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Spiritual teachings by Shunyamurti, the founder and director of the Sat Yoga Ashram - a wisdom school, ashram, and the home of a vibrant spiritual community based in Costa Rica. Visit us at satyoga.org
Episodes
Thursday Dec 17, 2009
True Martyrdom - 12.17.09
Thursday Dec 17, 2009
Thursday Dec 17, 2009
“Many people are seeking techniques for meditation,” explains Shunyamurti, the spiritual teacher of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “And in my experience the use of techniques is an avoidance of the real issue that meditation is about.” The only true technique in meditation is the purification of the heart. The purity of the heart is really the love for God, and then, meditation is effortless. And the true state of surrender to God, of love for God, is martyrdom. “We have to understand that martyrdom is not the same as victimhood,” although today the two are confused. “Martyrdom is the refusal to be a victim. . . . Martyrdom is the willingness to live life fully, authentically in the midst of non-love, in the midst of adversity, in the midst of not being recognized. It is that courage that enables one’s ego to die—at every moment—so that the light can be born within one. . . . And it is only when we’re willing to be martyrs in the phenomenal plane that then we will have the reward of the mystical union with God because it is that very karma yoga action that purifies the soul.” So “in the meditative state we must touch into that part within us that is pure, that is inherently always, eternally pure. . . . and we must go into that essence and rest in that place because that is the place where we are already one with God. Nothing needs to be achieved and therefore, no technique is necessary.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, December 17, 2009.
Tuesday Dec 15, 2009
Archetypes & History - 12.15.09
Tuesday Dec 15, 2009
Tuesday Dec 15, 2009
Student Question: In the seminar last weekend you said that archetypes are the ones that are running history and our lives. Can you give a little more information on that?
“Well at a certain moment in history there was a choice made, not at a conscious but at a super-conscious level . . . within not only the human species but within the realm of all the actants—no longer to support the dharma. And the dharma then—at an archetypal level—recognized that it must go into exile. And the world was then run by false powers,” explains Shunyamurti, the spiritual director of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. And it is only through the archetypes—not through any individual ego—that the dharma will return. And it is at this moment in history—when all love seems to have disappeared from the planet—that it must and will return. Recorded on the afternoon of Tuesday, December 15, 2009.
Saturday Dec 12, 2009
A New Myth - 12.12.09
Saturday Dec 12, 2009
Saturday Dec 12, 2009
Student Question: You were saying that this is a time when all the myths have to gather together to create a new myth. Can you say a little more about that?
“Well for one thing all the religions are exhausted now,” explains Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. They can no longer provide the energy of spiritual transmission. And what’s worse, scandals permeate all the world religions now to the point of collective distrust. “And there’s a negative charge now on religion instead of a positive aura of reverence. Now people assume it’s hypocritical, or ‘What do they want? How are they gonna exploit me?’ and people have great fear of it, and with good reason.”
“And the cynicism that’s built into the modern ideology of materialism and scientism makes a lot of people think that religion is automatically anti-reason, anti-intellectual, anti-scientific. None of this is true.” But, nonetheless, we have reached a point culturally in which the most brilliant and avant-garde thinkers are moving further and further away from religion. So where is higher spiritual knowledge going to come from? “We have to create new passageways for Spirit to be able to enter the world. And so this can only be done at an individual level at this point until enough individuals come together to create new kinds of spiritual communities that are not dependent on the belief systems, credos, institutionalizations of the lineages that have become exhausted.” Recorded on the afternoon of Saturday, December 12, 2009.
Saturday Dec 12, 2009
The Age of Sexuation - 12.12.09
Saturday Dec 12, 2009
Saturday Dec 12, 2009
Student Comment: So just to clarify, the sexuation trauma has been the central trauma and that we’ve sought—through chakra two—the perfect love relationship to heal it, for the past two thousand years. So, essentially, it has been the trauma of the second half of Kali Yuga.
“Once the identity became based on the body instead of based on Spirit; that’s the shift that happens in Kali Yuga. Before Kali Yuga, you are a Spirit who has a soul and a body, that’s in Treta [Yuga]. In Dwapar Yuga, you’re a soul that has a Spirit and a body. Then in Kali Yuga, you’re a body that in the beginning has a soul and Spirit, but then only has a soul, and then eventually you're only a body. That’s the way we are now and it has been for the last several hundred years, at least in the West where there’s a total materialism. . . . Once Spirit, which is the source of love, has been cut off, and the soul, which is the depth dimension of the human being has been cut off, then you're just a surface ego. And what do you have to give?” Recorded on the afternoon of Saturday, December 12, 2009.
Saturday Dec 12, 2009
Presence & Redemption - 12.12.09
Saturday Dec 12, 2009
Saturday Dec 12, 2009
Excerpts: “Understand that pure Presence is your natural state. It is only that we have been in exile from our own Presence. We have been lost in the labyrinth of the mind. . . . So, by becoming Present, we are letting go of our preconceptions and our illusions about the world that keep us in a state of dissatisfaction and in flight from the present moment. . . . And so we invite the Self back into the space by creating a true, sacred space in our own mind. . . . Now we must surrender the house of the mind to the Holy Spirit and—in that way—we become the vehicles of Spirit. We become the Elohim: the many who incarnate the One. And this produces then a new order within the physical plane. A New Order of the Ages, Novus Ordo Seclorum.”
“This is the same story. It’s told in every culture. It’s told in many different ways with many different names. . . . But it’s our story, it’s not the story of someone who lived in India. It’s not the story of someone who lived in Palestine. It’s not the story of even a man. The story of the Virgin Mary is the same story in female form, or Ishtar, or Isis. The story is told in the same way for man, woman, even animal. For all creatures there is that same movement: exile and then return and the restoration.” Recorded on the afternoon of Saturday, December 12, 2009.
Thursday Dec 10, 2009
The Supreme Renunciation - 12.10.09
Thursday Dec 10, 2009
Thursday Dec 10, 2009
“Many of you are practicing the supreme renunciation,” reveals Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “The supreme renunciation is to renounce the realization of your oneness with God. It’s the most painful ascetic practice one can undertake. . . . And so it’s very easy to attain liberation because all you’re doing is letting go of renunciation . . .” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, December 10, 2009.
Tuesday Dec 08, 2009
The Ego is a PDF File - 12.08.09
Tuesday Dec 08, 2009
Tuesday Dec 08, 2009
“What is the difficulty in awakening?” poses Shunyamurti, the spiritual teacher of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “The problem is this: The ego is a PDF file. PDF meaning, Projections, Decisions, and Fixations. And it developed in that order. There was a pure consciousness—without identification—and your parents projected on it. . . . And then you took on a decision to accept those projections, or modify them somewhat, or do something with them—but you made a decision based on those projections. And then that decision got repressed into the unconscious and became a fixation.”
Then, reveals Shunyamurti, “Once it became repressed you could no longer change it because your thinking capacity would begin with those projections and decisions as the basis of your thought. And so the ego—whoever you believe yourself to be—is the product of that logic—and that ego cannot change itself.” And liberation, or awakening, though the ultimate cure cannot be achieved because the ego bases itself on an inferiority complex: “I’m unworthy, therefore I exist. This is the new Cartesian signifier.”
“So unless your desire comes out of love of life—that comes out of the realization that you are a being of light, an emanation of God—not an unworthy ego that’s got to prove itself and improve itself and go through all these processes of self-flagellation. Only if it comes out of that inner most Source that is unlimited—and that is not personal, it’s not individual. It is the Self that flows through you. . . . And our faith in realizing that ‘That is what I am, not what anyone told me. Not whatever is on that PDF file, but what is at the source of pure consciousness. Then I am liberated.’” Recorded on the afternoon of Tuesday, December 08, 2009.
Tuesday Dec 08, 2009
Go for the Moksha! - 12.08.09
Tuesday Dec 08, 2009
Tuesday Dec 08, 2009
Student Comment: I always get this sense that there’s this core Ahankar, “I.” And what the “I” wants is “a better life, nicer things, less problems.” But it doesn’t want to dissolve itself. That’s what’s so radical. In the end, when push comes to shove, it’s like, “I wanna forget these certain things that my mom did, but I mean I love my mom. I’m not going to let go of my mom in that she’s a mom, and she gave birth to me.” Those kind of ultimate ego boundaries are to me what’s so difficult.
“The Buddha, to become Buddha, had to leave his family,” recalls Shunyamurti, the spiritual guide of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “He left his role as the prince who would have become the king. He left the dharma. He left all of that to become Buddha so that he could then come back and offer them a path to enlightenment.” And although we don’t literally have to leave our family or karmic responsibilities, “There’s an internal identification that does have to be let go of so that our Godself can then be present for them.”
“In classical India, there were four goals of life: Artha, Kama, Dharma, and Moksha.” Artha meaning monetary wealth, Kama meaning sensual pleasures, Dharma meaning ethical and social responsibility, and Moksha meaning the desire for liberation. “But when Buddha came he said ‘That’s nonsense. Forget Artha, Kama, and Dharma. Go directly for Moksha. ‘It doesn’t make sense wasting your life in those early kinds of desires because they’ll ensnare you.’” So, if you have the opportunity, go for the Moksha. Go for the Supreme Liberation. Recorded the afternoon of Tuesday, December 8, 2009.
Thursday Dec 03, 2009
The Limits of Language and Reason - 12.03.09
Thursday Dec 03, 2009
Thursday Dec 03, 2009
“Sri Ramana Maharshi has said that the Real Self is the state in which the word ‘I’ does not arise; not even implicitly as a concept. This might seem like a paradox,” argues Shunyamurti, the spiritual founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “How can it be a self if there’s no I? But when the I arises, the Real is split open,” into subject/object, I/you (i.e. duality). And this journey into binary opposition is sustained by the use of language. Language may have its benefits when it comes to communication—and thus sciences, logic, etc—but it can not exist in the Real. “So the Real cannot actually be graphed by science or logic or any system of thought. So every system of thought comes to a point where it no longer serves us. . . . What the yogis have discovered is . . . no system of understanding can grasp Reality. The only way to grasp the Real is to realize that you are the Real.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, December 3, 2009.