Spiritual Teachings With Shunyamurti

The Big Other - 09.24.09

“So if we psychoanalyze not the conscious mind and not the unconscious phantasies but the censor itself, we’ll find that there are two complexes that exist side by side in the censor and they’re completely contradictory. One is that of solipsism: the ego doesn’t believe that there really is anyone else, or at least that all the rest are robots, or they don’t matter. . . . And then at the other side of it is the belief in the big Other to which the ego grovels and submits, and it cannot oppose.” This, as Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute, explains, is actually the opposite of the enlightened state in which one recognizes that there are many other sentient others, but there is no big Other “because there is God, and God is one without a second. .  . . And so when the enlightened being sees human others, he or she sees only the Self.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, September 24, 2009.

A Tale of Twins - 09.22.09

“In most mythological systems, there is a theme of the double or the twins, and there are different kinds of twinships. One version is that there are two birds in a tree. One bird is eating the fruits on the tree and the other is just watching. This would be the twinship of the soul and the spirit.” As Shunyamurti, the founder and director of the Sat Yoga Institute, argues, this myth of the twins provides a backdrop or a better understanding of the connection with our phenomenal and noumenal realities. “The problem is that part of the consciousness is identified very strongly with the karmically enmeshed ego-form. . . . The only way out is to disidentify and realize you are not the bird that has eaten of the fruit but the other bird that has never been touched by trauma or any of the karmic enmeshments or identifications that the ego is plagued with.” So, paradoxically, “at the moment when we’re the most cut off from the vastness of the Supreme Self is that moment that we are closest to it in time that the return of eternity into the dimension of time becomes again inevitable and we are in that moment now. . . . This is the moment we have arrived at on this planet. And at the same time it’s the moment in which the doors of our perception can be most opened to cosmic realities that of the merely human plane. . . . So I hope you will all make the choice that will lead to the highest blessings that are possible for consciousness to attain.” Recorded on the afternoon of Tuesday, September 22, 2009.

Where Am I? - 09.17.09

Although the phrase, “Who Am I?” thought to be the best mantra by Sri Ramana Maharshi, is indeed one of the most profound mantras in meditation, Shunyamurti, the director of the Sat Yoga Institute, elucidates “I think sometimes it’s actually more appropriate to ask another question of ourselves: ‘Where Am I?’ Because the real question is where does your mind go. It’s not a question of where the body is, but where is the mind? Where does it go?” With this in mind, Shunyamurti retells the parable of Sri Ramakrishna about two men who make very different decisions for a night of fun and where their minds end up. But, “it’s not where you go physically; it’s where are you really? So there’s another saying in India about where we should be and it’s three words: Satyam, Shivam, Sundaram. And it is said the very inmost core of the soul is most accurately symbolized by those three terms.” Recorded on the evening Thursday, September 17, 2009.

The 'I' Entity - 09.10.09

“There is no ‘I’ entity. That’s the first fact.” But because of people’s belief in this illusion, they go at great lengths to improve their ‘I’ illusion like a Barbie doll. They buy it new clothes, new accessories. But as Shunyamurti, director of the Sat Yoga Institute, explains, “it’s always more, more, more because the ‘I’ entity isn’t enough. Why isn’t it enough? Because it doesn’t exist in the first place.” But if we could only let go of this illusion of a person, the “phantom of our internal opera,” then we would be able to be free of all of the anxieties that the ego entails. “So what we’re doing in meditation is we’re paying attention. And that’s the thing that the ‘I’ entity doesn’t really want to do. It doesn’t want to pay attention. It wants to be absorbed in its fantasies, but it doesn’t want to pay attention to its own construction of those fantasies. So meditation is paying attention to the way you pay attention. . . . There will be, ultimately, a realization that the ‘I’ is the Absolute space in which it all occurs; not any entity at all.” Recorded on Thursday, September 10, 2009.

Kama, Krodha, Lobha, Moha, and Ahankar - 09.01.09

Meditation is the removing of impurities. And these impurities are best summarized in the Bhagavad-Gita, in which they are referred to as: Kama, Krodha, Lobha, Moha, and Ahankar. Kama refers to desire and it is usually specified as sexual desire or lust. Krodha means anger. Lobha is greed. Moha is attachment, “which is another kind of greed, but it’s a holding on to other people” and even the thought of people. Ahankar means “I am the doer—‘I’ the ego. So it is egocentricity; nowadays it would be referred to as narcissism.” And, as Shunyamurti, the director of the Sat Yoga Institute, explains, “all of these are expressions of an underlying issue, which is anxiety.” This anxiety all stems from the understanding, known by the ego but hidden from the conscious mind, that it is an illusion. The only cure for this anxiety, to cleanse these impurities, is the complete surrender to the Supreme Being. Recorded on the afternoon of Tuesday, September 01, 2009.

The Third I - 08.27.09

“Meditation is often called the opening of the third ‘I.’” But believing that the third “I” is actually supposed to be an eye is a misunderstanding. It is not some vestigial organ in the forehead. It is not even the pineal gland. The first “I” is, to borrow a term from Jacques Lacan, the “I” of the statement, which is known in India as the “monkey mind.” The second “I,” the “little guy behind the curtain,” is known as the “I” of the annunciation; the “I” that you're not even aware of; the one who is sending the thoughts into your head that you identify with. “The first ‘I’ is an illusion. The second ‘I’ is a ghost. And so the salvation only comes when we surrender to the third ‘I.’ And the third ‘I,’ fortunately, is the ‘I’ of Shiva. The ‘I’ of God within.” So only when “God is allied with the conscious mind,” can we have true freedom. True bliss. True love. Recorded on the evening of Thursday, August 27, 2009.

The Ocean of Consciousness - 08.20.09

“When you look in a mirror, you are what doesn’t show up in the mirror.” But, according to Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute, “the problem for the ego is that it wants to show up in the mirror” because if it doesn’t, then how can it define itself? How can it prove that it is real? “In India, one of the metaphor’s for God is . . . ‘The Ocean of Consciousness.’” This metaphor is meant to convey that God is limitless. But the ego instead chooses to objectify itself, choosing a body floating in the ocean, rather than the ocean itself. And this limits us to becoming very powerless creatures who imagine themselves as individuals moving through time and space, rather than the infinite, eternal consciousness that we are. “But the consciousness, the oceanic consciousness, that even conceives of that, that is the very possibility of a world appearing to us, never appears in that world, just as when you’re in a dream the mind that’s dreaming up that dream doesn’t appear in the dream.” It is this unity that allows us to love, “because love is the realization we are all floating in this ocean of consciousness and that ultimately we are all waves of the same ocean.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, August 20, 2009.

Returning to Rama - 08.19.09

In Kali Yuga, humanity "has fallen to the level of monkeys. All most humans today are interested in is sex and food; and a little violence thrown in when they can get away with it." But, as in the story of Rama and Sita, only now does humanity have the potential to transform back into its godlike nature. Therefore, it is now imperative that humanity call upon Rama and return to God-consciousness in order to retrieve its beloved Sita, or soul, and restore order to the world. Recorded on the evening of Wednesday, August 19, 2009.

Revival of the Commonwealth - 08.18.09

“The very idea of private property is a fairly recent one.” At one time, whether it was Native American tribes or even the commonwealths of England, property was distributed amongst the people. But, as Shunyamurti, the director of the Sat Yoga Institute, reminds us, “Now we have a situation where one percent of the population owns about 90 percent of the property of the world, and everyone is deprived of it. And this is why you have revolutions and terrorism and all of that. There is a basic unfairness in the way that the goods of the universe are distributed today because of greed; it has absolutely corrupted the minds of people.” Recorded on the afternoon of Tuesday, August 18, 2009.