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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 Dec 31, 2009
Thursday Dec 31, 2009
Student Question: You said that we have to stop asking questions that would be impediments to our growth. What kind of questions would be impediments to our growth?
“Well the question of the ego that says, ‘Why is it so hard? How can I do this? I don’t know how.’ All of those questions that create a sense of helplessness and hopelessness that don’t really have answers. But they are not true questions,” elucidates Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. These are questions are asked by a false self who cannot find answers and cannot find God, “because to the ego, God can only be imagined as another entity that’s in resistance to the world, or wants to dominate the world, or wants to manipulate us in some way. And so everybody hates that God—but that is not the real God. But the ego cannot imagine a God that is neither a dictator, or some negligent clockmaker, or some being who started this whole thing and then abandoned us . . . and doesn’t give a damn. That’s not the reality of God, but the ego cannot imagine that we are all within God that is supporting us; that is the very love that keeps life going, and is the intelligence that directs life at every level.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, December 31, 2009.
Tuesday Dec 22, 2009
Tuesday Dec 22, 2009
Student Comment: From watching this movie on fractals, the recurring theme that hits me is this idea of self-similarity. It really interests me, and I’d like to know more about it.
“It’s true that in every moment you are similar to the way you were in the last moment. But you are also different. And this is the key point. If you are in fact different from every past moment, and you’re going to be different in the next moment, then you are not who you are now. You are in fact the difference itself. . . . The human essence is not form but the difference between one form and the next. Between one iteration and the next. And because you are difference, difference has no form. And that difference cannot be predicted. It is freedom. . . . And that’s why it’s possible—in any moment—to become enlightened. . . . just by realizing that what you are is difference itself. . . . Therefore you can change your life, utterly, at any moment; you have that freedom. It’s only our fear—of using that freedom—that keeps us stuck. Recorded on the evening of Tuesday, December 22, 2009.
Tuesday Dec 22, 2009
Tuesday Dec 22, 2009
Student Comment: From watching this movie tonight on fractal geometry, I was amazed with the mathematical patterns. But with synchronicities, which are also patterns, I feel a stronger message—a call to action.
“I think it has to be taken as a message at a slightly different level but at the level, let’s say, of DNA within a cell, which is operating at the same principles, that is a call to the actual molecules and organelles within the cells to operate in a certain way. And they follow that message. So on the level of human consciousness, there is a call from the intelligence of the designer of the universe for us to act in a certain way if we would listen to that.” Recorded on the evening of Tuesday, December 22, 2009.
Tuesday Dec 22, 2009
Tuesday Dec 22, 2009
“In these days before Christmas is a time to be incubating the Christ-self within us Who must be born,” explains Shunyamurti, the spiritual master of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “And the ceremony of the birthing of one’s Godself and the death of the ego was always recognized as the most sacred of all days, and the entire year leads up to this moment. . . . But to do that, to give birth to the Christ-self, we must surrender the ego-self. We must empty out the mind of all residue of ego in order to be a pure vehicle for the Supreme Intelligence, the Supreme Love. To fill and to emanate and to be shared. Those are the gifts under the Christmas tree. It is the gift of the divine virtues that we can role model and transmit and appreciate in the other.”
“So I hope you will give yourself the gift of being the gift that brings that empowerment to all of us and as a model to the entire world because this is the moment when the world is in its darkest days; this earth has never seen darker days than the ones we are in now. And these are the days in which we must give birth to the light. And we can’t say somebody else will do it. We have to take responsibility for doing it. You know the Christmas tree is filled with lights. It is a festival of lights; but we must be those lights.”
“And so I wish you all every blessing on achieving that—and doing it now because it takes so much time to purify the soul that if we wait, if we waste even one day and say, ‘I’ll start tomorrow,’ or ‘I’ll start after my vacation,’ or I’ll start whenever, the time won’t be there. There’s no more margin. It has to be done now and ceaselessly; an ongoing purification of the self has to be the regimen that organizes our lives. . . . we pay the price of the ego, and what we gain is the priceless union with the Source of all being.” Recorded on the evening of Tuesday, December 22, 2009.
Monday Dec 21, 2009
Monday Dec 21, 2009
Student Question: What are the differences among the Pre-modern, Modern, and Postmodern man?
In the Pre-modern man, “we have a consciousness in which there is a true cosmos: God is at the center, it is like a mandala, and then there is an order, there’s a beauty, a pattern, which was referred to in the Middle Ages as the great chain of being. . . . And then in the Modern Era, the center of the mandala drops off, and there is a sense, ‘Well there actually is no God.’ . . . And so the Modern Age is the loss of God and the beginning of humanism. . . . And then in the Postmodern Age—particularly in the 20th century—we have even man dropping out. Nietzsche said ‘God is dead.’ But the Postmodern said that man is also dead. There is no man. Man is a construct. In fact, what men are, are simply fragments.” Recorded on the evening of Monday, December 21, 2009.
Thursday Dec 17, 2009
Thursday Dec 17, 2009
Student Question: You talked earlier about the purification of the soul, but I am confused with the term soul because in Buddhism they don’t use soul. So what is being purified?
“It’s the continuity of sanskaras that create the illusion of an entity. So soul does not really exist. It’s part of Maya, but it’s apparent existence can create plenty of trouble for you. And so it must be purified until there is no longer the sense of being an entity, but one is simply identified as the entirety of the whole of the process that this creation is, not as some separate part.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, December 17, 2009.
Thursday Dec 17, 2009
Thursday Dec 17, 2009
Student Question: In one of the books we’re reading, it talks about the devouring of the mother needs to be cut in a way by the Law. And I’m just curious about that devouring. What does that mean, and what does that have to do with desire?
“You don’t want to be devoured. You want the other to desire to devour you, and then you say ‘No thanks.’ And that’s how the ego gains its sense of superiority; it is the rejecting of the other. And that’s why everyone’s heart has a stake in it because everyone has been disappointed in love. The other has lured them and then rejected them. And that’s the most painful situation in the world.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, December 17, 2009.
Thursday Dec 17, 2009
Thursday Dec 17, 2009
Student Question: There was a term you used in the seminar last week that I’m not familiar with. Maybe you could elaborate, the Elohim?
“Elohim is a plural word, and it means the elevated ones, the gods. . . . There are many deep secrets in the understanding of the Elohim because the Jews and Christians tend to overlook the fact that it’s a plural verb, or simply treat it as the multiple sides of the One God, but in fact it means also the fact that the world was filled with gods. . . . And so the Elohim represent the essence of our own selves in unison. So, there is a time, this is that moment in which the Elohim return.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, December 17, 2009.
Thursday Dec 17, 2009
Thursday Dec 17, 2009
“Many people are seeking techniques for meditation,” explains Shunyamurti, the spiritual teacher of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “And in my experience the use of techniques is an avoidance of the real issue that meditation is about.” The only true technique in meditation is the purification of the heart. The purity of the heart is really the love for God, and then, meditation is effortless. And the true state of surrender to God, of love for God, is martyrdom. “We have to understand that martyrdom is not the same as victimhood,” although today the two are confused. “Martyrdom is the refusal to be a victim. . . . Martyrdom is the willingness to live life fully, authentically in the midst of non-love, in the midst of adversity, in the midst of not being recognized. It is that courage that enables one’s ego to die—at every moment—so that the light can be born within one. . . . And it is only when we’re willing to be martyrs in the phenomenal plane that then we will have the reward of the mystical union with God because it is that very karma yoga action that purifies the soul.” So “in the meditative state we must touch into that part within us that is pure, that is inherently always, eternally pure. . . . and we must go into that essence and rest in that place because that is the place where we are already one with God. Nothing needs to be achieved and therefore, no technique is necessary.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, December 17, 2009.