The point

[Greg Goode]

Ram,

Always enjoy your enthusiastic and informative postings, and thanks for the
kind words!

At 10:12 AM 10/30/97 -0500, Ram Chandran wrote:

>First,  we agree to surrender the "Do nothing
>attitude." Second, we agree that there is no Known Path. Third, we agree
>that Gita can guide us to start the journey to the unknown Destination.
>The only disagreement is Earning Self-realization through Sadhana!  You
>have quoted a beautiful verse in Gita to the reason for your
>disagreement.  As always, you have raised an important issue on Self-
>realization.  The spirit of Karma Yoga is to conduct any action without
>looking for the fruits of the action.

>Action and result can never be separated because the Action is
>the RESULT! The reward for any action is the ACTION! The thinker and
>thought are the same!  The FIELD and the KNOWER of the field are the
>same! The projector and the projection are not different!

I agree on all your stated points of agreement!  Plus, agree on your
statement of the spirit of Karma Yoga, as well as with the identity of the
field and the knower of the field.  This would be the spirit in which to do
sadhana:  do it, but don't be attached to any result.  (I find myself doing
sadhana in this spirit.)  ALSO agree on the illusoriness of the intellect.

That brings me to the disagreement about earning Self-Realization through
sadhana.  It's not just about sadhana, but about everything.  I don't think
ANYTHING CAUSES ANYTHING, or that anything gets earned by anything.
Following Krishna in the BG, I see it that the gunas whirl, and that inside
the whirling, the intellect marks out certain areas as things or events and
attributes reality, and cause/effect to them.  But the motion of the gunas
is Consciousness Itself.  And so you can't point to anything inside the
whirl to say that it causes anything else.  Besides that, the intellect is
illusory, so how can someting marked out by it (a cause or an effect) be
taken as real?  Does anything in a movie or a book cause anything else to
happen?  I see it the same way.

This is also the purport of much of the Mandukya Upanishad (sorry can't
quote, book's at home) and the Gaudapada Karika.  If there are no real
things or events in the world, then none of these non-things or non-events
can cause anything.

 Another way to say it is like Nisargadatta Maharaj says:

     "Cause and effect?  Nothing happens unless
     the whole universe makes it happen."

Regards,

--Greg