End Of Knowledge

Tag: non-duality

  • Vedanta Is Not The Answer

    S: My goal is to reach a continuous peace of mind. I think that knowing and controlling my mind/thoughts is the key to reach it. Self-mastery!

    V: That’s a good goal, assuming continuous peace of mind is even possible. Since the mind changes constantly how could you keep it one way alone? You might try to slow down or temporarily stop the changes in the mind by using techniques to control it but the changes themselves are often caused or influenced by a factor you can’t control at all: the external world. Since you can’t predict what the world is going to do you never know how your mind is going to react to it. It’s true that you can—and should—work on lessening your reactions to external situations. But the hitch is that your reactions to external situations are often dictated by the subconscious and unconscious mind, two things you can barely access, let alone control.

    Because of the external world and the subconscious/unconscious you can never be sure what your mind will do next, regardless of how much you try to keep it in check. That’s why you can make the mind more peaceful but it’s impossible to make it continuously peaceful. There’s no harm in trying but it’s very frustrating when it doesn’t work. And ironically, that frustration further robs you of peace of mind.

    That’s why Vedanta is different than science, psychology and other kinds of spirituality. While those things treat you as if you are the mind, Vedanta says that you aren’t the mind. Therefore Vedanta asks, “How can mastering the mind be self-mastery if the mind isn’t the self”?
    This a radical difference, and if understood, the benefit is that you can work on your mind with total objectivity, never taking the condition of the mind personally. When the mind is angry you don’t think “I’m angry” and then get even more emotionally disturbed thinking, “I shouldn’t be angry!”
    The mind is something that ‘belongs’ to you. It’s merely an instrument, the same as your car. The difference is—despite the fact that both the mind and the car are objects known to you—that you don’t identify with your car. When your car is running poorly you don’t take it personally saying, “Oh no, my fuel injectors are malfunctioning! I feel terrible about myself because they shouldn’t be doing that!” This doesn’t happen because you know clearly that the car isn’t you. So you’re able to look at the situation objectively, free from emotional disturbance or guilt, and deal with it. You get to work on the car. If the car can be fixed you don’t say, “Hurray, I fixed myself!” Nor if the car can’t be fixed do you say, “Woe is me, I’m broken!”

    Do you understand the value of what Vedanta is offering here? It’s saying that if you want to work on the mind, great, but working on the mind is much easier and more effective when you do it objectively, with the clear understand that you aren’t the mind. Furthermore, when you understand that you aren’t the mind, the mind’s problems become a lot less important because you know they don’t belong to you or affect you, the same as the problems of your car.

    S: I’m struggling to figure out how my mind works through Adavaita Vedanta.

    V: I want to save you the trouble of struggling by saying that Advaita Vedanta won’t help you figure out how your mind works. It doesn’t even really try. Its goals are to 1) Show you that the mind isn’t real and 2) Show you that you aren’t the mind. That’s it.
    If you’re trying to understand how your mind works, psychology is the way to go. If you want to go the ‘spiritual’ route, then yoga and meditation is the way. Meditation has taught me A LOT about my mind. It’s an excellent practice. But to be clear, Vedanta is not the answer.

    It’s true that Vedanta is sometimes presented as a means to self-mastery but that comes from teachers co-mingling yoga/meditation with Vedanta. Vedanta isn’t against yoga/meditation in any way—in fact it encourages it as a preliminary step—but their goals are totally different. Yoga/meditation is for manipulating the mind, Vedanta is for transcending the mind altogether. And by “transcend” I mean the full understanding, “I am not the mind nor does it affect me.”

    S: I’m continuously looking for practical tools to improve my being.

    V: That’s why it’s so helpful to know that your true being, pure consciousness-existence, can’t be improved. It’s perfect, which means YOU’RE perfect. Knowing that, you can take the condition of the mind in stride and work on it much more objectively and effectively, always understanding that has nothing to do with you.

    All my best – Vishnudeva

    HAVE QUESTIONS? CONTACT ME.

  • Erroneous Goals

    J:  I was thinking about the goal of Vedanta and how the desire for moksha appears erroneous since the fervent desire for freedom can become binding. The goal of knowledge appears to be the way since once we have assimilated knowledge we know we are free, because we have never been not free. This desire for knowledge seem better than some desire to be free.

    V:  Hi J.  Here’s the short answer: 

    I understand what you’re saying and in essence you’re correct insofar as there’s no need to desire freedom when you already are, and always have been, free.  So if it’s helpful for you to think of the goal of Vedanta as knowledge rather than freedom, go for it.  I don’t see any harm in that.  If that’s a sufficient answer for you, then read no further. 

    But just in case…here’s my picky, possibly pedantic answer:         

    Really, you can’t separate moksha and knowledge—specifically, self-knowledge—because in Vedanta the two words are synonymous.  While moksha does technically mean “freedom,” that freedom isn’t something different from self-knowledge because self-knowledge is the clear understanding, “I am free.”  Like you said, it’s true that it doesn’t make sense to have freedom be your goal when you’re already free, but that only applies after you get the knowledge that you’re already free.  Before that, freedom is a perfectly sensible goal, assuming it’s sensible to you.  If not, call the goal knowledge.  It doesn’t really matter. 

    To be a real stickler—as crotchety Vedantins are prone to do—following your logic regarding freedom as a goal, I could argue that the goal of knowledge is also erroneous because at the dawn of self-knowledge you see that you weren’t ignorant in the first place.  Nor have you attained knowledge because knowing and knowledge are seen to be properties of the mind alone.  And as the non-dual, ever-free brahman you are not the knowing mind.  To illustrate, here is a verse from the Astavakra Samhita, one that I’ve been looking for an excuse to quote.  So thank you for that.    

    2-15:  Knowledge, knower and the knowable—these three do not actually exist.  They merely appear in me, the stainless self, through ignorance.  

    Also, I could say that the desire for freedom can be just as binding as the desire for knowledge.  But to repeat, whether you want to make moksha your goal or knowledge your goal, either way is fine.  You’ll end up at the same destination regardless.  I only added the second answer in case my first answer happened to cause another doubt.  And if I didn’t this would’ve been a really short satsang 🙂  Thanks for bearing with me.      

    J: Loved the explanation you gave directly above (the crotchety Vedantic one).  

    This whole process reminds me of an expedition into the wilderness.  First there is the journey by air to your first destination, then the over land journey in a convoy of 4×4’s.  Then transfer to river boats, before the final leg on foot.  On reaching the destination there is just the Self.

    V:  I think that’s a good metaphor.  The different modes of transportation (plane, automobile, boat) are a necessary means to get to where you’re going, but once you’re there, they become irrelevant.  Similarly, the teaching method of Vedanta is a means to understand what you really are.  Once that’s known, the teaching itself, and whatever terminology or concepts it uses (like freedom, knowledge, etc.) become irrelevant.  They’re just tools–or more specifically, pointers–and once the job is ‘done’ there is no need for them anymore.  But as I said, we can only argue that they are unnecessary after they actually become unnecessary. Before that, they do have relative value, same as a car has relative value before you get to where you’re going. 

    All my best – Vishnudeva

    QUESTIONS? Contact me HERE. 

     

  • Vedanta Course #32: Tattva Bodha Pt. 27 (Conclusion)- You Are That

    This video explains the concluding portion of Tattva Bodha, which does an analysis of the mahavakya (great statement) “Tat tvam asi (you are that)” found in the Chandogya Upanishad. This is the final video in the Tattva Bodha series. Thanks for watching! I will be taking a short break because I am in the process of doing a cross-country move from Arkansas to Oregon and once I get there me and my wife will need time to get settled in and find new jobs.  But after that I will begin a new videos series on another Vedanta text, so keep checking back for updates.

    If you have not watched the previous installments of this series, you can view them HERE.

  • Vedanta Course #31: Tattva Bodha Pt. 26 – Isvara & Jiva

    This video explains how non-duality does not necessarily mean total non-difference and also gives an explanation of Isvara and jiva.

    This series works best when viewed in order so if you haven’t seen the previous installments, you can view them HERE.

  • Vedanta Course #30 : Tattva Bodha Pt. 25 – The Essential Non-Difference of the Individual, Creation, Creator and Self

    This video explains how the individual, creator and creation are essentially non-different as the self. In other words, it shows how all objects are nothing but you: non-dual, existence/consciousness.

    This series works best when viewed in order so if you haven’t seen the previous installments, you can view them HERE.