Essays (34)
Spiritual Essays by Shunyamurti, the director of the Sat Yoga Institute, on a wide variety of topics ranging from the goal of the spiritual path, to enlightenment and liberation, psychoanalysis and ego dynamics, and even quantum physics.
One name for our current historical moment could be Quantum Yuga. The discoveries of quantum mechanics have shattered the assumptions of the Newtonian paradigm that has too long held our consciousness in collapse, in the straitjacket of naïve pseudo-realism, the dualistic materialism that has successfully masqueraded as common sense. That common sense has revealed its true nature as the psychosis of ego-consciousness, otherwise known as Kali Yuga. We now have the conceptual tools to make a graceful exit into a new Sat Yuga—an age of higher truth and beauty resplendent with the true awareness of our transcendent unity. But to do that, we must de-collapse the wave function that has led to the appearance of the nightmare of demonic egocentricity that has settled upon this dying planet that was once our paradise home.
All human beings worship power. Where they differ is in their conceptions of power. There are many different ways to understand the nature of power and the source of power-and most importantly, in how to reach the underlying goal of possessing real power.
Sat Yoga is the ancient science of metabolizing our theomorphic potential. Human beings, alone of all creatures, have the power of re-designing our own psychic structure in the direction of ethical, aesthetic, cognitive, and spiritual perfection. Through the practice of Sat Yoga, we can gain the skills to alter our personalities, to align our psyche with our innermost essence, and to manifest, cultivate, and sustain the full flowering of the Godseed that lies latent within us all. The inherent powers that become activated in the event of such a self-transformation have tremendous effects upon the phenomenal plane, not only on the social and political levels, but also on the ecological and the geological. This is because gross matter responds to the vibrational transmissions of the subtle energy field of human consciousness. This little understood aspect of reality is the key to responding to the challenge of global warming as well as all the other challenges faced by humanity today. But to accomplish this, we must bring the power of the highest frequencies of our vibrational potential—we can call it Tao or Shiva, Emptiness, unitive awareness, Buddha-consciousness, or God-consciousness—into the equation as the essential engine of our will. Nothing less could suffice.
As the world falls deeper every day into the infernal grip of the final days of kali yuga, ever greater spiritual efforts are required to remain serene and compassionate. Without adhering to a dedicated practice of meditation that keeps us centered in the light of true God-consciousness, it is inevitable that we will be sucked down into the vortex of negativity that is engulfing our sacred planet.
There is a common misunderstanding concerning the implications of ego death. Many people assume that once the ego dies in the process of spiritual transcendence that the individual will have no further will to live. This is incorrect. The will to live will actually become more powerful than ever. But now it will be a holocentric will, not that of a body-identified subject, that functions through the mind and employs the organism for higher purposes.
That which the current materialist ideology considers the objective external world is apperceived by illumined sages as a collective dream-field. Space and time exist only as structural features of the matrix of the collective illusion. Once awareness becomes un-embedded from identification with a character in the dream-field, apperception realizes that what had been mistaken for things is a flux of evolving patterns of potentiality within consciousness itself. That which forms the substrate of all this can be considered the divine chi.
People often ask what is the best way to meditate. There are of course many techniques—from counting breaths to subvocal repetition of a mantra to staring at a candle flame—but the only true way to meditate is to die. Of course, biological death is not what is referred to, but death of the ego with its narcissistic chattering mind.