Spiritual Teachings With Shunyamurti

Noetic Science - 05.13.10

“Sat Yoga is Noetic Science,” reveals Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “Noetic Science is the science of knowing. Sat Yoga is the most ancient science of knowing. . . . But it is the science of knowing the knower. The science of self-awareness. Self-consciousness. That which particularizes the human being and makes us different from other beings on this planet: that capacity for awareness becoming aware of itself.” But in order to get to that state, “we must be willing to let go of everything we think we know; everything we’ve been taught—including everything we’ve been taught here. Let it all go. Know absolutely nothing. And it’s in that—the tabula rasa, when you erase the whole blackboard—that only the knower remains. . . . This is freedom: swatantria. This is the ultimate goal of yoga: to be free of all of the straightjackets that your mind has put you in. All the pigeonholes. All the preconceived thoughts and the regurgitated ideas that come from other people, all the invalid things you learned in all the schools that you suffered through. All of those things that you depended upon to give you a sense of existence and worthiness and reality. Go beyond all of that and find the Absolute Source. . . . And when one wishes that level of freedom, then one realizes the ultimate paradox: that there is really nothing you need to be free from. There is no one who even needs to be liberated. That even that was part of the matrix. And then there is great joy and great bliss.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, May 13, 2010.

There is no Truth - 05.13.10

Student Question: In my experience, I’ve seen that one can interpret a situation in many different ways, and sometimes it seems that I can interpret a situation in an infinite number of ways. Is that freedom, or is that still part of the ego?

“No, freedom is when you don’t bother interpreting it anymore,” remarks Shunyamurti the spiritual director of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “All discourses are false. All interpretations are wrong because every concept, if you look at it deep enough, it flows into the other. Good and evil are the same. Every philosopher who has reached Ultimate Reality recognizes that: form is emptiness. Good is bad even. . . . All of these distinctions we make are part of duality. And so any discourse that you create is always leaving out a shadow that is its opposite that is actually embedded in it; it is its own essence.” “So the truth is that there is no . . . Truth?” “There is no Truth—but don’t take that as a truth!” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, May 13, 2010.

Duality in the Creation - 05.13.10

Student Question: Does the Creation not have duality inherent in it?

“Yes that’s right,” argues Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica, but “that duality is a unity. The nothingness and the fullness, the form and the emptiness (as the Buddhists say), Samsara and Nirvana—they are the same; they are not a duality. It only seems like a duality from within the ego. And that’s why the ego cannot function very well in the duality, because it does not see it clearly, and it has this paranoid perspective on it. Once you transcend it, you will live in the world without suffering.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, May 13, 2010.

The Ego is a Multiplicity - 05.13.10

Student Question: Is the ego the one that creates duality?

“Well the ego is a creation in duality,” reminds Shunyamurti, the director of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “And it is structured as a multiplicity; it’s even more than a duality.” The average person must create a number of different masks and sub-personalities to deal with the larger society. So, paradoxically, one has to establish a strong and stable ego before one is able to transcend it. Recorded on the evening of Thursday, May 13, 2010.

Possession in Meditation? - 05.13.10

Student Question: Some people say that when you are meditating, and you go out-of-body, that there are good entities—or bad entities—that can possess you. Is that true?

“No, not if you’re meditating the way we do. We’re not saying to leave the body; we’re saying to simply leave the superficial mind that is chattering,” explains Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. The real danger is more the demons that are in your unconscious mind rather than any external entities. “But anxieties may come up that have been held down, but if you remain the observer of it, and actually offer it to the source of your Being, you will dissolve it. So it’s more an opportunity than a danger.” So if you can remain the in the position of the detached observer, then you will be much safer than you would in a fragmented, or normal, state of consciousness. Recorded on the evening of Thursday, May 13, 2010.

You Can’t Fill the Lack of Your Parents - 05.06.10

Student Comment: One thing I remember that helped me free myself from my parents was remembering that it is my karmic responsibility to let them go, and that I hurt their karma if I cling to them or play the roles that they need me to play in order to fill up the lack that they can’t see.

“Exactly. It’s our responsibility not to fill the lack in the parents, or in any other—so that they will feel the pain of that lack and fill it with God,” reveals Shunyamurti, the director of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “If you try to fill it, then you keep them unhealthy. You act as a crutch that keeps them from being able to truly find their Real Self.” And by being bound to the biological family this keeps us unable to help the larger families. “And we have to recognize that the world family needs our help now. . . . Don’t think that the biological family is the only family you belong to; it’s only the practice family from which we come so that the real families can emerge.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, May 6, 2010.

What is a Blessing? - 05.06.10

Student Question: We talk a lot about blessings, and sending blessings, but I’m always puzzled by, what exactly is a blessing?

“The entire universe is consciousness,” maintains Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “And so what a blessing is, is the highest benevolent wave of conscious energy that is sent out so that consciousness that had been frozen in some form, that is a state that is alienated from its True Nature—as the very consciousness of God—will be restored to its awareness of its True Nature, and be able to thereby re-attain bliss, health, peace—all of the virtues and qualities of God-consciousness in its pure state.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, May 6, 2010.

Bhakti & Gyana Yoga - 05.06.10

“At the exoteric level there is an apparent difference between Bhakti Yoga and Gyana Yoga,” explains Shunyamurti, the spiritual director of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. Bhakti Yoga can be thought of as devotional worship to God or to a symbol of God. “But in Gyana Yoga, it is still worship, but it is worship with the third eye. It is worship with the clear mind that understands the truth of the nature of reality.” And to truly perform Bhakti Yoga, we must create a circuit, a positive charge that attracts a negative charge. The mind must become negative—it must empty itself out of all thoughts—so that it can be attracted to the “All-Positive pull” of God. And “through this energy circuit, you will be able to download the Divine Love. And when the body-mind is filled with love, then you need nothing more. All of the desire for the lower jouissance—the lower pleasure that brings suffering—will dissolve easily because once you are fulfilled, desire becomes superfluous . . . because all you have—and all you are—has been fulfilled by the Presence of God, which is everything, and the Source of all that is Good.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, May 6, 2010.

To Be or Not to Be - 04.29.10

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.