Spiritual Teachings With Shunyamurti

Excerpt:  “In our modern world we have lost the joy of living with nature.  We have become so alienated in these cities with their pollution and there artificiality and now even more so with the internet and the media we are several steps removed from the real of life...  So an Ashram is a chance to get back to our real values….  Soon enough people will come to realize that food doesn't grow in the supermarkets and they will be surprised to find that there is nothing on the shelves…  Only then we will remember that food comes from farms and from people getting their hands dirty in the soil and from milking cows and from living in harmony with nature and following the laws of nature… It is because we have arrogantly tried to deny those and control those - and even genetically modify the products of nature - that we are suffering the karmic blow-back of that arrogance….  So an ashram is a humble effort to come back to our roots….   You have to be very humble to get down on your knees and dig in the garden, and yet that is where the power comes from - and that is where life comes from…  So by being willing to be humble and to live humble lives we are becoming empowered again….  Yoga is a science of consciousness, but it is also the art, and the art requires skill to silence the false consciousness of the ego mind in order to receive the energy and the power of the True Self…  The Real Self is there, it is within you now it is always there, but we don’t have access to it because the ego mind clouds it over….  So an Ashram is a place to recover that peace - that deep peace which resolves all of the questions and confusions and depressions and anxieties that everyone is plagued with today…” Recorded on the evening of Saturday, September 10, 2011.”

Student Question:  I have something that I would like you to clarify please.  When you are being silent is it that there is no such thing as silent awareness?  Is it rather that when you are in silence you experience awareness.  Is that a good way to think about it?  This came up because I was contemplating if there is a difference between being silent and being aware, i.e. silent awareness versus just silent nothing.

Student Question:  I have noticed that after having spent days at a time in Maya, I become so disgusted with it and am totally exhausted by it, that I don’t even want to bring it up in a session as I am sick of thinking about it.  I understand that this is the censor repressing the problem and it is similar to what I experienced in tonight’s class.  I have been in Maya for a couple of days and I came to class thinking that I am going to speak to you about it, but then I come and hear an incredible teaching and have a very meaningful meditation and then that Maya kind of dissolves as you realize how ridiculous it was.  Now I know that the problem has not been processed and I wonder if it is even real.  What should I do?

Student Question:  What is character and how is it formed?

Student Question:  Is there a distinction between raising levels of consciousness and expanding awareness?

Student Question:  I am in a situation where my parents want me to do a certain thing and they believe I have to do it.  I don’t want to do it just because it is their expectation, although I do believe that it is something worth doing.  If I choose not to do it in order to pursue something else, then I am left feeling bad about not doing both something worthwhile and what my parents wanted me to do.  In this case the feeling of guilt is created by doing something that I think is more important.  What should I do?

Student Question:  What is stubbornness, and when it becomes too intense, does the ego then crack?

In the postulant preparation class we studied the Seven Virtual Matriculations.  The last one was to realize that we are the oneness which dreams the cosmic dream and that that in itself is a dream, and needs be let go of.  I was thinking that if all of these habit’s that we are developing are part of the same cosmic dream, then are these all ways of enjoying it?

Student Question:  What is inverse narcissism and how does it work?