Doership and karma About Dhanya Dhanya developed an interest in Hinduism and Eastern philosophy in the early 1970s. In 1973, she traveled to India in search of a guru to guide her on the spiritual path. While there she encountered disciples of Neem Karoli Baba and his teachings of bhakti and karma yoga which influenced her life from then on. She studied Vipasana meditation for some time with S.N. Goenkaji beginning in 1974. In 1991 she met HWL Poonja, whose words sparked a desire to understand the teachings of nonduality. Subsequently she met other advaita teachers, including Jean Klein and Sri Ranjit Maharaj, who were great sources of inspiration. In 2002 she met her current teacher, Dr. Carol Whitfield, a traditional teacher of Advaita/Vedanta and a disciple of Swami Dayananda Saraswati. Having found a teaching and a teacher with whom she has a deep resonance and who clearly and effectively elucidate the means for self-knowledge, Dhanya now lives in northern California Question: How or where does the issue of doership fit into the discussion of whether or not a formal practice and/or having a guru is necessary for Realization? If I am not the body/mind complex that I almost naturally take myself to be, but rather something infinitely beyond the limitations of such a conditioned being, and I am not, therefore, ultimately (but only seemingly), the doer, then whether or not I enter onto a path (and stay there) is really not up to this me I assume I am, which would render the whole question of what I should or should not do relative to following a specific teaching or teacher totally moot, no? If I am not the doer, is there really ANYTHING that I genuinely CHOOSE to do, or am I just kidding myself by thinking I decide this, that, or the other thing? In other words, if I am not the doer, then EVERTHING is pretty much decided for me, and Im just more or less going along for the ride, no? At least thats the way it feels from here, especially lately, but also before as well. Answer: When I read your question it seems to me that what you are doing in the question itself is what in vedAnta is called a mixing of orders of reality. Two orders of reality is the way vedAnta explains (1) the apparent or perceived world of duality, and (2) the nondual, from which this appearance of duality has come Doership has to be explained in the light of these two orders of reality. And if we dont get the explanation straight, we will come up with ideas that mix the two orders, including the idea that since from the absolute level of reality who I really am has never done anything, then from the body/mind level of reality (duality) it doesnt matter what I do. So lets start with the body/mind level of reality. Now from that order of reality, if you stick your hand in fire does it get burned or not? It does, and it will hurt. So, knowing that, you would rather not stick your hand in fire. You would avoid doing that. What vedAnta says about doership in that order of reality (duality) is that you do actually have a choice over your actions. In other words, you have free-will, albeit very little. You have very little choice in your actions, very little opportunity to exercise free-will, but you do have some. Even so, most things which happen in an individuals life are predestined to take place. That which is predestined is not arbitrarily so. Those things which are predestined to take place are a direct result of choices you made when you exercised your free-will in the past. Those events which are predestined to occur in this lifetime are referred to as ones prArabdha karma. This topic then brings in karma and re-incarnation. In a past life, as a human being, you performed an action which had a result. That result may have come to fruition during the lifetime during which you performed the action, or the result may have been carried over to come to fruition in another lifetime. All of these things, karma, reincarnation, even dharma, are considered to be in the category of belief, because unlike self-knowledge, they are not available for direct and immediate knowledge, although adherence to dharma itself will bring about a certain quality of peace and serenity in the mind. The teachings of vedAnta say that when a person is born most of the events that will take place in that persons life are predestined, especially the big ones, like who ones parents are, the person one will marry, who ones children are, the big things. All of these are in the category of prArabdha karma. But during each lifetime each person has a modicum of free-will. And since it is impossible to know when one is able to exercise ones free will, or when ones action was predestined to take place, the advice is that it is better at all times in all places to assume that one does have free-will, and to do those actions which accord with dharma, and thus avoid sticking ones hand in the fire, because if one does that, eventually one will get burned. There is more of course, this is vedAnta after all :-) Although you do have some choice over your actions, what you do not have control over is their result. Because the world is orderly and operates along certain lines, the result of your actions is given to you by the order. Adopting and then gaining the type of attitude which understands that the result of my actions is not in my hands is called having a karma yoga attitude, or prasAda buddhi, One views everything as prasAd, which means a gift from the total order (even the bad things). It isnt an easy attitude to maintain all the time, and at first make take some practice to achieve. However, it is very helpful. Then what about from the other level of reality, from the reality of who I really am? This again isnt easy to get, and in my opinion the danger of trying to incorporate this understanding into every day life before one has recognized who I really am, is that the result might be a lot of confused adharma. I used to wonder about this myself, and I found it very puzzling. I would hear certain popular modern day teachers of advaita say that everything was predestined, and you werent a doer, so it didnt matter what you did because things couldnt have turned out differently anyway. At this point, I feel that their statements on this were very confused, and what they were saying wasnt true. I questioned well-known teachers who taught and held tightly to this view. I asked them how they knew it was true. They said it was an intuitive knowing. Their statements did not convince me. Someone whom I respect, who is familiar with different types of modern teachings of advaita, once pointed out to me that such a way of seeing things alleviates a lot of the guilt which the western mind is particularly prone to, and while I can see the point of that, I dont think adopting this attitude is entirely healthy if one takes it as a guidepost in the performance of ones daily activities. There are other, more effective and benign ways of resolving guilt, and hurt, which have to do with the understanding of the orders of Ishvara (the total order), and the way things unfold within that infinite and all encompassing order. As long as one takes oneself to be a doer, then do the right thing, and recognize that there is a much larger order in charge of the results and respect the order. Then from the point of view of who you really are, are you a doer? No, you are not. The self, Atma, brahman, has never ever done anything. This morning I had a lovely dream. In the dream there was a beautiful little girl about two or three years old. She was totally charming, and I enjoyed watching her. Later on in the dream I had a bracelet. The more closely I examined the bracelet the more I realized that it was made of precious stones and beads of gold. When I woke up, the little girl was totally gone, as if she had never been, so too was the bracelet. But nothing had happened to me. I was the substance of the dream, and even at one point a character in the dream. The dream came from me, was sustained by me, and resolved into me. My dream character thought she could do things in the dream, and she did them. But where is she now? So too with this waking world of experience. You are its substance, and you also are a character within it. And even while knowing that who you really are never does anything, do the right thing. And then in terms of formal practice and/or whether having a guru is necessary for Realization, (to paraphrase your question above), I would say, generally yes, especially the part about having guru, or teacher. Because self-ignorance is so thoroughly woven into our view of the world, having a teacher who can continually point out the fallacious conclusions of self-ignorance, and who can point you toward recognizing the truth is very helpful. Spiritual practice? I dont know. It depends upon what you mean by that in my opinion. If you feel like giving it all a break for the time being, then that seems to me (from my purely subjective standpoint) to be the right thing to do. The worse thing you can do, is to beat yourself up about it. So perhaps rather than saying Im not a doer, why not just say, I feel like taking a break. In vedAnta, meditation is considered to be an auxiliary practice for self-knowledge. 1. Listening to the teachings (shravaNa) 2. Asking questions to clear doubts and gain clarity (manana) 3. Contemplating on what you have recognized to be true as a result of the teaching (nididhysAna) These three are considered to be the sAdhanA-s for the gain of self-knowledge Meditation, and the cultivation of certain mental attitudes like the karma yoga attitude, adherence to dharma, helping others, all of that is helpful in acquiring the type of mind which is available to benefit from the three above. Then what about finding the right teacher and teaching? Finding these is called Ishvara anugraha, the grace of the Lord. But that grace itself is the result of your past actions. The grace is part of the order. The grace is that such things as the correct teacher and teaching exist, that self-knowledge is possible, and that there is a way out of the torture of self-ignorance. Hope that helps. If you feel strongly to stop, then stop. It is probably your karma to stop. If you feel like taking it up again, then do. Thats probably your karma also.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Dec 2014 01:26:38 +0000
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