Spiritual Teachings With Shunyamurti

Student Question: Sometimes when I meditate I start to feel a very blissful state, but after some time the opposite happens and it becomes almost unbearable and even painful. When this happens I usually stop but today I continued and as I did I thought of the word dematerialization. So I was wondering if that state is associated to “moving from the particle to the wave” that you were referring to and if it is at all related to transmutation as well, is there a connection? What is it that happens?

Student Question: What is healthy fearlessness?

Student Question: What is an angel?

Student Question: When one is trapped in the lower chakras, how does one recognize that one is trapped and how does one get out of them?

Excerpt: “I was reading ‘The Little Russian Philokalia’ today… and this first volume is the teaching of Saint Seraphim of Sarov - a great Saint of Russia… and one of his core teachings is that the true aim of Christianity or of a “true Christian life” as he puts, is the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God… I think that sums up authentic Christianity very well… and I think those who are true spiritual seekers in any path can agree that this is the aim, however different religions would alter the language very slightly and that slight alteration can have huge effects…. Now Saint Seraphim does go onto say the Holy Spirit of God is already within you – it is not somewhere else – you don’t have to buy it somewhere – you don’t have to acquire it in some external way… and so really they (religions) all will agree that it is simply a question of realizing your true nature and letting go of the false self… and in the Christian path Saint Seraphim and other Christian Saints and Mystics would say that you do that through contemplative prayer – you contemplate in your consciousness which is silenced, the presence of God – the meaning of God – the beauty of God – the power of God… and simply by doing that you enable the presence of God to emerge into your consciousness… the contemplation of God precipitates the presence of God.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, June 28, 2012.

Excerpt: “We have to perform our function well, with humility and purity; with absolute emptiness of ego – to live in the largest way, to live for God and as a manifestation of Godly power. Power of love and truth, not of ego; not of the desire to dominate or control – to surrender all of that and be in the purity and the flow of the divine nature.” Recorded in the afternoon of Wednesday, June 27, 2012.

Excerpt: ”What we are all here to discover for ourselves – not through hearsay, not through the testimony even of great sages – is what is real. ‘Who am I really?’ ‘What am I?’ ‘What is this world?’ ‘Is there a God?’ ‘Is there a purpose?’ ‘Is there a meaning?’ ‘What do I want to achieve during this short time that I have between birth and death?’ These are questions that each of us must answer in our own hearts. And while it is useful to hear the wisdom of those who have gone very deeply into reality for themselves, and whose words may be inspiring for you, we must go beyond even the great mahavakyas of the great sages and enter into our own innermost heart.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, June 14, 2012.

Excerpt: “The obstacle is the ego. With all of its chaotic thoughts, negative thoughts, thoughts of lack, of anxiety, of anger, of lust, fear. The ego is a luxury we can no longer afford. It makes our lives unmanageable, as the twelve-step people would say. You can’t manage your life if your life is ruled by an ego because an ego is inherently chaotic, ambivalent . . . and filled with internal conflicts that get projected as external conflicts, paralysis of will, and self-deception of every sort. And all of this produces: suffering. Suffering is based on illusion because the ego is an illusion, and all of its thoughts are illusory. Once you realize you cannot trust those thoughts, you will accept only the thoughts that come from the Source, and they come as inspirations, intuitions, Aha-experiences, and wordless knowing of the true nature of reality – that leads to spontaneous egoless action.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, June 7, 2012.

Excerpt: “What the path of Advaita says, that is different from every other path, is: all you really need to do is ask the question ‘What am I?’ And just by asking the question, not even getting an answer – in fact you don’t want an answer – as soon as you get an answer you get another belief system, another mythology, another symbolic situation that needs to be overcome because every symbolic situation you are in is the obstacle to the realization of what you are. So you don’t want an answer to the question: what you need is a wordless realization of your being, which you can only get by inquiring – not conceptually, not to find some new map or some new symbol – but to free yourself from all the symbolic constructs that have then created the need for some journey or salvation or some grace from a God, whether out there or in here; it doesn’t even matter. So the question is meant to get you out of every belief system and to keep you from creating a new one because what you need to be free of is beliefs…” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, May 31, 2012.

Excerpt: “All suffering is caused by identification with an object in consciousness: primarily identification with the physical body, and secondly, identification with language, thoughts. And those thoughts are charged with emotions, impulses, drives—images that create nostalgia, anger, fear, whatever. So there’s a whole cluster of objects, mental objects, that tend to arise that produce effects of suffering of different kinds. And to the extent we’re identified with those objects in the mind, we are on the wheel of karma. . . . And because of our identification with the body, and with thought, we cannot escape because every effort to escape just tightens the noose more: we affirm the illusion that is the cause of suffering. . . . But there is a very simple way out, and that is nonidentification with any mental objects and instead realization of the Self as the Empty Consciousness in which those objects arise.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, May 24, 2012.

Student Question: How can I love my daughter without attachment?

Student Question: Last week you spoke about the difference between the ego mind and the Sat mind, and I didn’t really understand what the Sat mind is.

Student Question: When one is in a meditative state, in a state of awareness, and then starts to lose that awareness by getting pulled down by the lower death drive and the lower chakras. What suggestions do you have to help prevent one from falling again and again?

Student Question: There is an attachment to lack, which we don’t want to lose it seems because unconsciously it defines who we are as an ego. So the question is, how does one “attack” that attachment to lack?

Student Comment: Last week I talked about the excitement of different activities, and there are many of them that I feel so excited for. But then it creates this sense that there’s not enough time: I can’t do everything and I don’t know how to prioritize. Then I get this overwhelming sense because I want to do them all and the anxiety is coming up from that.

Student Question: We have talked about a healthy super ego. For example, recognizing where one has been inaccurate, even if it’s subtle, and not wanting to repeat that behavior again. I can see how that recognition could escalate into more of a negative attack but, how do you discern the difference?

Student Question: What is the relationship between karma, transformation and the supreme will of God?

Excerpt: “There is an inherent and eternal love between the soul and God. Sita is the signifier of the soul and Rama of God - and Sita and Rama are always together - and when Sita does become separated from Rama, through Sita’s ignorance and stupidity – karmic enmeshment with the phenomenal plane – Rama always comes to rescue her – and Rama is always victorious – and Rama is always able to build an army of monkeys to be able to help him. Monkeys are just a signifier for yogis – because yogis are those who are coming out of the monkey stage into the divine stage through their love for Rama – our love for Rama…. And so all meditation is, is the act of love between Sita (that’s you), and Rama (that’s also you)… and that’s what love really means - that you meet yourself - that love is union with the source of your being… the soul is that part of yourself that wonders into this dream field called the universe to have experiences and challenges, delights… all created by Rama for the benefit of Sita, but then we get lost in those delights and the paradise becomes a hell realm and voila… its time to meditate again… get Rama to rescue us – beam us up again – start the whole thing all over again…. So we are at that moment where Sita once more meets Rama… and so you have to ask yourself the question – am I ready to meet Rama?” Recorded on the evening of, Thursday, May 17, 2012.

Student Question: What is the superego? If you dissolve the ego, will the superego still be there?

Excerpt: “Philosophy in the modern West . . . distinguished religion from science. Religion was mythical, and science dealt with facts. . . . Postmodern Western philosophy now conceives that science itself is a myth. . . . When it comes to ultimate questions, science has no answer to them; it has to presume an origin, but it doesn’t even attempt to account for it because it cannot account for anything ultimate because that would be religion. But if, in fact, there’s no difference between religion and science, and if they are both mythological constructs, then it’s important to understand what myth is. And as Joseph Campbell has explained very clearly in all of his works, myth is metaphor. But what is it that’s being metaphorized?” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, April 26, 2012.

Excerpt: “We are here to realize the true self. The implication of that is that we have not been living in our authentic self, but in some false - unreal - persona… and if we are not living in our real self then we are not living in the real world either… and if the world is false and the self is false, then things are going to happen that are unsustainable because the false cannot survive the test of truth… and because so many on this planet are now living in the false self, we have a false world that is collapsing… you cannot live in that state of hypocrisy without karma hitting you pretty hard…. So everyone is getting lessons in karma nowadays but we are not here to worry about the political issues of the world and their karma… we are here to work out our own karma… to make sure that we are not secretly killing elephants when we are pledged to protect them… to make sure that if we are Sat Yogis, we are living up to our vows and living a yogic life and living as what Linji - the great Zen master - the great wild Zen master - called the true person – the one true person of no rank. He said every ego is out to try and get to as high a rank as possible and to try to improve its status in the world and that is all it is really interested in, and there is one true person who doesn’t care about that… who realizes that there is no such thing as rank…. It is interesting that rank has these two meanings. One is a bad smell, and the other is status…. It is rank if you are interested in rank… but he said there is only one true person of no rank and that everyone else is interested in rank and prestige, status, possessions and power - all of that… but that the one true person is the incarnation of God… the Christ…. Don’t think the Zen masters don’t believe in Christ. They do, but they have another word for that being...” Recorded on the evening of, Thursday, April 19, 2012.

Student Question: What is déjà vu?

Student Question: How can I know if my meditation practice has stagnated?

Student Question: How can we guide children from a very early age to find their awareness?

Student Question: Is the body a reflection of the mind?

Student Question: Something that I have been thinking about recently is this idea of “the third.” I know you mentioned before when we were talking about the “I of the Statement” and the “I of the Enunciation” that there is also the “Third I”; the “I of Awareness” or the “I of Shiva.” We have also studied a module in which the father comes in as the third to break the mother and child dyad, and I am sure there are many other examples, but I was just curious about the significance of this idea of the third and what it really means.

Excerpt: "Most religions are the worship of a yogi - they are constituted by that…. Christ was a yogi – Buddha was a great yogi – Mohammed was a yogi – Moses was a yogi… and so most of the religions today are either worshiping the yogi or worshiping the book that the yogi wrote, or was channeled through him… but religion was originally simply the act of becoming a yogi… so the religions that we have today are indirect and there is certainly benefit in worshiping a great yogi, but that is very different from attaining the state of consciousness that Christ attained or that Buddha attained…. And so merely worshiping and trying to imitate the life of a great yogi, while an important step, keeps one within the ego… it doesn't transcend the ego into direct God realization, and that is what we are here to do… to become the goal that those great yogis pointed at for us…. Christ would have considered Christianity to be heretical – he never said worship me – be one with the Father – I and the Father are one - you and the Father are one – we are all one - but then that gets misinterpreted…. Or in the Islamic religion, there is one prophet only and one holy book and then it stops, as if God got some inability to write after that – writer's block or something – couldn't produce any more testaments – not true…. But humans have gotten yoga block… humans have blocked their own access to the transcendent dimension of our own self, and that is what we are here to unblock… and we do that simply by silencing the egoic chatter that acts as a buffer and an obstruction between our consciousness and that of God's….. And that is the original and authentic purpose of prayer… to create a mental pathway and a link between the individual consciousness and the universal consciousness…" Recorded on the evening of Thursday, April 12, 2012.

Student Question: If Jesus and Buddha were both great yogis then why did they both reach different conclusions about God? Jesus spoke about his Father yet Buddhism denies God.

Student Question: Do Vāsanās and Sanskaras have the same meaning?

Student Question: Do we just have to sit in silence long enough to dissolve the discomfort that arises, or do we need to analyze it?

Student Question: Why is it that when I have a deep or a good meditation I sometimes want to cry? Aren’t I supposed to be experiencing bliss?

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.

Student Question: Sometimes I have archetypal dreams where a person will tell me about something I have to do and even though when I wake up I can remember what it is, I have no idea how to do it. I feel like this happens to me a lot. During the day I worry because I am not sure how I can do what was told to me in the dreams. Because of this I get stressed and feel guilty about not doing what my unconscious is telling me to do and it feels like I am ignoring it and that somehow it is going to affect me in some way. I am not sure if this is correct because they never tell me in the dream but it is frustrating me to think that it is going to affect my karma.

Excerpt: “So if God made you an offer, that all you would have to do to help save the world, would be to silence your mind and immerse yourself in the divine presence within consistently, completely, once and for all, and that that would be the greatest gift you give to the universe and to yourself, would you do it? Because that is the offer that God has been making for thousands of years… it is what every spiritual tradition teaches…. Surrendering to God means surrendering the attention, the thoughts, the mind, to the presence that is already within you, at the core of your own consciousness, which is a very sweet blissful silence… and that energy that can radiate through the channel of your own mind’s focus will fill the world with peace and divine love and that energy is so powerful, that if the flow of it is continuous, it will change the course of history; it is that strong. We just need a critical mass of beings who are dedicated to that supreme holy work, and a Sat Yuga is born… a kingdom of heaven is born on earth… and yet no one seems to volunteer to do the work and it’s so simple because really it means stop working, stop struggling, stop striving, stop desiring, stop fearing, and just live in peace and acceptance in freedom from suffering and in empowerment and in love….” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, March 01, 2012.

Student Question: How is one able to realize when he/she is having access to archetypal knowledge?

Student Question: What is the relationship between Master’s Discourse and the Death Drive?

Student Question: Where are the archetypes while the ego is operating? Are they within consciousness?

Student Question: What happens with all those people who become ghosts? They are beings that are among us but no longer in a body although they still resemble the body that they were in from that past life. So is this a case of someone being too attached to his/her physical body and not being able to let go?

Student Question: I was wondering what your opinion is about travel? I know that travel can be a very rewarding experience and not just another way to spend time, but what do you think?

Student Question: We were talking about the breast as a symbol, and I was wondering if that relates back down to food as well?

Student Question: During our discussion on masters discourse tonight someone bought up the point that as the head of his family he has children who expect to be told what to do and to be given guidance. How does someone who finds himself in that role avoid getting into master’s discourse?

Excerpt: “What is being taught in Sat Yoga, and what has been taught since the beginning of time, is to perceive things as they are... to perceive reality as it is... and this means to perceive from the place of truth... the place within that is free of illusion - free of projection - free of distortion - free of any filters that create an inability or a block or an obstacle to realizing what is…. And what the sages teach from out of that pure realization of the self is that it is an illusion that there are entities. This is not a world made up of a bunch of separate entities, but that a single intelligence and a single real and a single truth - a single being.... Supreme Being expresses its nature in the reflection of the nature that is this phenomenal plane that we call the universe…. We meditate in order to get in touch with that highest level of truth, so that we can perceive free of all the filters which are the cause of our suffering.... The illusion of being a separate entity in a world of entities that is always therefore in power struggles and in envy and comparison and disdain, or putting some on alters and throwing others off of alters and feeling like one ultimately is the judge of all of those other entities even if one feels inferior them…. And liberation is simply liberation from these narratives that peg you into some false entityhood and don’t allow the expansion into the infinite... consciousness that you are and therefore instead of bliss there is some kind of suffering….” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, March 15, 2012