Spiritual Teachings With Shunyamurti

The Imperative of Meditation – 04.19.15

Excerpt: “Meditation is the discovery of the Real Self. In the process of discovering the Real Self, one also uncovers the fact that the ego is a false self; it is made up of conditionings that have been imported into consciousness from others . . . and accepted without due consideration for whether these are views that one truly holds oneself or were simply indoctrinated into one’s conditioning in order to comply with environmental demands . . . . Meditation is a kind of internal vision quest; there is no need to go out into the desert or the jungle or sit in a cave, but to move your attention into the cave of pure awareness in which you observe your own consciousness to discover ‘what is really there inside, what is really in my heart, what is really the source and foundation of my being?’” Recorded in the morning of Sunday, April 19, 2015.

The Defeat of the Ego is the Victory of God – 05.06.15

Excerpt: “The victory of God means the defeat of the ego, the defeat of all egocentric narratives. God does not become victorious through some effort. God is always already victorious, but that victory is only recognized when the ego’s helplessness and the futility of establishing the reality of any ego, is recognized; it is at the fall of the ego that the victory of God is realized. It is this paradox that is most difficult to integrate. So long as the ego . . . remains the frame of reference of thought, then the reality of God will not be recognized or surrendered to, but God will remain as a bit player in one’s scenario. It is when all the machinations of the ego fail, when all of its knowledge proves inadequate, that we turn to God as a last resort, and recognize that the ego cannot do it.” Recorded on the morning of Wednesday, May 6, 2015.

Presence Is. – 04.27.15

Excerpt: “Presence is. Nothing more accurate can be said in language because language cannot approach Presence; language is the retreat from Presence into identification, into subtle subject-object duality in which the signifier itself is both subject and object. Sat Yoga could be said to be a return to Presence because Presence is primary. . . . Presence is the Supreme Real. Presence has no present, because it is timeless. It cannot be described because Presence is not an object or a thing – not even a subject. Presence is prior to subject-object duality.” Recorded on the morning of Monday, April 27, 2015.

Peace is Not "La Di Da" – 04.07.15

Excerpt: “The mind is the cause of all suffering. When that becomes clear, then along with that the resolution of the problem of suffering becomes clear as well: that only a radical transcendence of the mind, the discovery, the realization of the transcendent Self will solve the problem. But the sages say that only when the realization of the urgency, of the need to transcend the mind, is at least equivalent to that of the urgency of a man whose hair is on fire to find a pool of water to dive into, should you begin a path like this. . . I tend to use the acronym now of “LA DI DA,” which is Lack, Anorexia, Deflation, Inflation, Dread, Avoidance. And in that dialectical oscillation one tends to go on with the ego as if nothing [were] wrong: “La Di Da” – and yet underneath that is the unbearable suffering that alternates with momentary jouissance or security-op[eration] that keeps one from having to feel the urgency, and thus the frog boils away in the water and never jumps out.” Recorded on the morning of Tuesday, April 7, 2015.

Cultivating Moral Strength – 04.09.15

Excerpt: ”The central existential problem for most beings is a lack of moral strength. And this plagues people at different levels; one is the lack of the strength to stop pretending one believes in one’s ego identity and all of its self-sabotaging sanskaras. And so the lack of moral strength to face the truth of one’s imposture as an ego is usually because one cannot face the anxiety of admitting one doesn't know who one is, and what life is about, or any of the pretenses that the ego assumes and suffers from. And then the lack of moral strength at that second level of anxiety at one’s cluelessness as to one’s being is the lack of strength to sit in the unknowing, the ‘cloud of unknowing’ if you will, until the Mystery reveals itself, as the Self.” Recorded on the morning of Thursday, April 9, 2015.

The Power of Wanting Nothing (At All) – 03.19.15

Excerpt: “Meditation . . . is the silencing of the mind, with its attention one-pointedly focused on God; God as the selfless Self, the immutable center and heart of consciousness. Through that silent focus, which is a docking maneuver, the individual consciousness docks and unites with the supreme source of power . . . . In this unification of the individual consciousness and the supreme infinite consciousness, power is transmitted and the battery of the individual is charged.” Recorded on the morning of Thursday, March 19, 2015.

True Pain Relief – 03.27.15

Excerpt: ”Every soul carries so much pain from so many other lives, so much karma. The soul itself is ripped and torn and unable to function, let alone the ego split into a thousand shards of egoic fragments with no willpower; a total inner chaos of instability – that there is no way out except the death of the ego. And it’s when that is recognized that there is nothing else on one’s agenda but that, that liberation is achieved. But as long as there are any options of doing anything else, one will choose those options because this is the most difficult, the most radical, and it’s only an extreme amount of pain that would provoke someone to take a path like this. And so therefore consider your pain a blessing: without it you would not find God.” Recorded on the morning of Friday, March 27, 2015.

Self-Acceptance: The Key to Liberation – 03.13.15

Excerpt: “The trick is this . . . there’s only one obstacle to achieving Self-Realization instantaneously in meditation, and that is the lack of self-acceptance – simply that. If you would accept yourself as you really are, you would achieve enlightenment and liberation. But the ego mind, which is a kind of veil over the real Self, is in a state of non-acceptance, and that non-acceptance can be on a spectrum going all the way to intense self-hatred up to a point of simply dissatisfaction with what one has achieved in life. But for most people the thermostat rests around . . . a point of lack of forgiveness of oneself for some belief that one has betrayed oneself and one’s integrity along the way – and that therefore one is not worthy of God-consciousness; that’s the issue. . .”  Recorded on the opening evening of a meditation weekend on Friday, March 13, 2015.

Can You Bear the Intensity of the Real? – 03.01.15

Excerpt: “A Sat Yogi is one who is practicing to endure the infinite intensity of the Real – who is no longer running away from the Real. But can anyone bear the intensity of the Absolute? Even to understand the meaning of this statement one must listen with the third ear open – an ear that we usually leave closed as an act of running away from an unbearable recognition of what is really being said within the words that are spoken. And even if the third ear is open, it is usually not connected fully to the Heart, because then the unbearable intensity of the Real would enter the Heart and shatter the ego.” Recorded on the morning of Sunday, March 1, 2015.