Spiritual Teachings With Shunyamurti

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.

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.

“Meditation is often called the opening of the third ‘I.’” But believing that the third “I” is actually supposed to be an eye is a misunderstanding. It is not some vestigial organ in the forehead. It is not even the pineal gland. The first “I” is, to borrow a term from Jacques Lacan, the “I” of the statement, which is known in India as the “monkey mind.” The second “I,” the “little guy behind the curtain,” is known as the “I” of the annunciation; the “I” that you're not even aware of; the one who is sending the thoughts into your head that you identify with. “The first ‘I’ is an illusion. The second ‘I’ is a ghost. And so the salvation only comes when we surrender to the third ‘I.’ And the third ‘I,’ fortunately, is the ‘I’ of Shiva. The ‘I’ of God within.” So only when “God is allied with the conscious mind,” can we have true freedom. True bliss. True love. Recorded on the evening of Thursday, August 27, 2009.

This podcast is a response to the following question: What is your view on the concept of free will vs. predetermination?

The question of free will has been a central issue since the beginning of philosophical discourse. Are we responsible for our actions or are they predetermined? But, as Shunyamurti, director of the Sat Yoga Institute, explains from the perspective of yoga, “A yogi is someone who desires to extricate themselves from the illusion of agency, of being a creature of will, whether free or unfree.” And that “The doing of the organism and the thinking of the mind have nothing to do with the Self. The very idea of predetermination implies time and linearity, but because that is also an illusion, you cannot speak of pre-determination.” The Eternal Presence is non-temporal and therefore cannot be thought of as either before or after. And, paradoxically, “the only freedom is through the surrender of the desire for an individual sense of power.” Recorded on the afternoon of Tuesday, August 25, 2009.

“When you look in a mirror, you are what doesn’t show up in the mirror.” But, according to Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute, “the problem for the ego is that it wants to show up in the mirror” because if it doesn’t, then how can it define itself? How can it prove that it is real? “In India, one of the metaphor’s for God is . . . ‘The Ocean of Consciousness.’” This metaphor is meant to convey that God is limitless. But the ego instead chooses to objectify itself, choosing a body floating in the ocean, rather than the ocean itself. And this limits us to becoming very powerless creatures who imagine themselves as individuals moving through time and space, rather than the infinite, eternal consciousness that we are. “But the consciousness, the oceanic consciousness, that even conceives of that, that is the very possibility of a world appearing to us, never appears in that world, just as when you’re in a dream the mind that’s dreaming up that dream doesn’t appear in the dream.” It is this unity that allows us to love, “because love is the realization we are all floating in this ocean of consciousness and that ultimately we are all waves of the same ocean.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, August 20, 2009.

In Kali Yuga, humanity "has fallen to the level of monkeys. All most humans today are interested in is sex and food; and a little violence thrown in when they can get away with it." But, as in the story of Rama and Sita, only now does humanity have the potential to transform back into its godlike nature. Therefore, it is now imperative that humanity call upon Rama and return to God-consciousness in order to retrieve its beloved Sita, or soul, and restore order to the world. Recorded on the evening of Wednesday, August 19, 2009.

Student Comment: From my parents and everyone I grew up with I used to get, “Sex is the most beautiful thing, and overeating is the most beautiful thing, and money and cars and beaches and vacations and drinking. It’s the best thing. And do it!” While the superego used to manipulate mankind in a puritanical way, in recent generations there has been a shift from “You can’t do this and that. You have to save. Early to bed and early to rise,” to “No no enjoy. Spend it all. Watch pornography. There’s no limits.” To walk the spiritual path takes great courage to break away from the current ideology of the collective hedonistic lifestyle and to make a stand for what is right. Recorded on the afternoon of Tuesday, August 18, 2009.

Student Question: If God wants us to return and break through the egoic identity, then why does it seem so difficult? Is it really not that difficult to be aware of the God-conscious? Why is the ego there, and the censor, and all of these things that make it seem so difficult if we’re supposed to learn that it’s there? Although as Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute, reminds us, it’s really not that difficult to break through to God-consciousness. But nevertheless, we have to keep in mind that human psychology is not static but variable. “Human psychology is in the most darkness than it ever has been.” And, as a result, all of the collective systems, the social, the political, the economic, “support the ego and the censor and do not allow any Truth to come in.” Recorded on the afternoon of Tuesday, August 18, 2009.

Student Question: Ultimately there has to be a transcendence of the thought that there is anyone there; the concept that there is anyone aware of this. Is that right? Not only are we someone, we are “the One.” But we are not, nevertheless, someone as an ego identity. We are the Universal Intelligence. The Supreme Self. And because of our limited ego-minds, we cannot even hope to comprehend the vastness of our transfinite nature, at least not when we still categorize reality in language. But when we let go of language, one of the more subtle, but powerful, attachments, then we can start to understand our Supreme Nature. Language limits us because it is finite thought. “And we’re so attached to finite thought because it’s what gives us the illusion of power over events. . . . But it doesn’t allow us to access infinite thought.” When we can keep the mind silent for long enough, we can start to download realizations; the famous, enlightening “Aha!” moments of legends such as Aurobindo or Spinoza when unfathomable amounts of information enter the mind in one instant. And this is available to anyone who has the dedication to completely silence the mind. Recorded on the afternoon of Tuesday, August 18, 2009.