Wisdom Teachings - Sat Yoga, Costa Rica

Excerpt: “Presence is. Nothing more accurate can be said in language because language cannot approach Presence; language is the retreat from Presence into identification, into subtle subject-object duality in which the signifier itself is both subject and object. Sat Yoga could be said to be a return to Presence because Presence is primary. . . . Presence is the Supreme Real. Presence has no present, because it is timeless. It cannot be described because Presence is not an object or a thing – not even a subject. Presence is prior to subject-object duality.” Recorded on the morning of Monday, April 27, 2015.

Excerpt: “The mind is the cause of all suffering. When that becomes clear, then along with that the resolution of the problem of suffering becomes clear as well: that only a radical transcendence of the mind, the discovery, the realization of the transcendent Self will solve the problem. But the sages say that only when the realization of the urgency, of the need to transcend the mind, is at least equivalent to that of the urgency of a man whose hair is on fire to find a pool of water to dive into, should you begin a path like this. . . I tend to use the acronym now of “LA DI DA,” which is Lack, Anorexia, Deflation, Inflation, Dread, Avoidance. And in that dialectical oscillation one tends to go on with the ego as if nothing [were] wrong: “La Di Da” – and yet underneath that is the unbearable suffering that alternates with momentary jouissance or security-op[eration] that keeps one from having to feel the urgency, and thus the frog boils away in the water and never jumps out.” Recorded on the morning of Tuesd

Beginning with a deep relaxation, this guided meditation with Shunyamurti is designed to help you enter into a deep meditative state. Recorded during the Meditation Weekend on Friday, March 13, 2015.

Excerpt: ”The central existential problem for most beings is a lack of moral strength. And this plagues people at different levels; one is the lack of the strength to stop pretending one believes in one’s ego identity and all of its self-sabotaging sanskaras. And so the lack of moral strength to face the truth of one’s imposture as an ego is usually because one cannot face the anxiety of admitting one doesn't know who one is, and what life is about, or any of the pretenses that the ego assumes and suffers from. And then the lack of moral strength at that second level of anxiety at one’s cluelessness as to one’s being is the lack of strength to sit in the unknowing, the ‘cloud of unknowing’ if you will, until the Mystery reveals itself, as the Self.” Recorded on the morning of Thursday, April 9, 2015.

Excerpt: “Meditation . . . is the silencing of the mind, with its attention one-pointedly focused on God; God as the selfless Self, the immutable center and heart of consciousness. Through that silent focus, which is a docking maneuver, the individual consciousness docks and unites with the supreme source of power . . . . In this unification of the individual consciousness and the supreme infinite consciousness, power is transmitted and the battery of the individual is charged.” Recorded on the morning of Thursday, March 19, 2015.

Excerpt: ”Every soul carries so much pain from so many other lives, so much karma. The soul itself is ripped and torn and unable to function, let alone the ego split into a thousand shards of egoic fragments with no willpower; a total inner chaos of instability – that there is no way out except the death of the ego. And it’s when that is recognized that there is nothing else on one’s agenda but that, that liberation is achieved. But as long as there are any options of doing anything else, one will choose those options because this is the most difficult, the most radical, and it’s only an extreme amount of pain that would provoke someone to take a path like this. And so therefore consider your pain a blessing: without it you would not find God.” Recorded on the morning of Friday, March 27, 2015.

Excerpt: “The trick is this . . . there’s only one obstacle to achieving Self-Realization instantaneously in meditation, and that is the lack of self-acceptance – simply that. If you would accept yourself as you really are, you would achieve enlightenment and liberation. But the ego mind, which is a kind of veil over the real Self, is in a state of non-acceptance, and that non-acceptance can be on a spectrum going all the way to intense self-hatred up to a point of simply dissatisfaction with what one has achieved in life. But for most people the thermostat rests around . . . a point of lack of forgiveness of oneself for some belief that one has betrayed oneself and one’s integrity along the way – and that therefore one is not worthy of God-consciousness; that’s the issue. . .”  Recorded on the opening evening of a meditation weekend on Friday, March 13, 2015.

Excerpt: “A Sat Yogi is one who is practicing to endure the infinite intensity of the Real – who is no longer running away from the Real. But can anyone bear the intensity of the Absolute? Even to understand the meaning of this statement one must listen with the third ear open – an ear that we usually leave closed as an act of running away from an unbearable recognition of what is really being said within the words that are spoken. And even if the third ear is open, it is usually not connected fully to the Heart, because then the unbearable intensity of the Real would enter the Heart and shatter the ego.” Recorded on the morning of Sunday, March 1, 2015.

Excerpt: ”. . . To be perceived means to be perceived in a consciousness; and therefore what is fundamental is consciousness. But if to be is to be perceived in consciousness rather than to be the consciousness which perceives, something is inside out and upside down isn't it? So the extraordinary thing is that idealism, as it is understood in the West, is precisely materialism. Because isn't materialism the belief that what is real is that which is perceived? That’s all matter is, is that which is perceivable. And why consciousness cannot be studied scientifically, they say, because it is not perceivable – it is only that which perceives.” Recorded on the morning of Thursday, February 26, 2015.

Excerpt: ”Sri Ramana says that happiness is inherent to the human being. Inherent to the human being that has realized its True Self. But the human being, unlike other creatures, is capable of living in a false self. And that false self entails unhappiness, vexation, suffering, anguish. And the mystery of human existence is why so many human beings choose the false self of suffering over the happiness of our natural Being. And this strange conundrum of human self-chosen misery and self-defeat and refusal to accept love can only be understood once consciousness has realized our true nature.” Recorded on the morning of Tuesday, February 10, 2015. 

Excerpt: “The core myth that unites all the people of India is expressed in a rite that is referred to as the Kumbha Mela. And a Kumbha Mela, which minor versions happen every twelve years and more major ones every fifty and then there are the really big ones every five hundred years, but they are all representations of the one Kumbha Mela that they recognize happens at the end of time, at the end of the cycle, which is also the beginning of the cycle; the omega point is the alpha point because there is no end or beginning to the universe, or to time. And the big bang that is projected onto the physical dimension is actually an occurrence within consciousness.” Recorded during the Shiva Singularity and the Mystic Rose retreat, on the morning of Sunday, February 15, 2015.

Excerpt: “The human essence is that of a reader – because to read accurately is to set yourself free. All we do, constantly, in every moment, is to read; but do we understand what it means to read? We do not just read books, we read one another’s faces, we read the energy field, we read the auras, we read our dreams. We are constantly reading, and reading is tracking. . . . But what are we on the track of and what kind of fortune are we seeking? But the universe itself is a book if we learn how to read it.” Recorded in the morning of Saturday, February 7, 2015.

Excerpt: “Sat Yogis are those who make offerings to God. Religious people merely ask favors of God; they want something from God, whether it’s wealth or happiness or guidance – but it’s a taking. But what God wants to know is: what are you offering? The more that you offer to God, the more you shall receive – without asking. If you offer your heart to God, you will receive the power of transforming love; you will receive the power of bliss. If you give your mind to God, you will receive supreme knowledge…” Recorded on the morning of Sunday, February 1, 2015.

Excerpt: “In South India the temples are shaped like pyramids with many levels leading up to the top. And although a simplistic view – because there are many more levels than could be inscribed in a physical building – it is accurate that at the higher and higher levels that one rises to, the fewer apparent others can understand one until one reaches that level of consciousness that no one can enter.” Recorded on the morning of Tuesday, January 20, 2015.

Excerpt: ”. . . Because it is only the completely dead ego mind that enables the life of the Godself to emerge. This emergence comes from the very principle of sacrifice itself. A Sat Yogi’s life is not only an ongoing sacrifice, but an ever deepening sacrifice. The ego tends to sacrifice the easy things first, that which it didn’t really want anyway, that which did not pertain to its core identity structures and images. But the Sat Yogi learns . . . that the sacrifice that had been made is not enough; and one discovers something that the ego is still holding onto.” Recorded on the morning of Tuesday, January 6, 2015.

Excerpt: ”. . . And so the crossing of the threshold into the portal of that dimension beyond the ego begins with the disbelief, the disinterest, the dispassion for the ego’s illusions and lies. And gradually a recognition comes that one is not only clueless about the nature of outer reality but also of inner reality; that we are not, as egos, in a state of self-mastery. We are clueless as to the real motivations of what we think and what we do, how we react, that the consciousness of the ego mind is governed by a censor that manufactures paranoid fantasies with which to distort any event that is not going its way.” Recorded on the morning of Sunday, January 4, 2015.

Excerpt: ”. . .Because the I-thought, once it is conjured up from the Emptiness, identifies with matter. And the I-thought becomes linked with the physical body – with what gets taken, mistaken, for a physical body. It is not actually so much a physical body or a physical world, but a world of surfaces. And this is the key point because the I-thought eliminates depth. The I-thought converts the world into only a labyrinth of surfaces; there is no depth. Even though we have a concept of volume, but if you open anything up all you’ll find again are just surfaces . . . it’s all just literally superficial. Where is the within? Where is the essence? The world cannot consist only of surfaces. What is behind the surface?” Recorded during the Planetary Rebirth retreat, on the morning of Sunday, December 28, 2014.

Excerpt: ”We are here to make extraordinary effort, to achieve God-consciousness. But that effort consists in attaining effortlessness. And the more effort we make to be effortless, the more effortless even that effort becomes. The great paradox of all of this is that duality moves within non-duality, and non-duality expresses itself as duality. But we are to hold both sides of this paradox in the perfect tension that enables the dis-identification from either polarity, and the transcendence of both.” Recorded on the morning of Monday, December 22, 2014.

Excerpt: ”Sat Yoga is a science – it’s the most ancient science in the history of humanity; it’s the science of consciousness. . . . The science that seeks to understand: what is the true extent of the human potential? How far can we grow beyond the normal ego-consciousness that limits our lives to a melodrama of suffering . . . is there a way to grow beyond the traumas that have limited our scope, our ability to even understand the mind of God?”  “As every scientist will tell you: to practice science you need a laboratory. And the proper laboratory for the science of consciousness is called an ‘ashram. . . ’” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, December 11, 2014.

Excerpt: “Meditation is inward prayer. To understand this in depth we need to understand . . . inwardness. Every religion bifurcates into two basic forms which have been referred to exoteric religion and esoteric religion. The exoteric – the outer religion – is the religion that is delivered to those who are mentally immature; for children, for those who still need to believe in Santa Claus or some equivalent, for those who require a concrete imaginary image of God and of a way of living that is ethical that can only be delivered in very concrete ways. . . . But at the level of esoteric religion, the inner religion, for those who are philosophically mature, for those who seek Truth that is beyond fact, we can call it ‘Hyper-Truth’ if you wish, in which it’s beside the point whether anyone named Jesus walked the earth because the reality of Jesus is beyond the question of the fact. The reality of Christ is here and now, not a historical question.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, December 4, 2014.