The Torn Page

Student Question: Does the Creation not have duality inherent in it?

“Yes that’s right,” argues Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica, but “that duality is a unity. The nothingness and the fullness, the form and the emptiness (as the Buddhists say), Samsara and Nirvana—they are the same; they are not a duality. It only seems like a duality from within the ego. And that’s why the ego cannot function very well in the duality, because it does not see it clearly, and it has this paranoid perspective on it. Once you transcend it, you will live in the world without suffering.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, May 13, 2010.

Student Question: Is the ego the one that creates duality?

“Well the ego is a creation in duality,” reminds Shunyamurti, the director of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “And it is structured as a multiplicity; it’s even more than a duality.” The average person must create a number of different masks and sub-personalities to deal with the larger society. So, paradoxically, one has to establish a strong and stable ego before one is able to transcend it. Recorded on the evening of Thursday, May 13, 2010.

Student Question: Some people say that when you are meditating, and you go out-of-body, that there are good entities—or bad entities—that can possess you. Is that true?

“No, not if you’re meditating the way we do. We’re not saying to leave the body; we’re saying to simply leave the superficial mind that is chattering,” explains Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. The real danger is more the demons that are in your unconscious mind rather than any external entities. “But anxieties may come up that have been held down, but if you remain the observer of it, and actually offer it to the source of your Being, you will dissolve it. So it’s more an opportunity than a danger.” So if you can remain the in the position of the detached observer, then you will be much safer than you would in a fragmented, or normal, state of consciousness. Recorded on the evening of Thursday, May 13, 2010.

Student Comment: One thing I remember that helped me free myself from my parents was remembering that it is my karmic responsibility to let them go, and that I hurt their karma if I cling to them or play the roles that they need me to play in order to fill up the lack that they can’t see.

“Exactly. It’s our responsibility not to fill the lack in the parents, or in any other—so that they will feel the pain of that lack and fill it with God,” reveals Shunyamurti, the director of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “If you try to fill it, then you keep them unhealthy. You act as a crutch that keeps them from being able to truly find their Real Self.” And by being bound to the biological family this keeps us unable to help the larger families. “And we have to recognize that the world family needs our help now. . . . Don’t think that the biological family is the only family you belong to; it’s only the practice family from which we come so that the real families can emerge.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, May 6, 2010.

Student Question: We talk a lot about blessings, and sending blessings, but I’m always puzzled by, what exactly is a blessing?

“The entire universe is consciousness,” maintains Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “And so what a blessing is, is the highest benevolent wave of conscious energy that is sent out so that consciousness that had been frozen in some form, that is a state that is alienated from its True Nature—as the very consciousness of God—will be restored to its awareness of its True Nature, and be able to thereby re-attain bliss, health, peace—all of the virtues and qualities of God-consciousness in its pure state.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, May 6, 2010.

“At the exoteric level there is an apparent difference between Bhakti Yoga and Gyana Yoga,” explains Shunyamurti, the spiritual director of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. Bhakti Yoga can be thought of as devotional worship to God or to a symbol of God. “But in Gyana Yoga, it is still worship, but it is worship with the third eye. It is worship with the clear mind that understands the truth of the nature of reality.” And to truly perform Bhakti Yoga, we must create a circuit, a positive charge that attracts a negative charge. The mind must become negative—it must empty itself out of all thoughts—so that it can be attracted to the “All-Positive pull” of God. And “through this energy circuit, you will be able to download the Divine Love. And when the body-mind is filled with love, then you need nothing more. All of the desire for the lower jouissance—the lower pleasure that brings suffering—will dissolve easily because once you are fulfilled, desire becomes superfluous . . . because all you have—and all you are—has been fulfilled by the Presence of God, which is everything, and the Source of all that is Good.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, May 6, 2010.

Excerpt: “Our real job is to become more and more conscious at every moment of who we really are. And letting go of the superficial identifications we have with name and form; with the biological level of life; even with the biographical level of life; even with the intellectual and conceptual level of life, until we reach the Source. And in that state there are no longer any questions. There are no longer philosophical arguments about the nature of Reality. We realize that there aren’t many different religions in the world, but that all the different paths are simply different terminologies for achieving the ultimate oneness. And we can let go of the intellectual hair-splitting, and the attempt to differentiate ourselves and our belief systems and positions from other people, and all the other egoic games that we play even at a subtle level. And most of all, we are then able to open our hearts fully. . . . And once we reach that understanding then there’s no more competitiveness, there’s no more one-upmanship, there’s no more envy, no more greed, no more trying to hold on to what one individual has, but to share because the great gift is really in sharing and giving, not in holding on. And once we learn that then we discover that we can give—not only from a personal center and personal assets, but we become a vehicle, a medium in which the gifts of the Cosmic Self can be given through this mind and body. . . . And the key to achieving this is simply to desire. To Be. To truly Be. This is why we recall Hamlet’s great question in Shakespeare’s play: ‘To be or not to be.’ That is the question, but it can’t be answered in words. It can only be answered through the act of Being.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, April 29, 2010.

Student Question: What if we want to pursue a spiritual journey but we’re not quite ready to release the material possessions, or the work that we find creativity and joy in?

“Well the ego knows nothing other than that,” reminds Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. Thus, the ego hedges its bets, and keeps running on the—at least familiar—treadmill of pain and pleasure. But trading in the lower pleasures for the higher ones does not mean that you’re giving up your life. “It means that that life will now be used for even higher creativity; even higher joy.” Of course, “in the beginning, it’s very difficult to understand that; it can’t be grasped by the mind. But if you desire to know that higher bliss then, if you pray for that, if you talk to the Supreme One about that, then it will be granted: to have the taste of that higher joy that will enable you to let go of the lower that is holding you back—and also producing suffering. . . . And all of the lower pleasures do that. And this is why the great sages of every tradition like the Buddha and Christ and all the other teachers have recommended letting go of those. But it has to be done naturally and wholeheartedly with a realization of what you are getting, not only of what you are losing, so that there is no looking back.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, April 29, 2010.

Student Question: The other day you said that detachment was love. When a person achieves that, and is that, every moment of every day, but, still, is out there in the world, how does one deal with the perception of others, and how they may take your detachment?

“We are living in a sea of projections: everyone is projecting on everyone else. And most of those projections today are negative ones,” maintains Shunyamurti, the founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “And it’s only if one is in a state of emptiness—one is not an ego form for those projections to stick to—that they will move through you, and you will be able to respond with compassion, and with love, and to be able to teach. Now not everyone will actually want to be taught, and that’s OK too. And as Jesus said, ‘you don’t need to throw your pearls before swine,’ and you don’t need to come out in public as a yogi or as a spiritual being. Those who have eyes to see will see. And so in that state . . . one will gradually attract to oneself those who are truly interested. And one can then help to guide them more toward the light.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, April 29, 2010.

Student Comment: This is my first time and I wanted clarity, or some tips, with meditation. I noticed that during the meditation, I had some bodily sensations and visualizations, and I could get into it, but then it would stop; my mind would turn back on. So I just wanted some tips. I noticed when I repeated what you said in the guided meditation, it would bring me back into quiet state.

“Yes, in the beginning, the consciousness is identified with the mind that uses language. Language is an object in the mind, but we are addicted to language,” explains Shunyamurti, the director of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “It’s through language that we create this grid of what reality is, and so we’re very reluctant to let go of words. And because the mind hasn’t been trained, it’s wild, and it’ll bring up thoughts that you have no desire to listen to, but they’ll be there anyway. . . . You will eventually reach the point where the mind will not interfere, and the only thoughts that come will be either thoughts that are divine inspirations, or thoughts that are required for the sustenance of your life.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, April 29, 2010.