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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 Apr 29, 2010
To Be or Not to Be - 04.29.10
Thursday Apr 29, 2010
Thursday Apr 29, 2010
Excerpt: “Our real job is to become more and more conscious at every moment of who we really are. And letting go of the superficial identifications we have with name and form; with the biological level of life; even with the biographical level of life; even with the intellectual and conceptual level of life, until we reach the Source. And in that state there are no longer any questions. There are no longer philosophical arguments about the nature of Reality. We realize that there aren’t many different religions in the world, but that all the different paths are simply different terminologies for achieving the ultimate oneness. And we can let go of the intellectual hair-splitting, and the attempt to differentiate ourselves and our belief systems and positions from other people, and all the other egoic games that we play even at a subtle level. And most of all, we are then able to open our hearts fully. . . . And once we reach that understanding then there’s no more competitiveness, there’s no more one-upmanship, there’s no more envy, no more greed, no more trying to hold on to what one individual has, but to share because the great gift is really in sharing and giving, not in holding on. And once we learn that then we discover that we can give—not only from a personal center and personal assets, but we become a vehicle, a medium in which the gifts of the Cosmic Self can be given through this mind and body. . . . And the key to achieving this is simply to desire. To Be. To truly Be. This is why we recall Hamlet’s great question in Shakespeare’s play: ‘To be or not to be.’ That is the question, but it can’t be answered in words. It can only be answered through the act of Being.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, April 29, 2010.
Thursday Apr 29, 2010
Trading the Lower Pleasures for the Higher Ones - 04.29.10
Thursday Apr 29, 2010
Thursday Apr 29, 2010
Student Question: What if we want to pursue a spiritual journey but we’re not quite ready to release the material possessions, or the work that we find creativity and joy in?
“Well the ego knows nothing other than that,” reminds Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. Thus, the ego hedges its bets, and keeps running on the—at least familiar—treadmill of pain and pleasure. But trading in the lower pleasures for the higher ones does not mean that you’re giving up your life. “It means that that life will now be used for even higher creativity; even higher joy.” Of course, “in the beginning, it’s very difficult to understand that; it can’t be grasped by the mind. But if you desire to know that higher bliss then, if you pray for that, if you talk to the Supreme One about that, then it will be granted: to have the taste of that higher joy that will enable you to let go of the lower that is holding you back—and also producing suffering. . . . And all of the lower pleasures do that. And this is why the great sages of every tradition like the Buddha and Christ and all the other teachers have recommended letting go of those. But it has to be done naturally and wholeheartedly with a realization of what you are getting, not only of what you are losing, so that there is no looking back.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, April 29, 2010.
Thursday Apr 29, 2010
Practicing Detachment in Kali Yuga - 04.29.10
Thursday Apr 29, 2010
Thursday Apr 29, 2010
Student Question: The other day you said that detachment was love. When a person achieves that, and is that, every moment of every day, but, still, is out there in the world, how does one deal with the perception of others, and how they may take your detachment?
“We are living in a sea of projections: everyone is projecting on everyone else. And most of those projections today are negative ones,” maintains Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “And it’s only if one is in a state of emptiness—one is not an ego form for those projections to stick to—that they will move through you, and you will be able to respond with compassion, and with love, and to be able to teach. Now not everyone will actually want to be taught, and that’s OK too. And as Jesus said, ‘you don’t need to throw your pearls before swine,’ and you don’t need to come out in public as a yogi or as a spiritual being. Those who have eyes to see will see. And so in that state . . . one will gradually attract to oneself those who are truly interested. And one can then help to guide them more toward the light.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, April 29, 2010.
Thursday Apr 29, 2010
Meditation Advice - 04.29.10
Thursday Apr 29, 2010
Thursday Apr 29, 2010
Student Comment: This is my first time and I wanted clarity, or some tips, with meditation. I noticed that during the meditation, I had some bodily sensations and visualizations, and I could get into it, but then it would stop; my mind would turn back on. So I just wanted some tips. I noticed when I repeated what you said in the guided meditation, it would bring me back into quiet state.
“Yes, in the beginning, the consciousness is identified with the mind that uses language. Language is an object in the mind, but we are addicted to language,” explains Shunyamurti, the director of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “It’s through language that we create this grid of what reality is, and so we’re very reluctant to let go of words. And because the mind hasn’t been trained, it’s wild, and it’ll bring up thoughts that you have no desire to listen to, but they’ll be there anyway. . . . You will eventually reach the point where the mind will not interfere, and the only thoughts that come will be either thoughts that are divine inspirations, or thoughts that are required for the sustenance of your life.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, April 29, 2010.
Thursday Apr 29, 2010
Releasing the Wall - 04.29.10
Thursday Apr 29, 2010
Thursday Apr 29, 2010
Student Question: If all there is is consciousness, and in reality nobody’s praying to nobody, then why is it that when you pray, the pray manifests?
“Well, because you don’t realize that,” clarifies Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “The ego actually thinks it is a separate body. The ego is alienated from this truth. And so what it is praying for is the realization that it is One with the Supreme Awareness. . . . And the prayer is the act of opening consciousness to its own infinite nature. So ultimately, yes, the prayer is to the Self—but it is from a fragment of the Self that had been walled off from the whole. And it is praying for that wall to be released.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, April 29, 2010.
Tuesday Apr 27, 2010
Purification of the Heart - 04.27.10
Tuesday Apr 27, 2010
Tuesday Apr 27, 2010
“Those who are on a true path of purification and spiritual truthfulness, and a complete striving to reach union with God, are very rare and very special. But your specialness consists in realizing that you’re not special,” reveals Shunyamurti, the director of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. And indeed one of the main obstacles on the spiritual path is not allowing one’s ego to reappropriate one’s spirituality. “You cannot be special as a separate ego because your ego is illusory.” And all spiritual communities are based on the understanding that all members “are part of a single Being.” And thus a spiritual community cannot exist without each member withdrawing his/her projections and searching within for the source of one’s anger, hatred, or envy of another. “But it is an ongoing day-to-day need to nourish each other with love. And that has to be the primal vow of a disciple. If one is not willing to do that, then no matter what other yamas and niyamas one is willing to do—including fasting and living the most ascetic life—it won’t matter because one’s closed heart will prevent one from reaching God because God is pure love.” Recorded on the afternoon of Tuesday, April 27, 2010.
Thursday Apr 22, 2010
The Internal Guide - 04.22.10
Thursday Apr 22, 2010
Thursday Apr 22, 2010
Student Question: In one’s quest for liberation, one requires a spiritual guide; it’s imperative and can’t be overemphasized. But when does it come into a stage when the student no longer requires the guide?
“When the student has internalized the teachings, and has purified the unconscious mind so that his or her own mind no longer deceives him/her,” answers Shunyamurti, the spiritual guide of the Sat Yoga Institute. The initial problem is that the ego is in denial of its own split consciousness, between the conscious and unconscious mind as well as other fragments. And after the guru-disciple relationship, and there is “a realization of the totality, a point is reached when the purification of the individual soul is at such a degree of clarity and purity of perception and accuracy that there is no longer a disturbance or a distortion in the field. And at that point, there is no longer an obstacle internally to the realization of the Self.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, April 22, 2010.
Thursday Apr 22, 2010
Ready for Vairagya - 04.22.10
Thursday Apr 22, 2010
Thursday Apr 22, 2010
“Real meditation begins when one is sick of the doing. One is sick of one’s own ego. One is sick of one’s own mind. That’s when it starts,” elucidates Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “It’s only when you’re sick” of all the games you play with yourself, “and you realize that the world is a mirage, that you get serious about meditation. Until then you’re just dabbling at it, playing at it, and you won’t get very far with it because meditation is the most serious thing that one can do. And it means giving up one’s own sense of being a separate individual. . . . And so, the only way to reach that Ultimate State—which is what we are—is through letting go of all that we appear to be, of all that the mind projects, of language itself, of imagery—of everything that is an object in consciousness—until we reach a state of purity of awareness. And in that Presence—when the mind lets go of even believing that what it is present to is occurring in the brain or is occurring in any localized area, in any phenomenal world—one breaks through the final frame in which we have tried to put reality. And then we enter into the infinite.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, April 22, 2010.
Thursday Apr 22, 2010
Higher Levels of Intelligence - 04.22.10
Thursday Apr 22, 2010
Thursday Apr 22, 2010
Student Question: Reasoning is the lowest level of intelligence, and that’s what is taught in our educational system. I’m trying to remember what the higher levels of intelligence above reasoning are. I know there’s intuition, but what else?
Higher levels of intelligence become available when “the full buddhi opens,” argues Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. Not only the lower buddhi of the ego—or rational thought—but the higher buddhi of the archetypal dimension becomes available. The higher buddhi “recognizes that there’s a much higher order that looks like randomness and chance, but has a logic that can only be seen in synchronicities and understood in a larger pattern than the ego can perceive. . . . And so when there’s no longer an egocentric perception, then those larger patterns—and more subtle patterns of reality—become clear.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, April 22, 2010.