Spiritual Teachings With Shunyamurti

Excerpt: “When we are sitting in silence we are in Holy Communion with the Self within that is recognized as Being reflected as the entire manifest cosmos. And so there is nothing to do just be…. This is a dream and you are the dreamer and so everyone you meet in the dream is an aspect of your Self and so each of us here are reflections of different facets of our own Self…. And so by coming together as a community we discover all those aspects of the inner shadow that we can’t find because it’s repressed but our unconscious turns out to be the world itself and so it is not hidden at all…. And so when we come together in a spiritual community we are doing it in order to learn unconditional love of the Self. Not the individual self but the one Self…. The worship of God is not the worship of an other it is the worship of the Self…” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, August 18, 2011.

Student Question: I believe that the path to enlightenment must start with a personal individual choice. In today’s world it is very difficult to follow that path because even though you have the purpose and the intention if you’re in an environment that is unsupportive, like for example ones family who may ignore the path, it takes you a lot of effort and it is very difficult to get there. So the importance of being in a community like this is that you find like minded people that can reinforce that path. Even though I can understand that we all have geniuses in all of us the challenge is to really believe it. I think about how much other people’s thoughts can influence that, like I could fly but nobody believes I can so I can not. So the question is how much can other people’s beliefs affect us?

Student Question: Do thoughts really become things and how fast is the outcome? Does it depend on how intense the thought is?

Student Question: Does the way that we think of others even when not expressed, have any effect on them?

Student Question: We were talking about the lotus position and you mentioned that sitting in that position can activate sanskaras. I have experienced this kind of thing in meditation and realized that even though my whole body would be still, I would continue to move my eyes when they are closed. When I am able to keep my eyes still it seems to be a whole different thing. Could you speak about that because it seems like there is a connection between eyes moving and a chattering mind?

Student Question: I have these beautiful images coming up in meditation and although I feel peaceful, I wonder if these images are appearing as a distraction to pull me away from the stillness?

Student Question: In your teaching you mentioned that the ego had characteristics such as greed, hatred and selfishness embedded in it. When I think of the word embedded it makes me think of something that is set in stone; it’s not moving. So then I thought, “what’s the point of wasting any time trying to fix the ego?” Is it even possible to fix? I know it’s kind of a literal thing. It kind of makes sense to steer around it and go straight for the Self. So is the idea of fixing the ego even worth the time?

Student Question: What is pain and its purpose or meaning, and is pain always the same as suffering? What is the difference?

Student Question: Do you have any advice to help me mediate longer when my mind wanders off?

Excerpt: “The idea of Christian perfection was the perfection of one’s love for God….We don’t care whether you believe in duality or nonduality here, the point is let the love which ultimately is nonduality isn’t it, isn’t love union? Whether it achieves an actual ontological dissolution on the boundaries between the soul and God is irrelevant, but the experience that you will have if you allow yourself to sit with that intention of dissolving in love with God and it’s sincere, as the first commandment in the old testament says, ‘love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, all thy soul and all thy might’. If you will do that and with that consistency of attention that is focused within, not on an imaginary God on a cloud somewhere, but within as the Self, you will break through the duality and enter into a state of grace...” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, August 11, 2011.

Student Question: I had a question about projections. We talk about projections a lot. In thinking about the question I came to some conclusions but I wanted to run if by you just for validation. Let’s say for example we have a new employee at work and this guy drinks and cusses and swears and everything else, but it is not necessarily projecting if you can see this behavior happening. It seems that this is all feedback information for you, which you kind of have to accept. The other night in one of the lessons you said that people change everyday so you don’t have to store anything. The next day when you see him you treat him the same way without any projections and just respond in whatever is appropriate for that person on that day. So the conclusion was that fine they can act however they want to but you are just holding your space and not projecting and that is all you have to do?

Student Question: Do you think that once we leave this experience on earth that we will ever have any recollection of it or when our soul moves to other realms will this just be another lost layer in the unconscious that we won’t be able to remember?

Student Question: What do you think the significance is of the world being able to observe the death of societies in different places versus in times when there wasn’t technology and people in different countries and continents who were unaware on this physical level of what was happening in other places?

Student Question: What is the Unconscious?

Student Question: You mentioned that often a lot of people’s unconscious urges manifest themselves in close relationships and families and what not. It makes me think of a friend that I guess I would say is caught up in his egoic existence and around a lot of family issues and a lot of family pressure to do certain things and to be a certain way. Now just for the background this individual was raised with Buddhist beliefs so he has some leanings that way but still is totally immersed in the egoic existence right now. Now my question is, to what extent can a friend help someone like that out of the spiral and the problems he is in. Are there really ways to help someone who is not ready to make that move?

Student Question: What is the connection between the soul and awareness?

Student Question: I was thinking about the violence that has occurred just most recently in England and we have studied the archetype of the apocalypse. Is this a manifestation of that? We talked about archetypes having their own energy and drawing people into it to act in a certain way. Is that what is occurring?

Student Question: Could you give me some tips on overcoming fear while in meditation, or I guess more along the lines of reaching deeper states of meditative experience?

Excerpt: “So the good news is that we don’t have to wait until we leave the body to attain liberation, we can do it here and now….So it is important to recognize that what we mean by the self and by self inquiry, is not seeking an image or a concept of the self; not seeking an object of any kind…but leaving behind all levels of objectification and conceptualization....And what we discover when the mind has been completely stilled and emptied of thought and emptied of the continuing flow of images and the flow of memories or the flow of emotions. When you have attained the witness state in which there is simply purified silent awareness….And so there is within each of you that core of being that is deathless and birthless and that cannot be given a form…” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, August 4, 2011.

Student Question: During the retreat you taught about the five obstacles which the Bhagavad Gita speaks of but specifically regarding the fifth one, Ahankar. One translation of that is self- centeredness. What recommendations could you give to towards healing this obstacle?