Spiritual Teachings With Shunyamurti

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.

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.

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.

“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.

Student Question: In the seminar last weekend you said that archetypes are the ones that are running history and our lives. Can you give a little more information on that?

“Well at a certain moment in history there was a choice made, not at a conscious but at a super-conscious level . . . within not only the human species but within the realm of all the actants—no longer to support the dharma. And the dharma then—at an archetypal level—recognized that it must go into exile. And the world was then run by false powers,” explains Shunyamurti, the spiritual director of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. And it is only through the archetypes—not through any individual ego—that the dharma will return. And it is at this moment in history—when all love seems to have disappeared from the planet—that it must and will return. Recorded on the afternoon of Tuesday, December 15, 2009.

Student Question: You were saying that this is a time when all the myths have to gather together to create a new myth. Can you say a little more about that?

“Well for one thing all the religions are exhausted now,” explains Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. They can no longer provide the energy of spiritual transmission. And what’s worse, scandals permeate all the world religions now to the point of collective distrust. “And there’s a negative charge now on religion instead of a positive aura of reverence. Now people assume it’s hypocritical, or ‘What do they want? How are they gonna exploit me?’ and people have great fear of it, and with good reason.”

“And the cynicism that’s built into the modern ideology of materialism and scientism makes a lot of people think that religion is automatically anti-reason, anti-intellectual, anti-scientific. None of this is true.” But, nonetheless, we have reached a point culturally in which the most brilliant and avant-garde thinkers are moving further and further away from religion. So where is higher spiritual knowledge going to come from? “We have to create new passageways for Spirit to be able to enter the world. And so this can only be done at an individual level at this point until enough individuals come together to create new kinds of spiritual communities that are not dependent on the belief systems, credos, institutionalizations of the lineages that have become exhausted.” Recorded on the afternoon of Saturday, December 12, 2009.

Student Comment: So just to clarify, the sexuation trauma has been the central trauma and that we’ve sought—through chakra two—the perfect love relationship to heal it, for the past two thousand years. So, essentially, it has been the trauma of the second half of Kali Yuga.

“Once the identity became based on the body instead of based on Spirit; that’s the shift that happens in Kali Yuga. Before Kali Yuga, you are a Spirit who has a soul and a body, that’s in Treta [Yuga]. In Dwapar Yuga, you’re a soul that has a Spirit and a body. Then in Kali Yuga, you’re a body that in the beginning has a soul and Spirit, but then only has a soul, and then eventually you're only a body. That’s the way we are now and it has been for the last several hundred years, at least in the West where there’s a total materialism. . . . Once Spirit, which is the source of love, has been cut off, and the soul, which is the depth dimension of the human being has been cut off, then you're just a surface ego. And what do you have to give?” Recorded on the afternoon of Saturday, December 12, 2009.

Excerpts: “Understand that pure Presence is your natural state. It is only that we have been in exile from our own Presence. We have been lost in the labyrinth of the mind. . . . So, by becoming Present, we are letting go of our preconceptions and our illusions about the world that keep us in a state of dissatisfaction and in flight from the present moment. . . . And so we invite the Self back into the space by creating a true, sacred space in our own mind. . . . Now we must surrender the house of the mind to the Holy Spirit and—in that way—we become the vehicles of Spirit. We become the Elohim: the many who incarnate the One. And this produces then a new order within the physical plane. A New Order of the Ages, Novus Ordo Seclorum.”

“This is the same story. It’s told in every culture. It’s told in many different ways with many different names. . . . But it’s our story, it’s not the story of someone who lived in India. It’s not the story of someone who lived in Palestine. It’s not the story of even a man. The story of the Virgin Mary is the same story in female form, or Ishtar, or Isis. The story is told in the same way for man, woman, even animal. For all creatures there is that same movement: exile and then return and the restoration.” Recorded on the afternoon of Saturday, December 12, 2009.

“Many of you are practicing the supreme renunciation,” reveals Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “The supreme renunciation is to renounce the realization of your oneness with God. It’s the most painful ascetic practice one can undertake. . . . And so it’s very easy to attain liberation because all you’re doing is letting go of renunciation . . .” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, December 10, 2009.