Spiritual Teachings With Shunyamurti

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.

Dealing with Hypocrisy - 09.15.09

Student Question: I work at a spiritual bookstore, and I always hear people talking about the spiritual path, but they don’t walk their talk. It really frustrates me, and I was just wondering about how do I deal with this? “This is a frustration that everyone feels actually and not just in relation to the spiritual path, but everyone feels that everyone’s doing everything wrong. This is a constant issue for the ego.” But, as Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute, reminds us, this is part of our spiritual practice: to be able to be in the face of hypocrisy and retain compassion for the other, like in the Bible verse, “Father forgive them they know not what they do.” So rather than correcting someone, take the opportunity to practice your compassion for them and that will be the greatest lesson that you can teach them. Recorded on the afternoon of Tuesday, September 15, 2009.

It's No Coincidence - 09.15.09

Student Comment: I’m becoming a bit dislodged in the increasing apperception that every encounter is actually a meeting with God, and I think what brings this to mind is that this is beginning to get reflected back to me. So it just makes me think: “Tread lightly. This is now an appointment.” As the end of this age is rapidly approaching, the synchronicity of more and more seemingly “coincidental” events are becoming undeniable. “There are many, many more synchronicities per hour than there ever were in the past. And,” as Shunyamurti, founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica, reminds us, “it’s no accident that quantum physics has in fact come into existence today, which in a way is telling us the same thing at the physical level.” And, as the grand tapestry comes to fruition, “the pattern is becoming visible at the micro level of each consciousness as a fractal or a hologram of the whole, and we are becoming awakened to that as we reach the understanding of our destiny and of our full potential as beings of consciousness.” Recorded on the afternoon of Tuesday, September 15, 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.

It's All Illusory - 09.10.09

Student Question: We talk about the horizontal plane of time and setting these rules and saying these things exist, but if the ghost and the interdimensional beings and the candle don’t exist, then why do we recognize them? It’s a little confusing to me to talk about all these things and define them, but yet they don’t exist, it’s all consciousness.  Recorded Thursday, September 10, 2009.

A Sat Yogic Shaman - 09.08.09

Student Question: Is Sat Yoga, or does Sat Yoga consider itself, a shamanistic school? And if it does, how does it differentiate from other shamanic schools? “The original shaman is a yogi. There’s no distinction. It’s only later that in different cultures, that take on the use of this term, that there become variations of its meaning.” In this enlightening video, Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute, explains the origin and fall of the great shaman and his role in society as a healer to the pseudo/psychedelic-shamanism of modern Westerners (such as Timothy Leary and Terrence McKenna), who “make the mistake of believing that the relative mind is the goal rather than the Absolute mind. . . . But the problem is that the brain’s chemistry regulates the relative mind of the ego system, and indeed it can produce . . . interdimensional perceptions, but it does not reach the larger sphere of the absolute mind.” Recorded on the afternoon of Tuesday, September 8, 2009.

Yin and Yang - 09.08.09

Student Question: I was just curious about Yin and Yang. What does it refer to? Is it just duality, opposites, polarities, male/female? What is it? “Yin and Yang are names within the Taoist tradition of the archetypal structure of phenomenal reality that always exists in a bifurcated form.” This can be likened to the modern example of a computer which works by virtue of a complicated series of zeros and ones (binary code). “And yet it’s infinite,” explains Shunyamurti, founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica.  “And it can become very complex, just as all language can because, in a sense, the entire universe is language; it’s information.” This idea of language—which works by contrast—leads to a development in the mind of a constant sense of lack, of missing the other piece, and the only way that this hole can be filled is the transcendence of the incomplete, ego-identity. Recorded on Tuesday, September 8, 2009.

This Astral Plane - 09.03.09

Student Comment: I’ve been reading about the afterlife and what, potentially, is there in this great cosmic, astral plane. And it seems like what we’re learning here, with the ascension of the ego, in the physical plane, the third dimensional plane, is similar to what is there in the astral world as far as how the existence might be with souls that are in the non-physical world. “We’re in the afterlife right now,” as Shunyamurti, the director and founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica, explains, “You think this is a physical world but this is no more physical than any other astral plane.” And as the ego is transcended, this “physical plane” becomes quite different “and the more layers of illusion get dissolved, the more this world becomes realized as the Kingdom of Heaven, an astral plane that is far more beautiful than the one that you think you're in right now.” What we perceive with our senses is nothing more than the veils of Maya, the cosmic illusion. “The very idea of physicality is an illusion.” Just as when you are in a dream, the dream feels very real; thus is the nature of Maya. And as the ego dissolves and consciousness rises, the world becomes a much more interesting place. Recorded on the Evening of Thursday, September 3, 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.