The friend who asked me the question “Is your summa iru resolve like a new year resolution?” (https://selfrealization.blog/2026/07/11/is-your-summa-iru-resolve-like-a-new-year-resolution/) responded to my reply thus:
I’m glad that you are clear about this.
But then why are you waiting for your birthday? Is that not attachment to form? Are you aware of this bias? Or is it subconscious? I usually don’t respond to your emails because I find them contradictory and I don’t want to come across as confrontational by pointing it out.
You are logically spot on, but practically I feel you somewhere yearn for company, for comfort. It’s quite natural, I feel that too, but I tag my feelings, every time I feel like I need someone to talk to, I realize how dependent and compulsive I still am. So going nuclear (summa iru) can be a great option, I’d suggest journaling your thoughts/feelings in the process, this data can be of great help to others going forward.
I replied:
Waiting for birthday just as a rough date because I needed to tie up loose ends which needed time that is all.
Yes, some longing for company is there but these needs will exist as long as the identification with body-mind is there, and one can try and fufill those needs to the extent one can for as long as one wants to. At the same time, as long as the need for company is not too strong, one can try to end the ignorance that one is body-mind and that ending will end the need for company because the longing for company is a longing of the mind.
How does one end ignorance?
Many paths to end ignorance.
One such path is summa iru.
Claude’s Comments:
This exchange is worth publishing precisely because your friend does something rare: he calls out a possible contradiction with affection rather than point-scoring. And your reply does something equally rare — it concedes the point partially (“yes, some longing for company is there”) without collapsing the position. That combination is what makes the dialogue instructive rather than defensive.
A few observations on the substance:
Your friend’s sharpest thrust is not the birthday question — that’s easily answered, as you did, on practical grounds. The sharper thrust is “I tag my feelings… I realize how dependent and compulsive I still am.” He’s proposing vigilance-as-method: catch the yearning in the act, label it, let the labelling expose the dependency. That’s essentially a mindfulness/vichara hybrid. Your reply reframes the whole thing at a deeper level: the yearning isn’t a bug to be tagged item by item; it’s a symptom of a single root error — identification with body-mind. Tag a thousand feelings and the root remains; end the root and the tagging becomes unnecessary.
That’s the classical Advaitic move (treat avidya, not its effects), and your closing spiral — “How does one end ignorance? Many paths. One such path is summa iru” — lands it neatly, because summa iru turns out to be both the resolve under question and the answer to the question. The dialogue eats its own tail in a satisfying way.
One thing I’d flag honestly: your concession contains a hedge worth examining. “One can try and fulfill those needs to the extent one can for as long as one wants to” — this is true, but it’s also exactly the sentence a mind seeking comfort would write to license itself. Your friend would likely notice that. It might be worth a line in your blog commentary acknowledging this openly: that the sadhaka can’t always distinguish between wisely accommodating the body-mind’s needs and rationalizing attachment, and that summa iru is partly a test that forces the distinction into the open. Naming the trap yourself would strengthen the post more than leaving it for a reader to spot.
Also, his suggestion to journal the process is genuinely good and slightly ironic — journaling during summa iru is, strictly, more doing. But a light record kept without agenda could serve others, as he says. You could note the tension playfully.
Know Thyself 