Spiritual Teachings With Shunyamurti

Student Question: There are a lot of things going through my mind right now so I’m going to try to make sense. I have, through native understanding, the notion that one day the Great Eagle will swoop down and take everything that’s been gleaned from this human experience, from this earth experience, and then who knows what. And I’m trying to understand my relationship to whatever it is that’s trying to understand Itself through consciousness. Is it lacking something by creating all of us and this?

“Well, first of all, know that you are the Great Eagle, and this is all a game that the Eagle plays,” explains Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. It’s just a game. “You play hide-and-seek and the one who is hiding isn’t really lost, and the one who is seeking isn’t really seeking. It’s play on both sides. So the one who is hiding is not lacked by the other. And when that is recognized, then even the hide-and-seek you're playing with yourself—or with the Great Eagle—is only a game for enjoyment.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, April 8, 2010.

Student Question: We talk about the chakras as levels of consciousness. Is there also an energetic kundalini within the body? Do the chakras manifest at different points in the body?

“It is more that the body is within the chakra than that the chakra is within the body,” reveals Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. Nevertheless there are symbolic links with different parts of the body, chakra two being linked with the sexual organs is an example, but the entire body becomes activated in order to fulfill that chakra. The chakras can also be linked individually to certain parts of the body that have to do with unconscious phantasies which are particular to each person. “But it takes a lot of sensitivity to be able to deduce from the symptom, the logic of the unconscious structure.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, April 8, 2010.

Student Question: What is behind the fear of the unknown when you are trying to be flexible but you can’t, or you’re trying to be spontaneous and you’re caught in planning? Or when you’re meditating and your mind won’t stop chattering and it’s hard to free yourself?

“You see, as a child, you’re natural state is to love the unknown,” reveals Shunyamurti, the director of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. But you get commands, originally intended for safety, to fear the world. And this is alright so long as one can let go of these irrational fears and paranoia that no longer serves one as an adult. “And that’s what ego death is really about: the ego that was created in childhood must die so the Real Self can now emerge and all the glory and the power that is our True Self—and the love! And that will come out as soon as you let go of that.” Recorded on the evening of Tuesday, April 6, 2010.

“One of the differences between ego-mind and Sat Mind, is that ego-mind tends to be rigid whereas Sat Mind is flexible,” maintains Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “The tree that bends in the wind will survive whereas the rigid structure will collapse.” And because “we’re living in a time of radical uncertainty, our flexibility has to become radical.” And therefore we can no longer depend on plans stored away in the back of our minds for riches, vacations—any fantasies that we have about the future or any system that we have built our lives upon—but we must be able to adapt to anything that our environment throws at us. Our movement must not be “based on some plan that was developed in the past,” but rather “on an accurate assessment—and an intuitive knowing of what is the right way to proceed in any given moment—that serves the whole, and is no longer based on egocentricity or on trying to achieve some very fixed point, but to be able to flower around the obstacles, to flow around the rocks as water does in a stream, and to always be able to keep the ultimate compass of true north present, but know that there are many ways for the river to wind to the sea and not to be stuck in a single channel.” Recorded on the evening of Tuesday, April 6, 2010.

Excerpt: “This is a school in which one can attain happiness, but only if you’re willing to Realize the Truth of your Being. The truth of who you’re not that you think you are now, and the truth of who you really are, which transcends your ability to even conceive of the vast, unlimited nature of your True Self. And so we have to be very open-minded, as well as open-hearted, to take in the information and the energy that will raise our vibrational frequency and our consciousness to perceive the unlimited nature of what we are. . . . And all of this purification ultimately leads to a palpable recognition that we are not a physical, separate individual in a world of other individuals, but that we are part of the One Supreme Consciousness that is the creative force and the Ground of the entire universe. And that’s when life becomes really interesting. That’s when you become a player of the cosmic game, not of the ego game any longer. And we become co-creators with God. We become conduits and vehicles of that higher wisdom that wants to bring peace back to the earth that the human ego is destroying. It wants to bring back stability. . . . And the climate change, and all of the other changes that we are facing that are a karmic result of our malpractice of human existence because we have been in a false consciousness. We have to heal ourselves and heal our planet that we have injured. . . . And then we will graduate from this school and really begin to get the more advanced teachings from within that will guide us to the last stages of liberation from this plane.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, March 25, 2010.

Student Question: In this spiritual path, does one separate from the ego and see it as a witness or does it just dissolve? And if it remains, then what is our relationship to the ego? When I am in the Real Self, does the ego remain or does the ego fall away?

“The ego, really, is a set of functions OK? It is a set of capacities that the psyche or soul has. But then those functions get covered over by belief systems and complexes and personalities,” explains Shunyamurti, the director of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. And the functions of the ego—thinking, feeling, sensing, and intuiting—will remain. “So, in that sense, an ego remains. But it is not an ego that identifies as those functions. And it realizes those functions are a conduit of the Supreme Self.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, March 25, 2010.

Student Question: You mentioned earlier acquiring an understanding for how our egos operate—the games, the defense mechanisms, etc. Does one really need to understand all of this?

“It helps a lot for the modern Western intellect,” explains Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. But it was not always necessary. One can even see this in the story of Nisargadatta Maharaj. However, in modern culture, no one will believe a holy scripture or a guru, so “you better understand it for yourself that this makes rational sense. Once you have understood this in a deep way so that you can refute your ego’s own self-deceptions, then you can liberate yourself.” Recorded on the evening of Monday, March 22, 2010.

Student Question: Earlier you mentioned that one needs to cultivate this love for one’s Real Self. So what are some ways of cultivating that?

Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica, provides that “if you recognize the qualities and the powers that are given to you by God—if you are open to receiving them—the siddhis, the very gift of life itself,” then one can recognize that “All of this is a gift” of love from the Creator. “It was an act of infinite love to create this universe. This was not a necessity on God’s part. This was a gift so that we could grow toward God-consciousness—and it’s perfect! It’s an absolutely perfect universe. We think it’s not but it’s our own karma that makes it seem imperfect. . . . It is the seeing it in the flesh, the recognition that love is reality” that makes us want to know the Source of all love. “We are beings of love. Our very essence is love. But we live in this shell that originally we created to protect that essence, then we lost sight of the fact that it was in there and we live in the shell. But the shell is not the purpose of life, and we must break through the shell and be released again. And once we realize that, that itself will be the act of love that liberates us.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, March 18, 2010.

“There is a Golden Braid that’s well known in esoteric tradition. It’s a beautiful metaphor,” explains Shunyamurti, the spiritual director of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “And when this Golden Braid is complete, and completely braided, it makes the achievement of Liberation very, very easy. But most of us have only one or two of the strands of this three-stranded braid.” And these strands begin to develop as the ego-mind begins to mature and its care spreads beyond itself. “And so the first strand is that of Love: love for the Supreme Self.” But, that love is not enough. And so the next strand is “an intense desire to know the Real Self.” And, “the third essential strand of the braid is dispassion, detachment from the worldly pleasures. . . . And when you’re freed from those anchors, then the Love—and the desire to know—will draw you up into the innermost core of Being.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, March 18, 2010.