The Torn Page

Excerpt: ”Tonight is the thirteenth night of Shukla Paksha according to the ancient Vedic lunar calendar. For those who worship Shiva, the most ancient name for the Supreme Being, this is the holiest night of the year – it’s referred to as ‘Maha Shivratri,’ the great night of Shiva. The worship of Shiva carried on, secretly, in the form of late-coming Shiva cults such as Judaism and Christianity. In Judaism, the holiday of “Maha Shivratri” became known as Pesach or ‘Passover.’ And of course in Christianity it has two forms: one is the last supper and the crucifixion, but the most true rendition of “Maha Shivratri” is the represented in the Book of Revelations as the apocalypse.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, February 27, 2014.

Excerpt: “Meditation is a practice of freedom. And it’s practiced because the consciousness begins in a state of un-freedom. Meditation is the cure for our addiction to thinking. The mind is out of control, it’s the primary addiction. People can’t stop their minds from running away with them. Minds are in chaos, filled with negative thoughts, chaotic thoughts, thoughts that people don’t want to have but can’t stop. It turns out that all the other addictions are actually attempts to cure that addiction. The reason that people smoke cigarettes, or pot, or take other drugs or alcohol is to try to stop their mind. You can be a little more peaceful – but then you’ve got a worse problem, now you’ve got another addiction to deal with on top of the first one, and that one has other consequences. And then usually people try to stop those with others, they get into some other kind of obsessive practice, and life becomes one set of obsessions on top of another. When a much easier solution is to simply be free of the non-productive, chaotic secretion of thoughts in the mind.” Recorded on the evening of Tuesday, February 11, 2014.

Excerpt: ”. . .Because God doesn’t need to know anything. And that non-knowing comes from having transcended the need to know, not from not having reached it. It comes from an overflowing realization that what you are is all you need to know – because you are complete in yourself. And that realization transforms the lack and the desire to grasp and to continue that process of seeking and controlling that is futile, into the final letting go that brings the bliss of union with the Supreme Being.” Recorded in the afternoon of Tuesday, June 11, 2013.

Excerpt: ”. . . This is a classic example of what Baba Hari Dass used to call “headache yoga,” perhaps the ultimate headache – but worth it if you need to undo a lot of false beliefs about who you are; the book will do it. But if you can just let go of those false beliefs you can skip to the hundredth verse. . . . And verse one hundred actually sums up the whole book, it is the core of the core, and it’s the only verse you need to read . . .” Recorded on the evening of Tuesday, January 28, 2014.

Excerpt: “. . . [Yoga is] the science of consciousness. It’s the science of how to develop the full potential of our consciousness – because we are not born with an instruction manual as to how to do that. But we have many higher centers of our mind, not just our brain but our mind, our soul, our spirit, that need to be activated in a systematic manner in order to be able to unfold the full powers that are latent in us. They call them siddhis in yogic terminology. And there are seven major modalities that emerge, naturally. The first one is an increase in our intelligence because as you go inward you have access to more of the wisdom that comes from the deeper levels of your mind, and you see reality in a more subtle way. . .” Recorded on the evening of Saturday, January 18, 2014.

Shunyamurti addresses the importance of giving thanks - at the Enlightenment Now retreat.

Excerpt: ”Christianity is one of the most potent forces in the world. Both the Christian myth and the Christian teachings are of extreme importance to us all. In some sense I think the world has not even been ready for Christianity until now. A true Christianity may only be beginning to emerge. Much of what has passed for Christianity in the passed has actually been a defence against the teachings of Christ – a fear of them, a denial of them even in the form of worshipping Christ. For one thing Christ taught that the love of money is the root of all evil, and yet we’ve created a society based on the love of money, and we’ve called it a Christian society, something’s wrong with that picture. . .” Recorded in the evening of Thursday, December 19, 2013.

Excerpt: ”. . . And so this concept of Hanmaum (One Mind) is central to every true path of spirituality. That our individual minds are a subset of a larger mind and then a larger, and a larger, and ultimately there is one single intelligence that flows through all of the myriads of life forms and even what we think of as inanimate objects. They all participate in the same ultimate intelligence. And thus the entire universe is intelligent. And if there are parallel universes they are included in this as well. Everything that can possibly be is part of a single intelligence that includes all the past, the present, and the future – which is all now to that intelligence. Because that intelligence that is beyond space and time creates, sustains, destroys universes, recreates them, it all happens within a timeless instant. But that timeless instant for any given creature within a universe can last centuries or millennia. But time is an illusion from that perspective. But the key teaching about Hanmaum is: you are that intelligence.” Recorded in the evening of Thursday, December 12, 2013.

Excerpt: “. . .But what the great yogis say is that in order to see God, your mind has to have been trained, purified, in three stages. The first stage is truthful mind. If the mind is not in Truth with itself, and with God, in integrity, in sincerity, earnestness, openness, transparency, maturity, willingness to let go of ones illusions and delusions then nothing more will happen; then you need a drug. But if the truthful mind is achieved, there will be an automatic flow into the next stage. . .” Recorded on the afternoon of Monday, May 6, 2013.

Excerpt: ”. . .In the same way Christianity says body consciousness is a sin – but really, yogis’ view of it is that it’s worse than a sin; it’s stupid. The idea of sin is itself sinful because it takes place within the same framework of ignorance and duality; that’s the problem. We have to get out of that whole framework because all that does is lead to more judgements, super ego attacks, and a quicksand of self-loathing that is useless for anyone on a spiritual path. So we have to get the fact that what we’re doing when we’re meditating is we are accumulating power. It’s as simple as that: do you want to be powerful or do you want to be weak?” Recorded in the afternoon of Tuesday, June 4, 2013.