Spiritual Teachings With Shunyamurti

Liberation Through Gyana or Bhakti – 06.07.12

Excerpt: “The obstacle is the ego. With all of its chaotic thoughts, negative thoughts, thoughts of lack, of anxiety, of anger, of lust, fear. The ego is a luxury we can no longer afford. It makes our lives unmanageable, as the twelve-step people would say. You can’t manage your life if your life is ruled by an ego because an ego is inherently chaotic, ambivalent . . . and filled with internal conflicts that get projected as external conflicts, paralysis of will, and self-deception of every sort. And all of this produces: suffering. Suffering is based on illusion because the ego is an illusion, and all of its thoughts are illusory. Once you realize you cannot trust those thoughts, you will accept only the thoughts that come from the Source, and they come as inspirations, intuitions, Aha-experiences, and wordless knowing of the true nature of reality – that leads to spontaneous egoless action.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, June 7, 2012.

Whatever Beliefs You Have Alienate You from Who You Are – 05.31.12

Excerpt: “What the path of Advaita says, that is different from every other path, is: all you really need to do is ask the question ‘What am I?’ And just by asking the question, not even getting an answer – in fact you don’t want an answer –  as soon as you get an answer you get another belief system, another mythology, another symbolic situation that needs to be overcome because every symbolic situation you are in is the obstacle to the realization of what you are. So you don’t want an answer to the question: what you need is a wordless realization of your being, which you can only get by inquiring – not conceptually, not to find some new map or some new symbol – but to free yourself from all the symbolic constructs that have then created the need for some journey or salvation or some grace from a God, whether out there or in here; it doesn’t even matter. So the question is meant to get you out of every belief system and to keep you from creating a new one because what you need to be free of is beliefs…” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, May 31, 2012.

All Suffering is Caused by Identification – 05.24.12

Excerpt: “All suffering is caused by identification with an object in consciousness: primarily identification with the physical body, and secondly, identification with language, thoughts. And those thoughts are charged with emotions, impulses, drives—images that create nostalgia, anger, fear, whatever. So there’s a whole cluster of objects, mental objects, that tend to arise that produce effects of suffering of different kinds. And to the extent we’re identified with those objects in the mind, we are on the wheel of karma. . . . And because of our identification with the body, and with thought, we cannot escape because every effort to escape just tightens the noose more: we affirm the illusion that is the cause of suffering. . . .  But there is a very simple way out, and that is nonidentification with any mental objects and instead realization of the Self as the Empty Consciousness in which those objects arise.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, May 24, 2012.

Am I Ready to Meet Rama? – 05.17.12

Excerpt:  “There is an inherent and eternal love between the soul and God.  Sita is the signifier of the soul and Rama of God - and Sita and Rama are always together - and when Sita does become separated from Rama, through Sita’s ignorance and stupidity – karmic enmeshment with the phenomenal plane – Rama always comes to rescue her – and Rama is always victorious – and Rama is always able to build an army of monkeys to be able to help him.  Monkeys are just a signifier for yogis – because yogis are those who are coming out of the monkey stage into the divine stage through their love for Rama – our love for Rama….  And so all meditation is, is the act of love between Sita (that’s you), and Rama (that’s also you)… and that’s what love really means - that you meet yourself - that love is union with the source of your being…  the soul is that part of yourself that wonders into this dream field called the universe to have experiences and challenges, delights… all created by Rama for the benefit of Sita, but then we get lost in those delights and the paradise becomes a hell realm and voila… its time to meditate again… get Rama to rescue us – beam us up again – start the whole thing all over again….  So we are at that moment where Sita once more meets Rama… and so you have to ask yourself the question – am I ready to meet Rama?”  Recorded on the evening of, Thursday, May 17, 2012.

Transcending All Myths – 04.27.12

Excerpt: “Philosophy in the modern West . . . distinguished religion from science. Religion was mythical, and science dealt with facts. . . . Postmodern Western philosophy now conceives that science itself is a myth. . . . When it comes to ultimate questions, science has no answer to them; it has to presume an origin, but it doesn’t even attempt to account for it because it cannot account for anything ultimate because that would be religion. But if, in fact, there’s no difference between religion and science, and if they are both mythological constructs, then it’s important to understand what myth is. And as Joseph Campbell has explained very clearly in all of his works, myth is metaphor. But what is it that’s being metaphorized?” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, April 26, 2012.

The One True Person of No Rank – 04.19.12

Excerpt:  “We are here to realize the true self.  The implication of that is that we have not been living in our authentic self, but in some false - unreal - persona… and if we are not living in our real self then we are not living in the real world either…  and if the world is false and the self is false, then things are going to happen that are unsustainable because the false cannot survive the test of truth… and because so many on this planet are now living in the false self, we have a false world that is collapsing… you cannot live in that state of hypocrisy without karma hitting you pretty hard….  So everyone is getting lessons in karma nowadays but we are not here to worry about the political issues of the world and their karma… we are here to work out our own karma…  to make sure that we are not secretly killing elephants when we are pledged to protect them… to make sure that if we are Sat Yogis, we are living up to our vows and living a yogic life and living as what Linji - the great Zen master - the great wild Zen master - called the true person – the one true person of no rank.  He said every ego is out to try and get to as high a rank as possible and to try to improve its status in the world and that is all it is really interested in, and there is one true person who doesn’t care about that… who realizes that there is no such thing as rank….  It is interesting that rank has these two meanings.   One is a bad smell, and the other is status….  It is rank if you are interested in rank… but he said there is only one true person of no rank and that everyone else is interested in rank and prestige, status, possessions and power - all of that… but that the one true person is the incarnation of God… the Christ…. Don’t think the Zen masters don’t believe in Christ.  They do, but they have another word for that being...”  Recorded on the evening of, Thursday, April 19, 2012.

Direct God Realization – 04.12.12

Excerpt:  "Most religions are the worship of a yogi - they are constituted by that….  Christ was a yogi – Buddha was a great yogi – Mohammed was a yogi – Moses was a yogi… and so most of the religions today are either worshiping the yogi or worshiping the book that the yogi wrote, or was channeled through him… but religion was originally simply the act of becoming a yogi… so the religions that we have today are indirect and there is certainly benefit in worshiping a great yogi, but that is very different from attaining the state of consciousness that Christ attained or that Buddha attained….  And so merely worshiping and trying to imitate the life of a great yogi, while an important step, keeps one within the ego… it doesn't transcend the ego into direct God realization, and that is what we are here to do… to become the goal that those great yogis pointed at for us….  Christ would have considered Christianity to be heretical – he never said worship me – be one with the Father – I and the Father are one - you and the Father are one – we are all one - but then that gets misinterpreted….  Or in the Islamic religion, there is one prophet only and one holy book and then it stops, as if God got some inability to write after that – writer's block or something – couldn't produce any more testaments – not true….  But humans have gotten yoga block… humans have blocked their own access to the transcendent dimension of our own self, and that is what we are here to unblock… and we do that simply by silencing the egoic chatter that acts as a buffer and an obstruction between our consciousness and that of God's…..  And that is the original and authentic purpose of prayer… to create a mental pathway and a link between the individual consciousness and the universal consciousness…"  Recorded on the evening of Thursday, April 12, 2012.

The Path of the Valiant and The Path of the Fearful – 03.29.12

Excerpt: “If you read the old Vedanta literature . . . they tend to divide the path into two forms: one they call ‘The Path of the Valiant’ and the other ‘The Path of the Fearful.’ And they say that those who are in fear come to God looking for refuge. . . . And they say ‘The Path of the Valiant,’ on the other hand, is not taking refuge in some god or supernatural force or supreme power or as an other, but one who has the courage to recognize that God is the Self. . . . But I tend to think that in these postmodern times that’s too simplistic a dichotomy, and that, in a way, it takes more courage to admit that one need’s help than it does to believe that one can do it all on one’s own. And it is that pseudo-valiance that may actually hold one back for a long time on the path, believing one can do it on one’s own, but being in denial of the fact that one is using a lot of props in order to hold one up. . . . But in truth, the sadhana is always a combination of the two. And when we are in our daily lives, there should be a recognition of the interdependence—and of the humility required—to continue to learn, at deeper and deeper levels of subtlety, what the great sages have taught as to how to reach this place where the valiant achievement of God-consciousness is authentic and truly possible.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, March 29, 2012.

Supreme Holy Work – 03.22.12

Excerpt:  “So if God made you an offer, that all you would have to do to help save the world, would be to silence your mind and immerse yourself in the divine presence within consistently, completely, once and for all, and that that would be the greatest gift you give to the universe and to yourself, would you do it?  Because that is the offer that God has been making for thousands of years…  it is what every spiritual tradition teaches….  Surrendering to God means surrendering the attention, the thoughts, the mind, to the presence that is already within you, at the core of your own consciousness, which is a very sweet blissful silence…  and that energy that can radiate through the channel of your own mind’s focus will fill the world with peace and divine love and that energy is so powerful, that if the flow of it is continuous, it will change the course of history; it is that strong.  We just need a critical mass of beings who are dedicated to that supreme holy work, and a Sat Yuga is born…  a kingdom of heaven is born on earth…  and yet no one seems to volunteer to do the work and it’s so simple because really it means stop working, stop struggling, stop striving, stop desiring, stop fearing, and just live in peace and acceptance in freedom from suffering and in empowerment and in love….”  Recorded on the evening of Thursday, March 01, 2012.