Apparent free will Isaiah, Thank you! Whew! I will try to relax up on the thinking too much.

Before I had thought it was all about polishing the mirror and the cleaner it was, the easier it would be to see the self, that I would not be able to miss it. So I just went into super polish mode and I went overboard polishing everything that bothered the jiva. As Colin Hayes says, its just overkill. But you straightened me out on this by saying I just have to be sattvic enough.

I do not feel out of control or helpless personally. Quite the opposite actually. I have been experiencing a natural ease which is joy-filled and I quit wrestling with a lot of the stuff that used to bug the ass out of me, the food vasana being the big one. I just went back and forth with it so many times that I couldnt see the forest for the trees. I have been just eating healthy and leaving it at that, rather than getting in the trenches and battling with it. I think this all comes from people in me and my husbands age group dying more and more. (May be it is ye old mid-life crisis.) I tend to think more about being healthy since I turned 40.

I will practice thinking about my body/health as I would my friends bodies/health. (I have been noting the breaking the body identification theme more and more lately in my reading/watching.)

Isaiah: On a practical level, I meant that you should cut yourself the same slack that you give to your friends. If one of your friends has a weight problem, you do not chastise them about it, make them feel guilty about it, or pressure them to change. You tell them that it isnt a big deal and that they should take it easy on themselves. You assure them that they are wonderful people no matter what their body is like. Since Mary is your very closest friend, it stands to reason that you would treat her in the same fashion or even better.

From the standpoint of inquiry, I was trying to point out that you do not identify with the attributes of your friends bodies. Why? Because it is your firm conviction that their bodies are not you. It is clear to you that their bodies do not belong to you, that they have nothing to do with you at all. Yet, you identify

completely with Marys body. But, you can only identify with Marys body if it is fundamentally different from your friends bodies. But is it? No. Your friends bodies and Marys body are non-different as the five elements; they are both matter. They are also non-different as objects. If your friends bodies are clearly not you, and Marys body is non-different from your friends bodies, Marys body is equally not you. All bodies are unconscious matterobjectsand therefore cannot be you.

Mary: Perhaps I am misinterpreting what I read and hear. In the videos, James says the gunas make the decisions. He even goes so far as to say that science has proven that decisions are made for us before we even decide, we only have the appearance/delusion of making the decision. It is apparent free will it just looks like we are deciding.

Isaiah: This is correct.

Mary: Am I wrong on this? Of course, my conditioning translates this into my god, we are helpless! LOL! It does not feel this way to me, my jiva feels like it is happily deciding on things.

Isaiah: You are not helpless because you are the self. The jiva is not helpless either because on the empirical level, apparent free-will is just as useful as actual-free will. If the jiva is offered tea or coffee, does it say it cant decide because it has no free will? No. If the jiva is handed a gun and told to shoot itself, does it say, Im helpless to resist! I have no free will! and then shoot itself? No. The apparent jiva uses its apparent free-will to make apparent decisions in the apparent world. Apparent free-will isnt really a problem because the entire situation is apparent. And self-knowledge doesnt change this apparent situation at all. Self-knowledge only negates the belief that you are involved in the apparent situation. The question of apparent free-will vs. actual free-will is only relevant if you are the jiva. If you are the self, questions about free-will become moot, because you are free of both the jiva and the vasanas.

Mary: I am learning to laugh more and more at my conditioning, even when my mind gets dramatic about it or takes some things negatively. I often say, Hello rajas or hello tamas, when I see them.

Isaiah: Good. Objectify the conditioning as the object it is. If it is an object, it cannot be you. Nor can it belong to you because the you that owns objects is just another object, the ego.

Mary: When this happens, that god awful song starts playing in my head: Hello mudda, hello faddah, here I am at, camp Grenada. LOL I guess I have a soundtrack to everything. I have noted that I can program myself very easily with songs, so I choose them wisely because they keep on playing in my mind, over and over and over.

Isaiah: Here is a song for you, or rather, a rhyme: I cannot be my body, it is merely an upadhi. For me to see this clearly, I must do self-inquiry. Thinking Im my thoughts, ties me up in knots. Using self-inquiry, Ill negate what I am not.

Mary: If it is just a program/machine

Isaiah: The field of experience is a machine, but free-will is programmed into it.

Mary: and there is no person/individual

Isaiah: There are apparent people, jivas. But they are not unique individuals insofar as they are all just awareness plus the three bodies.

Mary: then its the vasanas trying to fix/control/change vasanas (vasanas vs. vasanas)?

Isaiah: Wanting to change is caused by a vasana. The tendencies you want to change are caused by vasanas. The actions you perform in an attempt to change those tendencies are caused by vasanas. In that sense it is vasanas vs. vasanas.

Mary: And the self is just the observer of this.

Isaiah: Yes.

Mary: And Vedanta is becoming my new healthy vasana that will eventually cycle on its own like my unhealthy habits do now

Isaiah: Yes, studying Vedanta is a habit that is caused by vasanas. And like all vasanas, it will naturally wax and wane.

Mary: and when this happens, perhaps I can just sit on the sidelines and watch without getting involved?

Thank you for your guidance, Mary

Isaiah: As the self you are always sitting on the sidelines and watching without getting involved. This is not something you can do, its something you have to understand.

Sincerely,

Isaiah