Spiritual Teachings With Shunyamurti

“We come here to discover what is real. And the deeper we inquire within, the more we realize that everything is impermanent in this world of experience; it’s fleeting, it changes – it has no true identity. Even people we meet have no true identity: at one moment they’re friendly, another moment they’re angry, one moment they’re here, another they’re gone, different personalities appear and disappear, moods, attitudes, understandings, none of it is permanent; it’s just a fleeting appearance. So all of you, all of us as appearances, as egos, as bodily beings, are completely unreal. And yet our lives revolve around this non-existent concern with an unreal being, an unreal being in an unreal world. Because the world is in constant change, nothing in this world is dependable: not the climate, not the ground under our feet, not the air, not the solar vibrations where you see the sun, not the water supply. There is no guarantee that our existence will continue even for one more minute, or even that this planet will continue to exist, none. So what is real? What do you build your life on? What do you depend on? Who are you?” Recorded in the afternoon of Thursday, August 23, 2012.

Excerpt:  “There is really no point speaking about the Absolute… we can talk a lot about the ego and the unconscious and it’s structure and dynamics, but when it comes to the Absolute concepts are futile… one always ends up with paradox, inconsistency, contradiction, inadequacy and usually it leads to a distorted understanding on the part of those who are listening… and so many of the great teachers have simply sat in silence without saying anything, or they have taught in parables using metaphors and archetypal images… but nothing can be said about the absolute because the absolute is not a thing – not an object… but even to say that is incorrect…  in the Vedas it is called Nirguna Brahman… the Absolute that is beyond even the question of whether personal or impersonal and has no qualities, no gunas, no attributes… but the egoic mind cannot grasp that which has no attributes… and in fact the Absolute cannot be grasped because there is no one to grasp it… what really has to be realized is that the ego mind that is attempting to understand is itself the illusion that must be transcended… for we are the Absolute and have never been anything else… but to explain that to a mind that is identified with its body, with its gender, with its family, its nation and religion and language etc etc etc is almost impossible… and so the approach of most spiritual paths have been to gradually strip away these identifications until consciousness receives a glimpse of naked awareness in which concepts do not arise… no narrative drags one away from the source of one's being into some imaginary discourse about what is… and in that moment of naked presence then the entire mystery of that which is revealed becomes impeccably and infinitely clear but what also becomes clear is that it cannot be transmitted in language to anyone else.  This is why the Buddha almost gave up before he began his teaching… you know he sat there – he attained Buddhahood – and then as he got up he realized this cannot be taught and then he sat looking at where he was sitting becoming enlightened for about seven days trying to figure out, “What do I do with this”?  It’s impossible to communicate that which transcends this entire dimension of illusion and yet it is what we are now….”  Recorded in the evening of Thursday, August 16, 2012.

Excerpt: “The ego is a psychic sack filled with mind parasites. It has only a negative value. It’s a place in consciousness based on the falseness of an illusionary identity that gives a space for negative entities to hold on to and suck your life energy away. These mind parasites will destroy your life if they are not eliminated. The only way to eliminate these negative entities, that will drive you to insanity, destroy your health, and destroy your destiny, is through the surrender of the mind to God for the purification of the consciousness and the elimination of the ego. That is why this sacred act of meditation is so important. It is literally a matter of life or death, and not just this life but all of your future lives that depend on the sanskaras that are created now at the end of Kali Yuga. So we need to take meditation with the utmost seriousness. It is our one opportunity to link with God and feel the current of divine energy, and allow that current to come in with such power that it annihilates these negative thought-forms and purifies the mind and the heart forever.” Recorded in the afternoon of Tuesday, August 14, 2012.

Excerpt: “Our natural state is pure awareness and absolute purity of mind and heart, and thus a state of love-filled joy. But we are only in that state if we are in the Real Self. And the problem for human consciousness is that a false self has intervened to disconnect our consciousness from the Real Self. And so we must learn to recognize the Real Self. And it’s easy to do because the Real Self differs from the false self in one essential way; the Real Self is non-arising. Any self that arises as an object, as a sense of being a body in the world, as having emotions, intentions, agendas, and relations in duality with others, is the false self. The Real Self is non-arising, and from the perspective from the false self, then, the Real Self does not exist because it doesn’t arise, it’s unborn, it’s unmanifest. But what the Real Self knows is that it’s that which arises that does not really exist; it’s not real because it’s fleeting, it’s impermanent, it’s in constant change, and it’s constantly fragmented, different emotions, different attitudes, different thoughts, contradictory, conflicting, feeling, and cognition states; whereas the Real Self that’s non-arising is eternal, unchanging, immutable – untouched by the chaos of the false self.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, August 9, 2012.

Excerpt: “The two most important concepts in meditation are ‘Shiva’ and ‘Shakti.’ We need to understand the very deep inner significance of these two profound concepts that function as the energy source for our reality because when we are meditating, what we are doing is literally charging our battery. The soul is a battery; it’s a living battery. And that battery gets discharged over time. And the more that we function in the lower chakras, the faster the battery discharges and goes dead. And so every time we have an outburst of anger, or sexual lust, or insecurity, anxiety, paranoia, all of those lower chakra emotional fixations, the battery of our life energy goes dead. And if it can’t be recharged we will literally go dead. And our physical body then starts to have to compensate for the lack of spiritual energy and the organs become weaker, they become drained. And eventually we just have a meltdown, we can’t think, we can’t organize our self to act and function in the world, our emotions become out of order, they get bipolar, they get fragmented, they fall into a meltdown. This is now happening around the world because nearly everyone’s battery has gone dead.” Recorded in the afternoon of Thursday, July 26, 2012.

Excerpt: ”How many of you believe that you really exist? Is anyone here still under that illusion? Admit it if there is. Anyone? No one will admit it, that’s good, it’s a start. It’s better to not admit it. Because we don’t really [exist]; it’s an illusion. Anything time-bound is not real. And all existence is simply an appearance followed by disappearance. Is the appearance any more real than the disappearance? No, but neither is real. You know a lot of times we talk about Jivanmukti as the goal of yoga, which means to be liberated in life; liberated from the ego with its illusory existence that is only an illusion. But actually Ramana says no, Jivanmukti is not the end; there is a stage higher than Jivanmukti. Does anyone know what it is? Sri Ramana calls it Videhamukti. And this means liberation even from believing you ever were an ego that has achieved liberation. There is not even the subtle sense of being one who has gone beyond the illusion – because you were never in the illusion to begin with. That’s why the final stage is just laughter.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, July 19, 2012.

Excerpt: “…Those of us who have been here for some time have no doubt come to understand and been motivated by the fact that what we are doing is discovering who we are. Most of us have recognized that we have these experiences that are in a flux, almost like in a circle; our body and our minds are going through these changes, constant changes. And yet there’s a witness, there’s a center to all of these experiences, and what we call ‘imperiences,’ those which don’t happen in what seems to be an external world but happen in an internal world: dreams, visions, memories, thoughts; where do they actually happen? And to whom do they happen? And we usually focus our whole life on what is happening out there: ‘what a pretty flower,’ ‘what a strange person,’ ‘what extraordinary power of thunder and lightning and rain,’ and all these other things. And we have judgments about our experiences, and sometimes we have judgments about our own thoughts. But how often do we ask: ‘Who is it who is having the judgment?’ ‘To whom does this thought occur?’ ‘Who is witnessing even the judgment about the judgment?’ ‘Who is the ultimate perceiver?’…” Recorded in the afternoon of Wednesday, July 18, 2012.

Excerpt: “Meditation is the act of gaining victory over death. And that makes it literally a life or death matter. Do we take it with that seriousness? One of the great names for a successful yogi is ‘Mrityunjay’ which means one who has achieved victory over death. There are two words for death in Sanskrit that refer to the two dimensions of death. One is ‘kal’ and kal also means time, and measure. Thus we have the word calendar (kalendar) in English, or calculate, or caliber, or Excalibur, the sword of immeasurable value, the legitimate wielder of which is given immortality. One of the great names for God is ‘Mahakal’, the great death, which is the death of death. It means entering into the dimension of eternity. But how you achieve that is revealed in the second word for death…” Recorded in the afternoon of Thursday, July 12, 2012.

Excerpt:  “I hope that you have all come prepared for intense erotic experiences… have you?  Those of you who were here for the film this week of the sculpture of Santa Teresa by Bernini will remember that here is a question that is open as to whether she is having a chakra four mystical experience or a chakra two orgasmic experience… and the art critics and philosophers and psychoanalysts are actually arguing over this point….  To the psychoanalyst like Lacan naturally it has to be a chakra two experience – there is no chakra four – that is the modern ideology… and this loss of the transcendent dimension has bought about the loss of the realization that our true relationship to God is an erotic one, but it is the Eros of the soul not of the ego….  The soul’s deepest desire is to be ravished by God – this is what we mean by surrender… you are literally abandoning your ego self and asking to be filled by Gods power – presence – love – bliss.  This is the true erotic experience not the other one at chakra two… that is very minor and disappointing… this one is eternal – liberating – it brings salvation, but it is very much an ecstasy.  It is the ecstasy in which you are transported beyond… the experience begins in chakra four but then literally you are carried upward through the three worlds…"  Recorded on the evening of Thursday, July 12, 2012.