do to help Shiningworld then please tell me. I ha e ery limited resources as far as technology or funds go =I bet you' e ne er heard of a poor sannyasi, right?0> but I do ha e time to gi e. 4kay, this wouldn't be a satsang if I didn't ask you something. After reading o er the last newsletter about your marriage to Sundari I got to thinking. 4r rather, I had been thinking about it and that brought it to the surface. .ow do free people ha e harmonious relationships with people who are not free? I don't want to assume anything about anyone but from my talks with my wife I don't think she knows who she is. And this has caused some problems insofar as when a problem arises I am looking at it from the point of iew of awareness and she seems to be looking at it from the point of iew of Eherself.E She always says I ha e to 6come down8 and look at the problem in the apparent reality. :ow, I am not denying the apparent reality as if it weren't 6happening.8 And I am not denying that the apparent me does not ha e inclinations or tendencies that are negati e. It's &ust that now I can't look at it from any point of iew other than of myself =and her> as awareness. It's &ust that it seems like what she means by dealing with the problem in the 6reality8 amounts to identifying myself with the body, mind, feelings and thoughts. And that is &ust not going to happen. So at that point communication can come to a stand still or &ust completely degenerate. Anymore, I &ust try not to e en mention (edanta but since I li e it, eat it, and breathe it,

it can't help but come out sometimes. )hen my wife asks, Ewhat do you think?E, she may be getting some opinions but o er time it's &ust more and more (edanta. 3efore I reali$e it, it's &ust coming out. Sometimes while this is happening I e en end up doing Ethe %am&iE 0 my right arm crooks up like a swan neck to point at the chart =that's not e en thereL 0> Anyway, I was wondering if you had any sage ad ice for this situation. It would be much appreciated. #ames0 I lo e you, Isaiah. 7ou are a cool guy. I am going to turn this one o er to Sundari, she's the expert in the lo e department 0>. :ot to worry, I will check it and gi e it the Shining)orld stamp of appro al.

OCTOBER 2012

/ffortless relationships Sundari0 )e both so en&oyed your last email, as we do all your communicationsL Especially the part about the swan neckL )e had a good laugh about that. 7our problem relating to your wife is a fairly common one amongst self reali$ed people, and not an easy one to sol e. %am&i and I work as a 6partnership8 because we do not see each other as a male or female or a 6person,8 e en though we en&oy playing those roles. )e do not pro&ect onto each other and we expect nothing from each other because we are both whole and complete. )e know that the relationship is in us, not us in it. So, if pro&ection should occur, we are both fully aware that it is &ust the -iva and we donFt take it seriously. )e are ,++Q aware that it is a mo ieL )e li e and breathe (edanta and the only reason we can be together is because there is no separation on any le el. )e do not know where the one begins and the other ends, and yet we ery much en&oy 6our8 -ivasH we see them and en&oy them like one would an adorable pet. "he only ad ice I could gi e to someone who is 6in8 a relationship with a samsari is karma yoga. 7ou know that your wife is not a person, but she will think you are nuts if you tell her this. She thinks you are Isaiah and if you start telling her different, she is not going to like it. Accept the fact that that is where her mind isH li e the truth of who you are simply and &ust be yourself, warts and all. %emember knowing who you are does not make you superior to someone who does not. It is also not about making the -iva perfect, itFs a waste of time anyway. So what if you still ha e a few binding vasanas hanging aroundH or if some not so fabulous personality trait still rears its little head? 7ou know ery well that is has nothing to do with you, awareness. 4nce ignorance of your true nature has been remo ed, you are free to choose whate er -iva you want to be, and you will either do or not do actions to achie e that. "his ery much depends on whether or not the knowledge is firm. If the knowledge is firm, you are free to allow the -iva to be what it is Ewarts and allE and you are free to transform the -iva, according to your idea of purity. 3ut if the knowledge is not firm, then there is still 6work8 to be done to remo e estigial ignorance of your true nature and firm up the knowledge. As you are well aware, this may in ol e the application of the yogas to the subtle body. "he situation with your wife should impro e if you genuinely see her as the self and not see that there is any need for her to be different. If you are con eying to her e en subtly, that there is something wrong with her because 6she does not know who she is8 you will simply alienate her. :o/one likes to be critici$ed or be made to feel lacking in

some way. She will start to feel that she is defecti e and pro&ect that onto you. So what if she does not know what her true nature is? 7ou do. ConFt want things to be different, lo e her unconditionally the way she is and drop all expectations. Stop spouting (edanta to her. #ust li e it. 'et lo e lo e Isaiah and through IsaiahH be the lo e. 'et it blossom, let it flow. "here is nothing more powerful and attracti e than that kind of confidence. 7our wife wants to be lo ed by you, she does not want knowledge from you and she is not looking for moksha. )hen she wants IsaiahFs attention, stop what you are doing and gi e it to her, without hesitation. Set aside (edanta and gi e her what she wantsH let her feel that she is more important to you. )hate er she wants or thinks or says is the self wanting thinking or speaking too. 1any people in the spiritual world feel that they are abo e those with less or lesser knowledge, or they feel that relating 6below8 their le el is beneath them. "his is simply not true0 you are the self and so is she, so ser e her as the self. "his is lo eH lo e is ser ice and it is who you are, and you know this. 7ou know that the &oy is not in the ob&ectH she does not. So show it to her. (edanta is a throw away, you donFt need to hang on to the knowledge, you are the knowledge. #ust see e erything and e eryone as non/different from you and your life will flow effortlessly from that. Isaiah will not be doing anything, he will simply know that whate er is happening, it is arising out of him, awareness. In this way, e ery thought, word and deed that emerges from Isaiah or his wife will be an epiphany. I hope this helpsL

2ow am I lo e) Isaiah0 "hank you Sundari, your ad ice was poignant and helpful. Sundari0 I am glad 0> Isaiah0 "here is one issue I would like to clarify though. 4ne thing that has been difficult for me to understand is how I, awareness, am unconditional lo e. I ha e been trying to go o er %am&i's writings on this topic lately and it hasn't !uite resol ed. .e has described parama prema svar"pa55 as appreciation of my limitless nature. "his I can understand, as far as knowing I ha e no limitations, although it doesn't seem like the ego is !uite on board with this idea yet. I think 1r. Ego is still a bit grouchy. .e has been performing a one man play entitled, EFreedom is 3oring0 An Ego's take on
** Of the nature of li!itless, non(dual love.

moksha.E .e is currently getting unconcerned re iews from an audience of one. Still, the understanding of my limitless nature being lo e doesn't !uite make sense. 1aybe it's because lo e is so often portrayed as particular actions or feelings. Sundari0 'o e is not &ust appreciation =who is it that appreciates?> of the fact that Isaiah's nature is limitless awarenessH it is full and complete knowing that it is you, the non/experiencing witness, awareness. It is a rock solid confidenceH the knowing which is not an experience and yet gi es rise to all experiences, including the feeling of lo e. 7es it takes some con incing to get the ego on board with the idea that it is really awarenessH ignorance is hard wired, as you well know. It will fight this and complain. 7es also that from the -iva,s point of iew, lo e is a feeling directed towards another ob&ect outside of you in whom you are in ested emotionally and from whom you are looking for reciprocation and alidation. .owe er, from your point of iew as awareness, there is nothing other than you. hakti means you worship e erything as you, the self. Isaiah0 If lo e were a feeling then I am it, although I am also apathy, fear, hate, etc. Sundari0 7ou may be your feelings but they are not youH their existence is dependent on you but you are always free of them. Freedom is freedom from identification with 6your8 feelings and belie ing that Isaiah and his story are real and happening 6to8 him. Isaiah0 .owe er, %am&i has made it clear that lo e is not a feeling. .e has described it as willing attention directed towards ob&ects. "his I may partially understand. As awareness, my nature is knowing or Eattention.E I know or am 6attenti e8 to all ob&ects e!ually, without &udgment, pro&ections, pre&udices or conditions. Is that why I am pure lo e? Sundari0 7es, this is why you are pure lo e0 you, awareness 6pays attention8 =sees its own reflection> i.e lo es 6another8 ob&ect which you know is you. "his is the key. Isaiah is not lo ing another person, he is incapable of lo e. Awareness, his true nature, lo es through him as the non/experiencing witness and 6pays attention8 to itself. )hen the ego, Isaiah knows he is the self 6in8 the apparent reality, he then gets to en&oy =experience> the apparent presence of another self, knowing it is really him and that he is the source of the &oy which emanates from this reflection of himself.

Mechanics of maya I hope this email doesn't end up being too long. 1ost of the time I try to let my !uestions resol e themsel es without bothering you. .owe er, when they don't resol e they tend to pile up. Also I' e noticed too that the ego doesn't always want to ha e it's ignorance exposed or possibly look 6unenlightened8 in front of you. 4kay, so I ha e been thinking about the nature of direct knowledge, ignorance and identification. "here are some things about these that I am &ust trying to make sure are crystal clear. If you could please check my logic I would appreciate it. First, direct knowledge is when the, EI know of or ha e an experience of awarenessE thought is turned into, EI am awareness,E and awareness is owned as one's identity. "his is the knowledge that from which there is no return to ignorance. All discussion of people getting 6unenlightened8 is for those who ha e had epiphanies or experiences of the self and ha e not assimilated the self as their identity. From these states or experiences people can return to their former ignorance of their true nature. I ha e &ust been ha ing trouble understanding how direct knowledge 6works8 and this also relates to my !uestion about the nature of ignorance and identification. Is the following how it works? I am awareness. "here is &ust me. I know myself by myself. "here is no ignorance of myself and no possibility of identification with anything because there is nothing to identify with. .owe er, taking mithya into account this is what happens0 I, awareness, self/knowing and self/effulgent, shine on the apparent creation. I am ne er identified with any of it or ignorant of myself. I simply illumine the apparent and insentient ego thought that is identifying with ignorant thoughts such as, EI am a limited, separate, body, mind etcE or EI am a doer, owner of these actions etc.E "he ego is the identifier. I, the self, cannot and ne er ha e identified with anything, not e en apparently because it isn't e en possible. "he apparent identification is the ego's identification. As far as ignorance goes, on the indi idual le el, it is simply this apparent happening of the ego identifying with ignorant thoughts, beliefs and opinions. I, awareness, &ust illumine the ignorant thoughts. I remain unchanged and self knowing.

"hen at some point the mind gets exposed to the teaching. After some time, the last bit of ignorance is remo ed from the mind and the thought arises, EI am the self.E "his thought is assimilated as being one's own identity. .owe er, this is where it gets sticky for my mind. 5ranted, I ha e no doubt about being awareness but I ha e been trying to understand the mechanics of direct knowledge. )hen we say that the thought, EI am awarenessE is assimilated as being one's own identity, the !uestion is, E3y whom is this identity owned?E #ames0 3y the Self under the spell of apparent ignorance. Isaiah0 It couldn't be me, awareness, because I always knew myself and there is nothing to own. #ames0 :o, you didnFt because maya made you forget. It canFt happen but it does. "his is why it is said that maya makes the impossible possible. Isaiah0 "hat would only lea e the mind but the mind was ne er an obstruction to knowing myself. #ames0 And the mind is not conscious, so it canFt know. Isaiah0 I know you ha e said that knowledge takes place in the mind and enlightenment is for the mind. #ames0 "his is one of (edantaFs trick teachings. It pretends that the mind is conscious because the self thinks it is the mind. "here is always only the self with apparent knowledge or apparent ignorance. So when I say it is for the mind I mean that it is for the self that thinks it is a mind. Isaiah0 Coes this mean that I can either illumine a mind that has ignorant thoughts or I can illumine a mind that has thoughts that are in harmony with the truth? #ames0 7es. =see abo e> Isaiah0 In this case I would say that direct knowledge is when I illumine a mind that has knowledge of its identity with me. #ames0 :o. It is, 6I am awareness.8 6I am awareness8 irrespecti e of what appears in me, knowledge or ignorance.

Isaiah0 .owe er, you ha e also said that self knowledge is not memory based and therefore I would infer that it is not of the mind. #ames0 Cirect knowledge is only temporary. It destroys indirect knowledge i.e. the doerNknower and then disappears lea ing only awareness aware of itself with or without knowledge, with or without a mind. Cirect knowledge is for that part of the self that still belie es it is a knower. It destroys the selfFs identification with the knower. "he self is not a knower because there is nothing other than it to be known. It is self knowing. :o instrument, a mind, is re!uired for it to know itself. )hen the self under the spell of apparent ignorance assimilates the meaning of, 6I am the self,8 direct knowledge does not lea e that part of the ego that is apparently ignorant thinking that it is now apparently a self knower. It destroys it altogether. So if someone asks you if you know who you are you say yes as the self but not as an indi idual because there is no indi idual as far as you are concerned. Isaiah0 It is &ust knowing myself as myself. 3ut I ha e always known myself. )hen the thought arose in the mind, EI am the selfE, it seemed like I was re ealed but I was ne er hidden. It's &ust that I was then shining on a mind endowed with the truthful thought, EI am awareness.E .owe er this couldn't be direct knowledge because e en knowing myself as awareness, I still continually illumine all manner of ignorant thoughts. #ames0 "his is correct. 3ut it seemed like you were hidden from yourself until the knowledge I am awareness remo ed the eil that was apparently hiding you from yourself. Isaiah0 "his leads to one more topic0 6post/enlightenment.8 I ha e read o er that chapter in your book a lot and there are a few things I want to get completely straight. I know I am awareness. 4f this there is no doubt. )hen it comes to this you either know it or you don't. 7ou can't partially know. "his knowledge can't be firm or shaky. .owe er, you do talk about 6firming up8 the knowledge. "his is for the mind that remains as an ob&ect appearing in me because it will still ha e a tendency to operate under ingrained ignorant tendencies. #ames0 7es. Isaiah0 "his firming up of knowledge is meditation, bringing the mind back to the idea of the self o er and o er until its ignorant tendencies finally die. "o be clear though, this is optional, right? "he mind can continue to be grouchy, dull, agitated or dissatisfied. "he ego may continue to identify itself with certain thoughts or actions. .owe er, this

has no bearing on self knowledge because these are &ust ob&ects appearing in me and they ha e no effect on me. It matters not to me. If it doesn't matter to the mind either, then so be it. 3M"...if the mind does want to be happy then the yogas need to be applied. #ames0 All of the abo e is correct. Isaiah0 And there may be a long period of time before the mind changes. As you know, despite all of your skillful teaching, my ego still formulated moksha as being some kind of happening. Derhaps it was reading the glowing testimonials on the website. Although, from the standpoint of my experience, I will say that with self knowledge, the problem of existential suffering is "4"A''7 FM2GI:5 CEAC. I emphasi$e that because it is so nice. 4kay, so there's a glowing testimonial 0> #ames0 7es, let the mindNego be what it isPor not. Isaiah0 Still, all of the other stuff people talk about like bliss, total contentment, etc are a little bit lacking. #ames0 ItFs not all that wise to listen to other people. Deople lo e to create dissatisfaction in others with tales of their ama$ing experiential sel es. Isaiah0 5ranted, that is the ego talking so it's not a problem but this does seem to agitate the mind and the mind wants that to stop. )hen the mind is brought back to the self, then yes, it sees there is no limitation and therefore, bliss. "aking up meditation full time has certainly helped to keep this idea in the mind on a more regular basis. Still, the ego is gripey and bitchy. It still likes to complain, albeit much less. .mm... actually writing this has put this last part in perspecti e. I can see that the mind actually has been changing. #ames0 5riping is the inalienable right of the mind. It finds satisfaction in it. 'et it gripe until you get tired of it. "hen shut it up. 7ou are the boss. Isaiah0 )ell, thanks for listening to my ego's petty grie ances anyway. As far as contentment goes, all of the ma&or desires ha e in fact died. "he only ma&or thing I can see the mind wanting is to study (edanta constantly to keep itself rightly oriented and to learn how to teach. I mean it really wants to learn how to teach, the mind won't seem to let this go. I still listen to your talks daily, read your book and study commentaries by Shankara. "he only reason I mention this is I wonder if this is a

remaining seeking asana or if I &ust want to do it. #ames0 It doesnFt matter what you call it. It is a desire that is not opposed to dharma, so go for it. Freedom means you are free to do what you want. Isaiah0 Also, I sometimes !uestion my ego's moti ations for wanting to teach. "he ego doesn't feel like there is something wrong with the world and thus see a need to teach but there is also not a wealth of compassion for those stuck in ignorance. #ames0 It is &ust natural to relie e suffering. It is dharma because there is only one of us here. If you ego gets kicks out of it, so what? Isaiah0 I also notice it entertains a sense of importance at ha ing knowledge but I also see a genuine lo e of the means of knowledge. Speaking as the ego, knowing I am awareness, all I can say is that I &ust don't care about anything else. I can't e en generate a desire for anything else to do. #ames0 7ou &oined the -nanis club. Isaiah0 I don't ha e a single business asana and I ne er ha e. I' e always done things for the sake of themsel es =art, music, etc.> and ne er for the money. E en a lot of the music I made was explicitly about 5od and before I left 2hristianity I was in seminary school studying to become a minister. 5ranted, this is -iva,s story before knowledge so how much bearing that has now, I don't really know. Coes the -iva,s svadharma56 remain after moksha or does it dissol e into my nature, sat?!hit?ananda, the source of dharma itself? #ames0 It remains. It is actually Isvara. Isaiah0 .ow was it for you? )hen you knew who you were why did you keep studying (edanta? #ames0 I liked it. Isaiah0 .ow did you know you should teach and were !ualified to do so? #ames0 I felt like it. It donFt know what 6!ualified8 means. I &ust did what I wanted and saw results. I ha e always only done what I wanted in life. "he results !ualified me.
*/ One's personal dhar!a, or nature.

"here is nobody other than me to !ualify me. I donFt know if I am !ualified now. It &ust do what I do. And when I donFt like it I will so something else.

NO=EMBER 2012

4idehamukti, the 4edas and shraddha Isaiah0 .ari 4mL .ello to you and Sundari both. I ha e been reading through the Mpanishads as of late. In the 3rihadaranyaka there is a erse about the death of a -nani that says, E3ut he in whom desire is stilled suffers no rebirth. After death, ha ing attained to the highest, desiring only the self he goes to no other world. %eali$ing *rahman he becomes *rahman.E I know you talk about how when one knows oneself as the self, the identification with the body is broken and there is liberation here and now, -ivam"kti57. .owe er, the -iva still appears in awareness owing to its prara*hda karmas that are still fructifying. Coes the abo e erse mean simply that once the karmas ha e exhausted themsel es and the -iva Edies,E then there is no ErebirthE meaning that no more ob&ects appear in awareness =body, mind, world> because there are no more karmas to create them? #ames0 :o. "he ob&ects continue to appear. Isvara continues to pro&ect them. "hey 6disappear8 like belief in a desert lake disappears when it is known to be a mirage. "he negation or sublation of self knowledge does not change experience. It only changes the way experience is iewed. Isaiah0 Coes awareness then &ust shine as awareness but illumining no ob&ects? 4r do the macrocosmic vasanas still generate ob&ects but there is no more Eindi idualE -iva appearing? #ames0 7ou get it in this one, more or less. I should ha e read this before I wrote the last paragraph. As far as the appearance of the 6-iva8 is concerned, it appears too. It is &ust an ob&ect, an idea in you, awareness. 7ou &ust know it isnFt you. So you donFt identify with it. ItFs fine to ha e a -iva and let it do what it wants. Isaiah0 %eading through some of the Mpanishads with Shankara's commentary it becomes clear how implicit his shraddha was in the complete eracity of the (edas. .e e en uses such logic as, E"his erse in this Mpanishad means this and is true because this erse in another Mpanishad says so.E .onestly, this sounds a lot like logic that I' e heard many 2hristian theologians use to pro e the eracity of certain biblical passages. "hey'll say, Ethis erse in 1atthew is true because this erse in Isaiah says so.E It's dicey
*0 Bi$erated while living

logic and uses the unpro en truth of other parts of the bible to pro e another unpro en part of the bible. It does not take into account who wrote the bible or where it came from etc. #ames0 "his whole argument hinges on the meaning of the word 6pro e.8 "he only way you can pro e the meaning of (edanta is to sub&ect your mind to it and let it remo e your ignorance because it is beyond the scope of all other methods of proof i.e. perception and inference. 7ou need to consider ShankarFs missionH to re i e (edanta. .e is saying that the message of non/duality is consistent throughout the Mpanishads. .e is arguing against the 3uddhist, 2har akas9A, and the Garma Gandis, the followers of the ritualistic portion of the (edas. .e needs to establish (edanta as a means of knowledge =pramana> for moksha that has one message0 reality is non/dual. Isaiah0 So I' e got some !uestions about shraddha and origins of the (edas. :ow, the (edas teach about the self which can be taken with shraddha and erified without a doubt. "hen, the shraddha can be discarded. .owe er, the (edas talk about a whole lot more than the self. "here is all kind of talk about gods, demons, hea ens, and other realms amongst others. :one of this stuff can be erified but it's still in the (eda. It seems like Shankara, possibly the greatest known (edantin of all time =except for you, %am&i> did not take any of these things to be metaphorical as we often do in the west. )hile the self can be erified, is the rest of the sub&ect matter of the (edas meant to remain a belief and be taken with shraddha? 3ecause it's hard for me to look at the (edas and say, E)ell, the (edas are true, re ealed knowledge...except that stuff. Con't pay any mind to that part.E #ames0 4nly the Mpanishads are a alid means of knowledge for the self. For anything in samsara that one might like to know about, hea en and hell etc., which are beyond perception and inference, the karma kanda51 of the (edas is the means. 7ou need to understand that (edanta talks to the person on his or her le el of understanding. )e know ery well that mithya is mithya but a person in mithya thinks mithya is satya. So we gi e him or her what he or she needs at the moment. "he karma kanda section of the (edas is ery cool because it keeps mentioning Isvara, the self, while the vedika63, the samsari, goes about his or business trying to make samsara work. Samsara works better with Isvara in ol ed. E entually, by following Vedika dharma, which in ol es worship of the deities, etc. the message of (edanta starts to seep in and in!uiry de elops. 7es, it is indirect knowledge but that is all that samsaris are capable of.
*1 .aterialists *2 The ritualistic portion of the Vedas /4 One who follows Vedic dhar!a

Isaiah0 About the origin and re elation of the (edas0 when we say awareness re ealed the (edas what are we saying? I know you talk about it not coming through people but to people. "hat makes enough sense. 3ut as awareness is a non doer, then how is this accomplished? )hen we say awareness re ealed the teachings, do we mean awareness as the macrocosmic mind re ealed the (edas? #ames0 7es. %emember, awareness as Isvara has all powers, including the power to think and act. :o human being could put this all together. 1y book is probably uni!ue in the world of (edanta because it re eals the big picture in one brilliant snapshot. If you consider the way the logic organi$es the content you can ery well understand that it did not come from a person or persons. Dlus, and this is not something you might know, nor need you belie e it, but when you get to a certain stage, meaning once the knowledge has obliterated your person, you are effecti ely Isvara minus the omnipotence and the knowledge of all the facts. So a rishi is not really a normal person who has stopped seeking and reali$ed his or her identity with awareness. "hat story is gone. .e or she is Isvara, an 0vatar61, the self in a body, that knows it is the self in a body and is so much the self in a body that it does not think it is the self in a body. "he wankers that call themsel es a atars are not avatars at all because they call themsel es avatars. "here is still someone there to 6be8 something. As it is understood, it is &ust a status in samsara. "here is no samsara for rishis. 7ou only understand this when you are ready to understand it, when it happens to you. (edanta was re ealed by rishis, who are Isvara. "here are always rishis. It is an institution in awareness, an office like Dresident. Deople stop being people and then they are capable of filling the office. 3ut they do not ha e to run for re/election 0> )e only ha e to make this point about the origins of (edanta at the beginning to assure adhikaris62 =who ha e been following the teachings of indi iduals like :isargadatta and %amana, who were men of integrity and the lesser modern luminaries in the so/called Ad aita world> who ha e reali$ed that the 6teachings8 such as they are cannot close the sale. I am working on a new book now and one title that came to me the other day, I probably wonFt choose it, was, 8Awaken from Awakening8 because (edanta is basically for people who ha e tried e erything or tried one thing until it became clear that personal teachings and teachers teaching from their experience canFt close the sale. "hey get you going, introduce you to the concepts but when it comes to moksha they donFt work. "he means of knowledge needs to be impersonal. "here needs to be a methodology. 4nce you are hooked you can see ery clearly that it is a science, that is can only come from consciousness, like e ery great
/1 3ncarnated /2 Cualified see&ers of truth

thing can be understood to be much more that the creation of an indi idual. In any case signing on to the party line about the origins of (edanta is not necessary. If you expose your mind to the teaching it will gradually impro e your life and if you stick with it, you will become free at some point. Isaiah0 And lastly, one more picky !uestion0 what is the real deal with avatars and incarnations? I know you really a oid this !uestion because it can sidetrack people into a spiritual sinkhole when they should really being going for moksha. 3ut again, the concept is in the scripture. And I lo e the scripture and want to know. Deople like Shankara seem to refer to it as being real. Is it &ust a balancing of the creation? 2ausal forces creating a particular kind of teacher for a particular situation? #ames0 I tried to explain it abo e. "he people who bring this knowledge ha e to ha e bodies so they are avatars. An avatar &ust means incarnated. "he effect of the knowledge is to destroy ignorance which is the source of adharma62 so it establishes dharma. 7es, I donFt like the idea because it makes (edanta look like it is a mystical thing. "he way to look at it is as a literary de ice. Although you are right about the Indians. "hey take it literally. It works that way too. 3ut you ha e to more or less be born into the Indian prati*hasika spiritual realm for it to work. From the vyvaharika realm it &ust creates confusion. "his is why I stay away from it.

4idehamukti, the 4edas and Shraddha 5t.6 Isaiah0 "hank you. "hat all made good sense. I suppose the language used in the Mpanishad is another (edantic 6trick8 teaching or &ust hyperbole right? "he wording seemed to imply that the 6-iva8 of a -nani would disappear at 6death.8 As if somehow the causal seeds that created it would somehow dissol e and it would not Etake another birth.E I knew that moksha was knowing you had ne er taken a birth in the first place but I could not understand how the causal seeds that make up a 6-iva8 could e er be destroyed. Since they are only Isvara then they could only be recycled or go dormant correct? %am&i0 "here is only one -iva. It is eternal. It is awareness plus the subtle body. It ne er dies. )hen a particular body dies it 6enters8 another body dri en by the
/# Opposite of dhar!a or lac& of dhar!a

vasanas. %emember, -nani is &ust an idea, like death. "here is no death nor are there -nanis. "here are no actual bodies either. "his teaching is addressed to a suffering someone who does not know he or she is awareness. 6Ceath8 is &ust the end of awareness's apparent identification with the idea of &i ahood, embodiment. "he fly in the ointment of the, 6get enlightened now so you wonFt be reborn and suffer,8 is the fact that nobody remembers who they were. So that 6-iva8 does not sur i e the death of the body. It is a construct specific to a particular incarnation. "he next time around the -iva is someone else. "he vasanas are the same but a new identity is forged out of the new circumstances. 4ne problem is the word -iva. It can refer to awareness plus the subtle body or to the specific identity that is created during a particular birth. "his whole birth and death idea is useless. I define birth as identification with a body and death as freedom from identification. "he only way out of it is to see e erything as awareness. "he whole argument is about something in maya and nothing in maya can be determined to actually exist. Isaiah0 If this is the case then the 6-iva8 that now appears as Isaiah will always appear in me in one form or another. It's karma will cause it to appear in some kind of afterlife when the body dies and then still in some other form when it is reborn, correct? 3ut I, awareness, will always remain unidentified with it. %am&i0 7es. "his birth and death thing is &ust Isvara seeing to it that the creation keeps going. It is an eternal recycling mechanism. At the end of this cosmic cycle the -iva and all the karmasNvasanas go unmanifest and out picture when the next instance of maya is pro&ected. "here is no reality to is. It is all &ust ideas appearing in awareness. )hen you are thinking something else birth and death ha e no reality. "hey only come into existence when the thought of birth and death appears. )hen it disappears they do not exist. Isaiah0 And this perhaps is what you meant by being Isvara right? )hen any lingering vasanas for identification with the 6-iva8 ha e been burnt, then all that remains is 6pure8 Isvara, meaning Isvara operating without any false ideas of identification. "here is no 6personal8 = -iva sristi6/> interference occurring that would apparently pre ent the workings of Isvara for the total. %am&i0 7es. Isaiah0 )hat you said about Shankara really &ust showing the homogenous nature of the (edas made perfect sense. I can see that now. %am&i ,, nagging !uestion +.
/) 5oint of view of the 8iva, or the 8iva's personal world created fro! it's own interpretation of eDperience

Also, your explanation about the taking of certain ideas literally being difficult outside of the Indian prati*hasika spiritual realm also cleared out a long standing confusion I had. %am&i *, nagging !uestion +. I mean I am personally a big de otee of (ishnu, Grishna, %ama and e erything. I really lo e the 1ahabharata and the %amayana. 3ut after a certain point with (edanta, any reason to think those things are literal is null and oid. So I could not really understand why certain excellent Indian (edanta teachers felt any need to make a point about the reality, historicity or literalness of any of those concepts or stories. Anyway, now I see. %am&i0 E ery religious and spiritual person seems to ha e the need to superimpose 6reality8 on his or her ision to &ustify it to his or her self or to others. Satya and mithya donFt meet. Satya stays satya and mithya stays mithya. Satya is like that add for 'as (egas. 6)hat happens in 'as (egas stays in 'as (egas.8 )hen you go home to your wife, the whore you fucked in 'as (egas doesnFt exist. "rying to turn satya into mithya is ignorance. "he designation of 1ahabharata as an itihasa and not a %"rana is an example of this idea in the Indian tradition. It is a %"rana but by tying it to an actual war, writers use historical e ents as the basis for fiction all the time, 6legitimi$es8 it in the idea of people who take mithya to be satya. It is not a good idea, actually because people think that something in mithya is going to be different when they get moksha. It is 4G on one le el as it moti ates them to seek moksha. 3ut seeking moksha with the wrong idea or for the wrong reason worse than not seeking it at all. "he way avatar is presented in the 5ita makes one think the world needs a SMDE%3EI:5 to sol e all its problems.

DECEMBER 2012

7ho cares about non,dual ision) Isaiah0 I thought I would &ust go ahead and email you in case we can't chat for awhile. I'm sure Daul mentioned to you that we ha e talking to each other a lot. It has been ery good. It seemed like we were both a little hung up on the whole Eexperience of enlightenmentE bit, or at least our egos were. Although, after talking to him for the first time, that all really started to clear up. Shortly after that I &ust took a week off from any and all (edanta studies, p"-a or meditation and &ust went completely ra-asi! and tamasi!. I &ust watched action mo ies from the A+'s and ate &unk food. 4ddly enough this is when the whole issue really resol ed. Cespite the ego ob&ecting to apparently unspiritual acti ities, there was &ust this unshakable knowing that I was not changing at all, regardless of anything. In the presence of any acti ities or energies, I was &ust me, unchanging awareness. Curing this time, I went to the grocery store to get some tamasi! pi$$a in preparation for some ra-asi! mo ie watching. Msually, if I ha e an experience of Enon/dual isionE it seems to happen at either the grocery store or Cenny's. 3ut then when I stepped out of the car and looked around e erything looked ery separate. "he stupid/looking redneck with his mongoloid/looking kids were &ust that, a stupid looking redneck with mongoloid kids. "hey did not prompt a feeling of lo e and they definitely appeared separate from me. And that is when the thought appeared, Ewho cares about non/dual ision? I am still unchanging awareness. "his is all me regardless of how it looksNfeels.E It was advaita in spite of dvaita65. And ironically, as an experience it was ery EfreeingE not that it e en mattered. %am0 :ow, you 6got it8 as they say. It does not matter what the ego experiences, dual or non/dualH it is all the same. 7ou, the non/experiencing witness sees. )hat is seen means nothing. It &ust is what it is. Isaiah0 So firstly, the whole wrangling of the ego with a particular kind of EenlightenmentE experience seems to ha e died or at least relaxed a lot. %am0 "hank 5od. It is the number one impediment to peace, the bane of spiritual seekers. Isaiah0 And secondly, it really showed that the knowledge is there working, working, working, despite any particular kind of so called spiritual acti ities such as the
/* <ualit%

=apparently> deliberate application of knowledge to the mind i.e. bringing the mind back to the idea of the self. I think this has really, %EA''7, finally shown the ego that it is the knowledge, not it, that is doing the work. %am0 5reat. It is what I ha e been saying all along0 knowledge, not ego does the work. Isaiah0 )hen the knowledge appears as a conscious thought like, EI am whole and completeE it does. )hen the desire to meditate or study appears it does. )hen it doesn't, it doesn't. :o matter. I am the same. "he knowledge is still working, like a program running in the background. %am0 DerfectL Isaiah0 So I guess it could be said that experientially speaking, the ego is getting on board =and yet, it doesn't matter either way>. %am0 Assuming there is an ego. 7ou are right0 it doesnFt matter. Ego is &ust another thought to which sentiency is ascribed. Isaiah0 E erything that appears can be the perfectly acceptable play of Isvara in me. And Isvara is taking care of e erything rather well so the ego can relax. Also, all of the fears that ha e constrained Isaiah's apparent life are known to be inert ob&ects and therefore do not ha e to be limiting anymore. And anyway, they are &ust me seeming to appear in a form. So nothing to fear. Isaiah and his personality and desires etc. are becoming eminently more acceptable e eryday, as they are known to neither be caused by me or to be affecting me. And since I neither think or ha e opinions then, this seems like it is in fact the ego that is EexperiencingE some degree of freedom or seeing the alue of the application of the freedom in the apparent reality =e en though the ego is ne er actually free>. Derhaps this is what it means when you say the ego signs on? %am0 7our mind is becoming ery subtle =sattvi!> and you are starting to appreciate freedom from the mind, from Isaiah, the ego. From the perspecti e of Isaiah, this is called *hakti, de otion to Isvara. .e trusts Isvara. "he knowledge is loosening the big fear thought that is the ego, putting some 6space8 around it. I suppose you could call it the ego signing on but is there an ego apart from you? "he ego is you and you are the ego. "here is only you and the ego thought appearing and you assigning sentiency to it. If it is sentient, it is &ust another word for the self. If it is insentient, it is 4G to pro&ect sentiency on it for the purposes of communicating a subtle understanding in the

apparent reality. 7ou ha e negotiated your way through these teachings ery nicely, Isaiah. Dersistence pays off. It only gets better and better for 6Isaiah.8 Isaiah0 'ooking o er some of our more recent emails I noticed I still had a confusion o er the whole nature of ignorance and identification. "his is something I wanted to resol e not only for myself but in order to be able to explain it to others as well. I ha e had difficulty wording this !uestion so bear with me. )e can say that, owing to maya, e er free awareness apparently identifies itself with the body, mind, ego. "he !uestion is0 what are the mechanics of this identification? If we say that awareness EthinksE it is an ego by what faculty does it EthinkE? "his seems like awareness has a mind to think with outside of a mind that it is identified with. Co we &ust say, Ewell that's &ust maya. It does incomprehensible things.E %am0 7our statement 6"his seems like awareness has a mind to think with outside of the mind that it is identified with8 is ery excellent. Awareness has all powers, including the power to think. If reality is non/dual and any thinking is taking place, it is awareness thinking. &aya &ust makes it look like something other than awareness is thinking. "his is duality. Awareness thinks by the power of maya. It 6wields8 the power of thought =!hinta shakti>. 7ou are starting to see that you are Isvara. ConFt get a swelled head 0> "here is a notion that because the uni erse is so ast you cannot be Isvara, but the idea that the uni erse is so ast is &ust an idea. :obody e er saw the astness. In fact the astness only has meaning when iewed from the perspecti e of another bit of ignorance expressed in a spatial metaphor. Isvara is &ust a thought too, produced by maya, another (edanta trick to destroy ignorance. (astness, -iva, Isvara, uni erse, maya, etc. are all &ust thoughts, ob&ects in you. It seems the means of knowledge is eating itself up. Isaiah0 4r is it like the relationship between the ego and other ob&ects. "he ego doesn't ha e a mind or any other faculties, it is &ust an inert thought in the mind. 7et, it still owns or identifies with other thoughts, actions and ob&ects. %am0 See the problem of wordsL "he ego is 6inert8 but it 6owns.8 It 6identifies.8 4wnership and identification are the mechanics of maya. Isaiah0 %egarding ignorance, again we can say the self is apparently ignorant. "his means it is EhiddenE from itself and then it identifies with pro&ected, or superimposed ob&ects. Since the mind can still entertain ignorant thoughts after awareness knows itself as awareness then what role does remo ing ignorance actually play?

%am0 6Actually play8 with reference to what? Ignorance is &ust a play. 3ecause you are awareness you can see it working. Isaiah0 Co we &ust say, that owing to maya, a certain amount of apparent ignorance has to be apparently remo ed to let the self apparently re/identify with itself? %am0 7es. Ignorance is not bad if you know what it is. I see it operating in me and it is 4G. It makes things interesting. Isaiah0 "he pramana has to remo e a certain amount of apparent ignorant thoughts and apparent doubts and then the self apparently is freed from its identification. "his all happens in the mind, a certain tipping point we could say, when enough ignorance has been remo ed. So there is a EhappeningE at the prati*asika le el that apparently allows the self to seem to free itself. %am0 5ood thinking. 7es. Freedom is seeming freedom because the self was ne er bound in the first place. "he pramana &ust takes away enough ignorance to expose the mechanism of ignorance. Ignorance, duality is fine. )hen we say ignorance is destroyed by knowledge we only mean that it is understood for what it is. Isaiah0 )e can say that EenlightenmentE does happen in the mind as a remo al of a certain amount of ignorance. 3ut as the mind is inert, and e en though apparent knowledge then appears in the mind, the enlightenment does not correlate to any apparent knowledge. It is only the self =apparently> re/cogni$ing itself, regardless of any knowledge appearing in the mind. "his is why any manner of thoughts can appear in the mind Epost enlightenmentE and it doesn't matter. %am0 7es. 3rilliant. Are you angling for my &ob? # 7ou can ha e it. I am ready to go fishing. Isaiah0 .owe er, this 6e ent8 does in fact depend on a certain apparent happening such as remo al of apparent ignorance. )ithout remo al of ignorance, the self does not know itself as itself alone. Is the right explanation of the Ee ent of enlightenmentE at the vyvaharika or prati*asika le el? %am0 7es. Isaiah0 'astly, I wanted to ask you about teaching. I think before I asked you about the !ualifications for being a teacher. Dartially, I was talking about temperament.

4therwise I was talking about preparation. #ust as there is a systematic way to learn about the self, is there a systematic way to learn how to teach the self? %am0 7es, &ust memori$e the logic unfolded in my book. 7ou get the big picture, then within each teaching you unfold the logic of that teaching. "o teach on the indi idual le el you ha e to recogni$e the problem first, then you apply the specific teaching and from there you branch out into related teachings. .ip bone connected to the thigh bone. )hen you teach groups you ha e to &ust unfold the logic of a particular teaching, say knowledge and experience. 7ou need to ha e the logic down or they will eat you up. 7ou ha e to intimidate them with the logic. (edanta is a sharp sword. 7ou ha e to brandish ery aggressi ely and they will &ust roll o er. 7ou need to outshine the occasionally brilliant one that challenges you. And you need to recogni$e the trouble makers and send them packing, ne er try to 6sa e8 them. 'et them bump up against Isvara for a while until they soften up. 7ou need to make them reali$e how ignorant they are. It is like those old )estern mo ies where the gunslinger shows up in town and does some fancy draws and hits a beer bottle fifty yards away. E eryone thinks, 6)owL I canFt go up against that.8 Isaiah0 Daul and I had discussed this a bit and he said that by merit of being taught by you we ha e already learned a lot about how to teach. %am0 3oth of you will make great teachers. "he king is handing o er the kingdom to the princes. Isaiah0 "his did make sense. I &ust wasn't completely sure. 3efore, the nature of our relationship as guru and disciple was one of you wielding the knowledge to point to my true nature as awareness and then remo ing my doubts. :ow that I know who I am, I wondered what is the nature of our relationship now? I feel like there is still a lot you can teach me. Since I want to teach, do you now teach me how to do that? 4r am I, as 2hinmaya might say, Etaking up aluable real estate?E %am0 Ask your !uestions. I will tell you what I know. Isaiah0 At this point I ha e watched all of your ideos, read your book a couple times, listened to your audio talks and read most all of the satsangs. I had had an interest in starting to study the Mpanishads but wasn't sure how necessary this was. I wanted to study them more in depth out of lo e for scripture but when I started, I saw they were &ust saying what you ha e already taught me. So it seems that the application of studying those other texts =and the 3rahma sutras, etc> is more for (edanta scholarship

than for application to teaching. 5ranted, I will still study them e entually but it doesn't seem as important at the moment. )hat do you think? Daul and I ha e discussed this a bit. .e has probably told you that we plan on going through Cayananda's 3.5. home study course together this year. 7ou had also sent me Daramarthananda's audio series on the 3.5. so I was going to listen to it while we went through the text. Daul's opinion, and I tend to agree, is that the 3.5. co ers e erything one would need to teach. .owe er, I was a little skeptical as it doesn't go into the three states, pan!ha koshas66, three bodies etc. like the 1andukya, "aittreya or Atma and "att a bodha. "hat being said, I know these prakriyas pretty well because you ha e already taught them to me, so it may be a moot point. I was &ust wondering what your thoughts were regarding what texts or what order of texts would be the most beneficial for continued study? %am0 7ou canFt beat the 3haga ad 5ita. It has it all. And because it is a story it has added appeal. E erything that a beginner needs to know is in it. It ties *hakti and -nana and karma up in a nice package. Jiva and Isvara. Satya, mithya. Except for the three states it has e erything. It is big on the $"nas which is e en more useful than the three states. 7ou can always unfold the three states when you teach it. "here are places where it fits in.

2ungry knowledge Isaiah0 I wanted to talk about the knowledge Eeating itself upE as you said. "hat really puts into words something that has been happening lately. It seems like the means of knowledge is EcollapsingE into itself, so to speak. 1any of the dualistic sadhanas and concepts are dissol ing. 4ther subtle thoughts of duality are being exposed and eliminated. For instance, I noticed that the mind still wants to do what I call, 6&ump back.8 It still wants to go into 6witness mode.8 I guess this is a habit from the sadhana of watching the mind. "he mind notices it is engrossed in ob&ects, catches itself, and then wants to step back and witness. 3ut there is no point to this as I am always witnessing. I am witnessing the mind witnessing.
// The five sheaths

3ut this line of thinking in turn exposes a subtle duality0 "hat there is still me, awareness, and the mind I am watching. %am&i0 Cuality is fine. 7ou see it. If it dissol es or doesnFt dissol e, it has nothing to do with you. Isaiah0 "his is where the pramana is dissol ing. "here is no more viveka67 correct? 3ecause there is nothing to discriminate between. :o anatman67. #ust atman. Any tendency of the mind to discriminate is &ust a habit from the sadhana and is unnecessary right? %am&i0 7es. Isaiah0 It is the ego still hanging onto the idea of practicing knowledge. 4nce the belief in duality is remo ed then the basis of the idea of discrimination is lost. Ciscrimination re!uires duality. %am&i0 2orrect. Isaiah0 Also, any of the concepts regarding creation, vasanas, the $"nas, the mechanics of action and the field can all dissol e. "hey are a pro isional acceptance of something untrue. 5ranted, I can perfect my usage of these teachings for the benefit of others but I know them to be meaningless. %am&i0 7es. (edanta is a throw/a/way. It does its &ob and then dissol es. :o actions are re!uired. "he doer has been negated. Isaiah0 "here is not e en any mithya. "here is &ust satya. "here can't be a mithya, or awareness with a pro&ection superimposed on it. 3ecause the pro&ection can only be unchanging satya. %am&i0 4ne hundred percent of the pot is clay. Isaiah0 7es, experience of mithya remains. 3ut there can't e en be awareness and then also experience separate from it. )hat can be unreal when there is only the real? So e en the ideas of satya<mithya dissol e. Funny enough, there is a reser ation in the mind to this idea because it has gotten so used to practicing it. 3ut really, what use is
/0 <iscri!ination /1 Aot(self

discrimination when there is nothing to discriminate between? %am&i0 7es, again. "here is no need for a doer, a discriminator. A remnant of the doer feels strange without something to do. Isaiah0 "his too e en exposes a remaining dualistic line of thinking. "he whole talk of me, and 6my mind.8 "here is &ust me. "his ties into our discussion about awareness ha ing all powers, including the power to think. 3ut again, the mind has a reser ation to this idea and I suppose it's another relic of the sadhana. It wants to keep using the discrimination of Eme, and the thoughts.8 3ut if there is thinking, then I am thinking. I am ha ing a reser ation to certain ideas and I also know that I am not ha ing any reser ations. "he knowledge eliminates all contradiction between awareness and experience. "his finally 6heals8 that fracture between the two. A fracture that the mind had been holding on to due to being used to practicing an apparent discrimination. %am&i0 (ery good, Isaiah. 7es. Isaiah0 I may not be articulating this correctly and I may be repeating myself. 3ut the bottom line is that this seems to be the knowledge eating itself up. 4r the stick being thrown into the fire after stirring it. It's like the momentum of the practice of discrimination winding down. %am&i0 7ou are articulating it correctly and repeating yourself and it is good. "here is not e en moksha any more. "here is &ust you. Isaiah0 In the last email you talk about the astness of the uni erse only being an idea that appears in awareness. :o one has e er seen the astness. "his makes perfect sense but prompts another !uestion. It's a gi en that anything that exists anywhere would ha e to appear in awareness. Fair enough. 3ut does anything actually exist apart from when it is percei ed? %am&i0 For whom? "here is only awareness and if ob&ects appear they ha e to be awareness. 4b&ects are &ust thoughts in awareness and the thoughts are awareness taking shape. &aya makes them appear to be 6out there8 but they arenFt. If you take the subtle body to be real, then the ob&ects it percei es in the waking state, which are not there in deep sleep, are still there. Isvaras creation endures. Isaiah0 "he reason I ask this is because it seems like there would be no actual way to

pro e this. If I fall asleep does my body actually exist apart from it being percei ed? )hen it is not appearing in awareness how could it be pro en that it still exists? )e could say that I could wake up and ask somebody. 3ut e en then, if they tell me they saw my body there sleeping, that response would only then appear in awareness and not pro e there was actually a body there. E en if someone showed me a ideo of myself sleeping, again, that idea of a ideo of myself sleeping then appears in awareness. It does not pro e that the body continuously existed outside of the perception of it. It appeared, disappeared in sleep and then reappeared in the ideo. %am&i0 "hatFs correct. "here is nothing outside awareness. If awareness is not there, there are no ob&ects. And since awareness is always present, the potential for ob&ects exists because of maya. Isaiah0 "his scenario could be repeated ad infinitum. I can ask you, 6.ey %am&i, do you exist when I don't percei e you?E And certainly you would say yes. 3ut the only thing that I am sure exists is when I percei e the occurrence of you telling me that you exist, not your existence apart from my perception of you. %am&i0 4b&ects are sub&ect dependent. "he sub&ect is not ob&ect dependent. Isaiah0 If I say there are ob&ects existing apart from my perception then it means there are other minds 6out there8 in awareness percei ing them. 3ut &ust like the uni erse that no one has e er actually percei ed remains an idea, the existence of anything apart from my perception of it &ust remains an idea. )hen it is not percei ed it does not exist. %am&i0 "he issue is 6exist for whom?8 It exists for Isvara. It doesnFt exist for -iva. 3ut e en then, nobody e er saw an Isvara or a -iva. "hey only exist as concepts and concepts only exist when they are illumined by awareness. Isaiah0 "his being the case, the idea of an empirical reality deflates. "he vyvaharika is &ust whate er happens to be appearing in my mind at the moment. It isn't there when I don't percei e it, e en if I percei e someone telling me that it does. "his almost e okes a scary feeling of being totally alone. "hat you are the only being li ing in a pri ate world. 1aybe this is what you mean when you say that knowing you are awareness can seem lonely, because there is only you. Shit, my head hurts. %am&i0 7es, this is how it is and it may feel lonely if there is a doer remnant that wants

to be connected to something. 3ut this 6aloneness8 is an ama$ing unconditioned fullness, a fullness that keeps thoughts and feelings far away dancing lightly on the surface of awareness. Isaiah0 "he last part in this line of thought is0 Ewhy does my mind appear in me and not someone else's?E )hy does a mind with a -, year old white guy in it appear and not something or somebody else?E 3ut again, the idea that there is something else, or another mind etc. to percei e is &ust that, an idea. Shit, my head hurts again. %am&i0 "he perception of ob&ects depends on the "padhi. E ery "padhi is different owing to the differences in time, place and circumstances of indi idual -ivas so what appears in my perception only appears in my perception. )hat appears in yours only appears in yours. 7ou cannot superimpose satya on mithya. Isaiah0 It's not necessarily a bad thing =what is bad anyway?>, but it seems like e erything is imploding or folding in on itself. %am&i0 "hatFs cool. 4r not, if you want to be ignorant. Seems the seeking and finding phase of your spiritual life is o er, Isaiah. Isaiah0 If I ha e gone off the rails then please reign me in with your sage counsel. %am&i0 67ou8 ha e gone off the rails if you think you ha e gone off the rails. Actually, you are the rails so no need to worry. 7ou are fine, Isaiah. "he seeking, the finding, etc. e erything is o er. It is clear to both of us that there is &ust you.

JANUARY 201>

4edantic ducks #ames0 )e are going to post the names of some 6finders8 like you who ha e an interest in sharing =teaching> and wonder if you would like to ha e yours added to the list. I think you ha e your (edantic ducks in line and would be of benefit to seekers. Isaiah0 7es, I would lo e to be added to the list. Sign me upL I had my first satsang the other day. It was with a friend of mine who has been going through your book. Gnowing you are awareness and explaining it to someone are two different things entirely. Especially when someone is &ust asking you random !uestions instead of following the teaching logically from step one to step two etc. .owe er, e erything went well and my friend seemed pleased. It was fun and a great learning experience for both of us.

& formal re'uest Isaiah0 Daul and I ha e been exchanging our email correspondences with you and Sundari between the two of us. Since we both ha e similar or related !uestions it has been pretty helpful. So be forewarned, don't tell Daul you like him more than me because I will hear about it 0> In one of Sundari's email's to Daul she wrote0 'Isaiah needs to approa!h "s if he #ants to tea!h and for "s to endorse him@ I kno# 8am-i has s"$$ested it to him and #e are happy he is takin$ it serio"sly+ I wasn't sure what this meant. 3ut I pondered it and thought that perhaps I had not formally asked you for permission to teach. "hat being said, I want you to know that I understand that if I start teaching I will be ,> %epresenting Shiningworld and the work you ha e put into it *> Fortunate to ha e access to a wealth of your teaching material =book, website, etc.> -> %epresenting you by claiming you as my guru. I also understand that I ha e no teaching of my own. "here is only (edanta. It is not mine. "hat is why it works. )hen gi ing thanks for you as my own teacher, I always pray that I will be a competent link in the chain of the tradition.

So, %am&i, thank you for guiding, teaching and setting me free. And for gi ing the me the tools to be able to teach. I respectfully re!uest your permission to help carry on the tradition. #ames0 7ou will make a good teacher. I ha e total confidence in you. 7ou ha e the right idea and your head is screwed on straight. I am preparing an essay about teaching now that will be ready in a week or so, 'ord willing and the creek don't rise. It' no big deal, really.

(ew teacher worries Isaiah0 "he newsletter looks great. %am's article is excellent and I really en&oyed it. Also, your listing of the !ualifications was ery helpful. I think I will post them up at my house. It would be really cool if %am&i started formally teaching how to teach. I hope that someday I can make it o er to Spain. Sundari0 "hanks so much Isaiah, I am so glad that you en&oyed #ames' article which is of course brilliant 0> and that the !ualifications are helpful. )e are talking a great deal about starting a teaching schoolH it &ust keeps coming up now. )e are not sure when this will happen as we desperately need a base to settle into and to sort our li es out. )e ha e not had our own space for o er a year now and with things going the way they are with Shiningworld, there is no way we can cope without a dedicated place anymore. "here is so much happening. )e can see the writing on the wall thoughH Isvara wants this so it will most likely happen. Spain is ery exciting and we can't wait to get thereL 7ou will be coming o er, no doubt 0> Isaiah0 'ately, I ha e become more acutely aware of negati eNdysfunctional tendencies in my personality. Especially since I will soon be dealing with students I really wanted to make sure I was doing what was needed to clean these tendencies up. )hat I wanted to ask you was0 what is the best way to do it? For instance, the scripture says that knowledge is the greatest purifier. Sometimes this sounds like you &ust sit back and the understanding that the tendencies ha e nothing to do with you clears them up. .owe er, seeing as certain teachers end up ha ing problems this doesn't seem to be the case. "hen of course you ha e tri$"na vi*hava yoga. Is this real the way to do it? I think this is a great yoga, although I am not always sure I am applying it correctly. In other words, I am not always sure what acti ities or actions are always the appropriate

response. For instance, I noticed that my ery common =mental> response to many things is anger, irritation and e en blame. I also noticed a sense of dissatisfaction. "his all seemed like ra-as. So I ha e been trying to do more sattvi! acti ities =meditation, worship, -apa> and a oiding some of the ra-asi! ones =getting too busy, watching certain mo ies, eating certain foods etc>. I also ha e also started consciously applying the karma yoga attitude again. Sundari0 )hat do you mean by Ebest way to do it?E )ho is doing anything? All you ha e to do to teach or to reali$e the self is get out of the way. Cealing with Isaiah's psychology or teaching (edanta is not about perfecting the -iva, any more than it is so for self/reali$ation It means that Isaiah has acknowledged what 6his8 binding asanas are, that they do not belong to him and that they do not work for moksha, which is freedom from Isaiah, as you know. Self knowledge does do the work, but that does not mean that Isaiah does not take appropriate action. .e &ust knows that he is not the doer. 7ou are talking here as Isaiah and then as the self, acillating between satya and mithya. 7ou know all the answers to all of this, or you would not be ob&ectifying it. I was going to answer e erything point by point but I don't think it is necessary. %am&i and I feel that you are &ust o er conscientious and worried about being good enough as a teacher. %emember that %am's article and my !ualifications are guidelinesH one does not ha e to be and cannot be a 6perfect8 teacher. It is not necessaryH you must ha e noticed by now that %am&i makes a point of making his failings known, e en exaggerating them so that people don't put him on a pedestal. .e wants to come across as a person with his !uirks, not as some ideali$ed ersion of what a teacher should be. 7ou will find your oice and your feet as a teacher by teaching and you will gain the confidence as you go along, there is no other way. )hat do you mean by Ethe real way to do it?E And who is asking this !uestion? As the self, there is nothing to do and you are what is real. As Isaiah, is he the self under the spell of ignorance or is he the self no longer under the spell of ignorance? As the former, he will be identified with his likes and dislikes and take them to be real. As the latter, he will not be identified with the likes and dislikes and know that they are not real, only he, awareness is. .e will know that they do not belong to him and in order to make them non/binding, he simply needs to acknowledge how they operate and either choose a counter action or no action, but either way, he will know action in inaction and inaction in action. In other words, it is all Isvara. Anger, irritation, dissatisfaction, blame all belong to ra-o$"na as you correctly point out. 7ou are the knower of these feelings. 62hoosing8 sattva as the $"na springboard for a pure mind is simply following your nature as the self, which means following dharma.

Garma yoga is &ust knowledgeH it is understanding awareness and the apparent reality from the -iva,s point of iew. It is totally pragmatic and the most sensible way for anyone to li e because it is obser ably true and there is no denying the fact that no/one is in control of anything. 4nce the knowledge is firm, you no longer need to apply karma yoga because you are itH karma yoga is for doers. "o teach it you need to understand what it is, which you do. "he same applies to tri$"na vi*hava yogaH once you know what the $"nas are and how they function knowledge does the work, but once again this does not mean one does not take appropriate action as a non/doer. "his is where (edanta differs from other paths. (edanta is both a means of knowledge, a pathless path, and a path of action, meaning that it pro ides tools and the instructions how to use them, which when applied rigorously and with dedication will remo e ignorance and its effects. It will set you free. Isaiah0 I noticed in the newsletter it talked about Suddhananda not facing his vasanas. I &ust wondered0 how do you not face a vasana? 4r rather, how do you face a vasana? Is it &ust not ignoring it? For him, it was sexual. I guess that would be ra-asi!. Cid he &ust need to culti ate more sattva or was it something else? Sundari0 It is not a !uestion of doing something to get some desired effectH it is the understanding that what you are doing, i.e indulging the vasana, does not work. It only causes suffering. Suddhananda ne er examined this because his need for lo e was too great and the vasana controlled him. 7es, you face a vasana by staring it in the face, knowing it is not you but that it will condition the subtle body until such time as the samskara61 that holds it in place is released through self knowledge. "his sounds like a doing but actually it is notH seeing as Isaiah ne er put the vasana there in the first place and did not create the $"nas, Isaiah cannot take it away. 4nly Isvara can. 4nce the appropriate actions ha e been taken, such as lifestyle ad&ustments, examining of alues etc, then you will be following dharma. 1editation and prayer definitely helps and is part and parcel of karma yoga. Co you know that Suddhananda ne er taught the vasanas or $"nas? )e know people here in "iru who supported him for years, had him in their home, thought he was a friend as well as their guru and they ne er heard him use the word vasana or $"naL Co you think that maybe he was in denial? It seems to be such a contradiction because you did not make Isaiah the way he is, but without acknowledging the way Isvara made him you will ne er be free of Isaiah and the vasanas that condition him and cause suffering. It is not a real contradiction as it resol es itself when you fully understand the Isvara<-iva aikyam73. 7ou need to get this one straight to teach it, as it is what confuse e eryone the most. #ust understand the
/2 Group of unconscious =causal> tendencies =vasanas> 04 6elationship of 3svara and Eiva i.e. their inherent sa!eness as awareness

distinction between Isvara referring to paramatman71 and Isvara referring to maya, the sameness of -iva<Isvara and the difference between Isvara<-iva. i.e discrimination between satya and mithya. In teaching this you will ha e to define the -iva, Isvara and awareness and discuss in which ways they are different and in which ways they are the same. In Suddhananda' s case the desire was huge ra-as and the denial of course, tamas. .e was busy with the ladies for o er *+ years and organi$ed such elaborate schemes to get away with it, it boggles the mind. If he had been able to identify the $"nas and therefore this vasana honestly through self knowledge, knowing that he did not put it there and it was not 6his,8 and most importantly, it did not work but only caused suffering, he would ha e stepped down as a teacher and cleaned up his actH this is following dharma. .e should probably ha e been a householder first before becoming a teacher. .is ego walled off this vasana and somehow the tamas remained in place for all those years to conceal and deny not only the tamas, but the ra-as0 unfulfilled desire that became all/consuming raging desire that e entually spiraled out of control and took him down. Isaiah0 Furthermore, I ha e also noticed some manipulati e tendencies, a tendency to be furti e about things and to try to hide some of my negati e !ualities and present a certain face to people. Sundari0 "his is tamas. So what? If you know this, is it really you? As -iva,s we are all mixed bags, no matter how enlightened or not we are. "he point is knowing that these !ualities do not belong to you, but lo ing Isaiah unconditionally all the same. Con't waste time wanting him to be different or 6pure.8 Isaiah0 So in the spirit of facing that and going against it I wanted to say a few things. Sundari0 )hat do mean Egoing against it?E )ho is going against what? Isaiah only has an apparent existence and he definitely cannot go up against Isvara. As the self there is nothing to go up against because you are Isvara. So, it is Isaiah's nature to be a bit manipulati e and furti e, =tamas> 4G. If that is harming you or anyone else then take a good look at the alue that underpins that $"na and drop it. )hat does Isaiah think he gains from that beha ior and why does he need it? 3e igilant when it rears its head again =which it will> and keep dropping it. 2onsecrate it to Isvara. "his is following dharma. If it is no big deal and &ust part of Isaiah's apparent personality, see it when it appears and make a &oke about it, say Eoh, there's tamas again, the -iva is feeling
01 The self

insecure again, what a bore,E or something like that. )e -ivas are a funny lot, really. Iuite entertaining. %am&i and I ha e our !uirks and rag each other about them all the time, no big deal. So we laugh about it, and we see it as, E4h there goes the silly -iva again, how cuteE 4% Edamn this stupid -iva is irritatingLE 0> It's 4G to be human as a -iva. .eck, this place would be seriously boring without a bit of dualityL Isaiah0 First, awhile back I became aware that I was feeling some ambition about this teaching thing. 3ecause ,> I felt it was actually worth doing and I lo ed it *> I didn't especially care for my &ob -> I don't ha e interest in anything else, I was hoping that I would be able to do the teaching thing full time and not do anything else. I ne er thought about charging people for the teaching but I was hoping that in time I'd be able to teach enough classes or write enough to be able to support myself. 3ut about a week or two ago, the ambition thing pretty much wore off but I wanted to mention it all the same. Sundari0 )ho is talking here? Are you identified with Isaiah? If you knew that you were being manipulati e, furti e and ambitious, were you really being these things? Again, remember that it is not about perfecting the -iva in order to teach (edanta. (edanta is &ust about teaching others to discriminate between the self and the 6not self.8 7ou can make it clear to people that knowing who you are does not mean that you are a perfect. If it is your nature to teach and Isvara is prompting it, you will find yourself with the desire to do so, and not much else will satisfy you. "his is your svadharma. It is natural for the ego to ha e something to say about it because it is worried that you won't be good enough at it or be able to make a li ing at it. "hat's 4G too, &ust surrender those thoughts to 3haga an and allow him to do your life. It is much easier. Isaiah0 Second, I notice a sense of superiority, as if self knowledge were special. "his isn't extremely strong but I don't want to e en pro&ect that on a subtle le el. Sundari0 (edanta is the most powerful tool there is as far as self knowledge goes. It ne er belongs to the -iva, but it if the ego is insecure, it can and often does try to co/opt the knowledge, causing spiritual anity. It is natural for the ego to feel a bit superior when it starts to 6get it8 and climb on board with the idea that self knowledge is a good thing. If you know that it is doing this, it is not a big deal. 'ike I said in my newsletter, a touch of enlightenment sickness is not a problem if 6you8 know that you ha e it. It will go away because you are too sincere and too honest for it not to. %am&i said that he went through a ery brief period of feeling superior with a touch of enlightenment sicknessH but he knew it, so it was soon gone for good.

Isaiah0 7esterday, as I sat and talked to my friend about (edanta, the full import of the responsibility and integrity it re!uires to teach became e er so clear. Sundari0 It is freaky to start out teaching this stuff because the ego gets performance anxiety. "his lineage is so ast, so old and so unassailably powerful. 4nce the knowledge is firm and the ego no longer feels so ulnerable, the confidence that comes with the knowledge allows it to take anything on. 3efore you open your mouth to share anything with anyone, say a prayer and offer it to Isvara and ask that Isvara teach through you. 7ou are a karma yogi as a teacher and you are sacrificing your knowledge for the world, for Isvara. It is in ser ice to lo e, which is you. Isaiah0 And then I read o er the newsletter. )hile I know that the person can only be relati ely pure, I want to make sure I ha e all my ducks in a row. I want to polish my mind as clean as possible. If you ha e any comments on what I said abo e or any pointers on how to work it out, I would appreciate it. Sundari0 )ho has to be pure? 7ou are the self, remember, you are purity itself. Isaiah does not need fixing, he is fine the way he is. .e is not a monster or likely to harm anyone in anyway. 7our ducks are in a row, they are &ust a bit !uacky and &umpy, they will calm down not to worry. .is knowledge of the scripture is excellent, he is totally dedicated and committed to it, lo es it more than anything. .e has pretty good self/ esteem, a great mindP. and a pretty sage/like looking beardL :ot to mention that he has a serious babe for a wife who adores him and pretty cool looking dogs who lo e him too. "hings can't be that bad. #ust remember this0 being self reali$ed is not a magic pill for the ego. It will take time and patience to burn off the effects of ignorance. 7ou know I had a sign up in my home before I met %am&i, only to find that it was the exact saying that 2hinmaya used repeatedly0 E"he price of freedom is constant igilance.8 Self in!uiry does not end with moksha, this is what actuali$ation is about.

Still worried) Isaiah0 "hank you, your response cleared e erything up. %e/reading my email I can see that I used some imprecise language and didn't frame my !uestions ery clearly. I think I could ha e summed most of it up with the !uestion0 .ow can I become self actuali$ed when I am not a person or a doer? 4f course, I can't be self actuali$ed because I am actually the self. And because of that, what apparently happens in mithya neither affects me or concerns me. .owe er, the apparent person remains making apparent

decisions and performing apparent actions. Addressing their unhelpful tendencies may ha e some relati e alue, rather than ignoring them. "hat being said, how does one 6do8 that as a non/doer? Anyway, I think you answered this !uestion ery comprehensi ely. I really appreciate it. Sundari0 I am glad my email helped, howe er you say it answered all your !uestions, but you are basically asking the same !uestion again? "he answer is Isaiah does not do it, Isvara does. First, one has to acknowledge the vasana, the alue that underpins it and the $"na that go erns it, while dis/identifying with it as not belonging to the -iva, but to Isvara. "hen you decide what action is right for you as a -iva, assuming peace of mind is your goal, and then &ust follow dharma. Co the action, or not, and lea e it up to Isvara. It is ery simple0 if you want a sattvi! mind, you need a sattvi! lifestyle. "o achie e this, 6you8 ha e to address ra-as and tamas in whate er form they manifest in Isaiah's life. If you don't address them, Isaiah will suffer. 'ike I said in my email, it is a seeming contradiction because as Isvara made the -iva the way it is, only Isvara can change it. .owe er, the -iva is really the self under the spell of ignorance and self/reali$ation means that you know that you are not the -iva, although the -iva remains in the apparent reality. "his is the whole thing with the -iva<Isvara identity, e eryone gets hung up on it because it takes some understanding to get your head around it. 'ike you say, how can you actuali$e when you are actually real? .aha, I like thatL "he answer is again simple0 because the -iva remains the -iva, e en though it is self reali$ed and self/actuali$ed =or not>. "he thing with mithya is that it does not go awayH it may be only apparently real, but ignore it at your peril. It does not work to impose satya on mithya. It's a bitch if you don't know this and it is a whole lot more fun to be self/ actuali$ed than not. "he thing is not to make a mountain out of a molehillH Isaiah will ne er be perfect, if there is such a thing, which there isn't, in the apparent reality. Imagine, a perfect person, how boring. 7uck. 7ou need to accept the things that you cannot or need not change about Isaiah and lo e him the way he is. 'ike I said, we are all mixed bags as -ivas and that's fine. %am&i has had a lot of criticism aimed at him o er the years because he does not conform to anyone's idea of who he 6should8 be as a person or as a guru. Firstly, he knows he is not the person, secondly he lo es himself unconditionally because he knows the person is really ha$avan, and thirdly he has rendered the binding vasanas non/binding, he is truly free of #ames. .e is fine with #ames being #ames and is really ery fond of the funny man. 3ut he made a decision when he reali$ed the self o er ;+ years ago to ad&ust his likes and dislikes to achie e A:C

maintain a sattvi! lifestyle and has kept it to this day. "his is why he hardly e er gets sick and has not had a bad day for ;+ years. =Except I broke his record a while back and ga e him a bad day 0> > .e was ruthless with rooting out ra-as =mostly> and also tamas.

!rial by fire Sundari0 )ell let's not waste any time and get the ball rollingL "his email came in yesterday, I am going to reply to it and we would like all of you to do the same. )e would like you then to send your replies to us and once we ha e read them, we will send them back to you and you can send him your replies directly. "his is so that you can start ha ing a personal relationship with the people who write in, and in time, people who write in will chose who they want to write to. All the replies from the endorsees will be posted in a separate section we will create on the website before the next e/satsang upload. Isaiah0 4kay, here's my best shot. )hen I first saw this satsang I blanched. "rial by fireL 3ut I said a little prayer and let it rip. It took me fore erL RRRRRRRRR #ack0 Cear #ames Swart$, I' e been going through ideos of your talks for awhile now. "hank you for it all. I'm curious about a few things though. 7ou mentioned something about a past life and seemed !uite sure when you mentioned it. .ow were you so sure that you had that past life? Is it helpful to know about a past life? I know that through C:A I am somewhat of an incarnation of my grandfather, and my life has a lot of strong parallels with his too e en though he died before me and I ne er got to meet him. Sometimes I think I may something more than &ust C:ANvasanas passing through the generations. Isaiah0 .i #ackL :o, it is not pertinent to self in!uiry to know about past li es. "he best way to iew the reincarnationNrebirth thing is as the continual identification of yourself, the sub&ect =awareness>, with the ob&ects that appear in you i.e. thoughts, feelings, memories, dreams, a body. )hat is said to be reborn is the body and the mind. 3ut are these you? "he body and

the mind are known to you, awareness, so they cannot be you. "hey are unconscious and you are conscious, so they cannot be you. "hey are also impermanent and unreal =meaning changing>, and you are what is real and unchanging so they cannot be you. 7ou, awareness, were ne er born and therefore cannot be reborn. #ack0 )hen you talk about people complaining about the world, I think about all of the people around me who are like that. )hen you talk about people in Dortland, 4regon &ust sitting around in the coffee shops complaining about life and not en!uiring, I see that around me where I currently am, in (ancou er. I think there is a ery similar culture here. I want them all to shut up. "hey're complaining about the world, so I complain about the world because it contains them. )hy do I complain about complainers? Isaiah0 %eality is non/dual, so if there are EothersE then they would ha e to be you. "his is a great opportunity to see others as the self and to practice karma yoga i.e. trying to perform appropriate actions for what you want, offering your actions to the self and accepting whate er results come as a gift. 3ecause what you want is a pure mind for in!uiry. )anting the world to be different than it is causes agitation in the mind and hinders in!uiry. #ack0 Also, what about all this other beha ior that people display that's not dharmi!? It seems that e ery time I hear you say something about some sort of ignorant beha ior, I see it plainly with family and friends. .ow can the world be perfect if these people beha e this way? Isaiah0 A perfect world means a perfectly ordered world. E erything in maya works according to set rules and laws. Action is done and results are gi en. Cue to ignorance, people do perform adharmi! actions, which could be iewed as imperfection. 3ut e en the imperfection is perfect. Suffering, as you know, is one of the greatest teachers and the most potent moti ator for seeking freedom. .appy people do not seek freedom. #ack0 Speaking of complainers and adharmi! =?> beha ior. 7ou mention certain types of people that it's better not to hang around. 1y mom comes to mind, as does my sister. )hat happens when these people are your family? I can barely stand to be in my mom's presence sometimes. It's not nice to say, but she's ery ulgar, she has a complete ictim complex, she can be racist, she blatantly accuses people of doing the things that she does herself, she has addictions, she blatantly ignores her doctor's ad ice, etc.

Isaiah0 See the answer abo e about karma yoga. Msing that, it does not matter what results you get from your mother, good or bad, because you are going for a pure mind. #ack0 I'm going to be mo ing to a different country, and I' e li ed away from her a lot. Dart of me &ust wants to completely forget her, but part of me feels there are obligations as her son to see her often and listen to her, despite hating what comes out of her mouth, feeling like I'm being complacent by listening to it. Isaiah0 "he apparent person can't run away from their stuff. It must be faced and dealt with appropriately. If it is not, it will &ust come up in a different form at another time and place. "his is not because the apparent person is bad or needs impro ement, (edanta says you are fine as you are. It is &ust that once again, you need a mature, pure mind for in!uiry. #ack0 %egarding ancestor worship, lately I' e gi en a hard look at my family tree, doing some research, finding gra es, thinking about these people and their li es. 4n the one hand it seems respectful, but on the other it seems to tie me to an identity in maya. Isaiah0 Ancestor worship is &ust to heal any emotional problems the apparent you has with it's family. Emotional hangups hinder in!uiry. An attitude of thankfulness for your ancestors making e erything possible for 6you8 to be here helps to remo e those hangups. If you think it ties you to your identity in maya, ask yourself how you know that. If it is known to you that you are identified with an apparent identity, are you? If it is an ob&ect known to you, how can it be you? #ack0 Sometimes I also don't get the basic idea that happiness is my true nature. I don't understand why happiness gets to stay with awareness, yet other things are &ust maya. )hy isn't happiness &ust part of maya too? If happiness was my true nature, then wouldn't I always be happy because I'm always awareness? 1y experience seems to show otherwise. I'm not always happy or content. Isaiah0 "he happiness (edanta speaks of is not a feeling. Awareness is described as ananda, which is referred to as bliss, sometimes gi ing rise to the notion that is is experiential. 3ut the more appropriate word is ananta, meaning ha ing no end, no limits. Another word used is p"rnah, fullness. As awareness you are not limited by the maya appearing in you and you are whole and complete. &aya is a duality, therefore there will be pleasureNpain, happinessNsorrow etc. #ack is a part of that so he will be sub&ect to those constant changes. )hen you say you are not

happy or content, you are referring to the ob&ect, #ack, that is known to you, limitless awareness. 7ou are always free of #ack. #ack0 %egarding the body being an ob&ect, why can I feel my body, but can't feel what it's like to ha e someone else's body? If my body is &ust like anyone else's body, an ob&ect in maya, what is this special connection to this one specific body about? I sit here and feel my body, yet watch other bodies pass by. I don't feel those bodies, except maybe sometimes when I feel empathy. Isaiah0 Awareness appears to be something depending on the "padhi it is iewed through. An "padhi is a limiting ad&unct and a classic example is this0 If we ha e a clear crystal, and we hold a red rose behind it, it appears to be red. 3ut it is actually clear. In the same way, formless awareness, you, appear to ha e form when you see yourself through through #ack's mind. "he conditioning is inherent to each indi idual "padhi, so you only see #ack's thoughts and feelings and I only see Isaiah's. "here is no special connection to you and the body. .ow connected can you be to the body when it disappears e ery time you close your eyes, think about something else, dream, or go into deep sleep. It comes and goes and changes. 7ou are always present and unchanging. #ack0 %egarding the Intellect and the 1ind, I don't !uite get the difference. Isaiah0 "he mind is the emotional center or 6heart.8 "his is where the feelings appear. It is also the doubting function. "he mind also combines all of the fi e sense perceptions into one unified experience. It them passes the information on to the intellect so it can be analy$ed and a determination as to what needs to be done can be made. It then passes this determination back to the mind which prompts the organs of action to act. #ack0 I was also wondering about li ing a dharmi! life as a gay. I'm not gay, but I ha e gay friends and it seems that gay marriage is becoming an issue in :orth America lately. 7ou mentioned that there is a basic model for straight people to follow, but what about gays? Isaiah0 4DI:I4: A'E%"0 It seems like :orth America's fascination with being gay and gay marriage is merely one of religious and moral hangups, not one of dharma. "hat being said, dharma is simply meeting the situations that life presents as

appropriately as possible. .ow to do this is often &ust common sense, kind of like the golden rule. It is built in. "he rules of dharma are not absolute howe er. For instance, non/in&ury is a dharmi! alue because hurting others is hurting yourself. 3ut if someone comes and attacks you, hurting them in self defense would then be dharmi!, meaning the appropriate response. 4r another example is honesty, another dharmi! alue. 3ut &ust being 6honest8 and saying what e er you are thinking whene er you want can cause in&ury, and therefore in that case, compassion would trump honesty and you would $ip your lip. Finally, in regards to homosexuality, it can be an issue of svadharma, or the personal dharma, meaning nature, of an indi idual. If someone is trying to be something they are not, they are not working out their stuff and this will not help in!uiry. If someone is straight and merely acting gay out of curiosity, for shock alue, or because they had a bad encounter with the opposite sex, then that would be going against their nature and therefore a iolation of svadharma. 3ut if someone is actually gay, then they should be gay, accept it wholeheartedly and go with it. "rying to be something they are not, and pretending to be straight would be a iolation of svadharma. #ack0 "hank you for your help. Isaiah0 7ou are welcome. 41 "A" SA"L