Spiritual Teachings With Shunyamurti

Student Question:  In meditation when I finally reach some silence it is common that I will then be immediately disrupted or thrown out of it and I don’t really understand why that happens?  I even experience the sensation of losing balance.  Do you know why that is?

Student Question:  In your talk tonight you spoke about going through this mirror of unbearable knowledge, but do you go through it or do you witness it?

Student Question:  How do we learn when on an everyday basis we are in this whirlpool of being aware and wanting to transcend the ego but then at other times being really chaotic. Sometimes that chaos manifests itself physically and then the next day you can be peaceful again so how do we learn to stay in the silence?

Student Question:  Is it possible that Gods Lila is really creating all the suffering in the world?

When you talk about missing your window of opportunity and synchronicity I don’t really understand how that fits in with gods perfect plan.  How is it that you are able to miss a window of opportunity if at the end it is only one step in the path of the perfect plan?

Student Comment:  At the beginning of your talk you said something to the affect that in reality we don’t control anything and in what I would call the ‘business world’, people get so stuck in their power struggles and beliefs and certainties.  They believe that they are going to make something happen in a certain way but often they actually make the situation much worse.  It seems common for negotiations to be full of tensions and bad feelings and lower emotions when in reality what’s really going on or how the situation can be resolved has nothing to do with the emotional and egoic eruptions that people in business most of the time knock against each other.

Student Question:  What is dharmaraj in a more formal sense?

Student Question:  I felt your teaching tonight was very appropriate.  I have been thinking a lot this week about a question which I have always had with Christianity.  Even though I know it is a very devotional religion, I have never had that kind of experience with it.  Ironically, it was this week sometime that I was listening to one of those gospel songs and all of a sudden I just broke out in tears.  The closest thing that I could put it to was this feeling of being saved by Christ or God, but it was this very strong feeling of sin having been taken away by another.  I know I have heard you speak in the past about how certain religions have niches or specializations or accentuations in certain areas more then others and I have just wanted to know where this fits in and what its value is?   I think you kind of spoke to that tonight in how it can be used as a stepping stone and not as a hindrance.

Excerpt: “If you read the old Vedanta literature . . . they tend to divide the path into two forms: one they call ‘The Path of the Valiant’ and the other ‘The Path of the Fearful.’ And they say that those who are in fear come to God looking for refuge. . . . And they say ‘The Path of the Valiant,’ on the other hand, is not taking refuge in some god or supernatural force or supreme power or as an other, but one who has the courage to recognize that God is the Self. . . . But I tend to think that in these postmodern times that’s too simplistic a dichotomy, and that, in a way, it takes more courage to admit that one need’s help than it does to believe that one can do it all on one’s own. And it is that pseudo-valiance that may actually hold one back for a long time on the path, believing one can do it on one’s own, but being in denial of the fact that one is using a lot of props in order to hold one up. . . . But in truth, the sadhana is always a combination of the two. And when we are in our daily lives, there should be a recognition of the interdependence—and of the humility required—to continue to learn, at deeper and deeper levels of subtlety, what the great sages have taught as to how to reach this place where the valiant achievement of God-consciousness is authentic and truly possible.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, March 29, 2012.