Friday, 31 January 2020

LETTER TO DAVID GODMAN, TEACHER OF HINDU ADVAITA. REPRESENTATIVE OF THE GREAT RAMANA MAHARSHI.



Dear David,
                    
                     I’ve been studying your teachings on the voice of Ramana Maharshi because he was my ‘last guru.’

           Here is a stumbling block:  translations, terms, Hindu frames of reference vs Western concepts.  These are so confusing & often misleading that even the most sincere of persons, seeking Union with God, would get lost, confused along the way & fail to meet their goal.  Even I couldn’t follow it completely - & they were beginners, what chance would they have?

          Terms:  the mind.  To lose the mind.  No, you cannot lose your mind, you would be in a psyche ward locked up.

          It needs to be explained – the difference between the conscious & unconscious mind.

          Does Ramana mean let the conscious mind go – open up the unconscious?  That’s what happens in hypnosis – you put the conscious to sleep, you access the unconscious & there you work with the mind like a surgeon, fixing the negatives, affirming the positives.



          The conscious mind is but a small snippet of our entire mind – it is not dangerous ‘to lose,’ but even this has to be temporary because one needs the conscious mind to function in mundane things such as (1) going to work (2) keeping house & body clean (3) relating to others (4) paying bills (5) driving the car (6) all the minutiae of the world.  Do you agree?

          Now when a person lulls to sleep their conscious mind in prayer or meditation, this is not 24 hours – it’s for a while.  {Indeed there are times in the lives of saints – of all denominations – who went to the wilderness or stayed in their room 2-3 years while they delved the interior state, but then they came out of it, having achieved what had to be done, plummeting the depths of their soul, they had their experiences & were able to return to ‘normalcy.’}

          During these initial or formative years indeed the conscious is ‘destroyed’ to some degree, not for all time.



          However, to just say THE MIND MUST BE DESTROYED is one of the most misleading terms I’ve ever heard.  If your entire mind is destroyed what is in it?  Every memory from the day you were born – your schooling, the books you read, your family,
 all you ever experienced.  It’s all in the UNCONSCIOUS & if this is gone you would have AMNESIA, YOU WOULD NOT KNOW WHO YOU ARE, YOUR NAME OR ANYTHING, WHERE YOU LIVE, NOTHING.  Bad term.

          In the Christian-Western tradition, as explained by our saints – the best teacher of which was Evelyn Underhill {not a mystic, an intellect who understood them}– we have certain Flags, Lamp-posts, Light-houses, Symbols, Signposts which tell us WHERE WE ARE in the spiritual life.  For instance,

·      When does the born-again experience occur?  How does one know? 
·      When does the UNITIVE life begin?  (Ramakrishna described it as when one reaches the Heart Chakra.  How does one know they have reached it?) 
·      When does one ascend into sainthood?  This would best be described in our MYSTICAL BETROTHAL TO CHRIST.
·      When does actual UNION WITH GOD occur?  It’s called THE MYSTICAL MARRIAGE.  How do we know it’s happened?
·      When can a person say “NO LONGER I LIVE BUT CHRIST IN ME.”  This is NONDUALITY, one has BECOME GOD or GOD REALIZED.
·      What is the meaning of our Divine Stigmata, which is a grace only Catholics speak of – it is martyrdom.  How would the grace of martyrdom—giving one’s life for God—be expressed in Eastern terms?



There are many other QUESTIONS to be discussed on MORALITY—especially regarding SEX.  People need to know the answers, to end the HYSTERIA on this subject, & bring sanity & logic to ‘Is Sex a Sin-or a fault?  Is sex activity against spiritual perfection?’

This is vital, because we need to see the difference between ‘community standards,’ ‘social acceptability,’ & ‘God standards,’ ‘God acceptability.’  Why did God make sex?  If God is all-spiritual, why did God create sex & all physical things?  Is God low-minded?



There is a beginning of putting on the table ideas that might culminate in a book, one which takes the MYSTERY out of the ‘mysterious East’ & put it into words where Westerners can follow, learn, imitate & reach final Union with God.  {They are eagerly following the East, they want to learn badly, but the Eastern teachings are being presented in a way that is darkness to us.  Clarification is called for.}

I propose that we work on such a book.  I think it would benefit both of us in our mission.

In God’s Love,  Rasa Von Werder

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