First, the whole point of the teachings of Sat Yoga is to help us move from the frozenness of ego-consciousness to the unfrozen freedom of the Transfinite Self. It would be absurd to claim that the teachings are frozen in their intention to reach un-frozenness. The unspoken wish in that complaint is to be able to un-freeze only part of the consciousness while retaining some of the frozen desires and attachments of the ego just as they are. The narcissistic ego hates being unmasked, hates the definitive interpretation of its own refusal to grow, and projects its own frozenness upon the spiritual teacher (or psychoanalyst, as the case may be) in order to justify its intransigence. Unfortunately, today the dominant ideology supports such regressive tendencies. The hegemonic modality of the ego is that of cynical moral relativism, and the defensive reflex reaction of many egos is, ‘who are you to tell me what the truth is?’ The relativist denies a priori that there is any truth, or that anyone’s belief system is better than anyone else’s. Once one accepts such relativism as the absolute truth—which is the ironic self-contradiction of such a belief—one is no longer open to learning higher truths, let alone transcending the ego.
One response to such closed-mindedness is to point out the following: a) the teachings of Sat Yoga are not arbitrary, but conform to all the world’s spiritual traditions, which, regardless of their differences in terminology and mythological forms, teach the same moral values of purity in thought, word, and action; promote the same noble virtues; and encourage the transcendence of the ego and attainment of stable centering in inner silence; b) if there is discomfort with a teaching, it is probably because it touches a nerve, uncovering the false nature of one’s own attitudes and beliefs; c) the issue can be settled empirically, if one is authentically willing to reveal to oneself, and to one’s spiritual guide, one’s unconscious motives, through entering into an intensive process of free association and analysis of one’s dreams, for then one’s hidden frozenness will be revealed, as well as one’s underlying paranoia, anxiety, and feelings of lost-ness and lack. Once one recognizes that one’s adoption of relativism is a defensive maneuver, it is more difficult to continue the self-deception.
Second, teachings must be delivered to people who are frozen at specific assemblage points, and the discourse in which the teachings are couched cannot change until the students shift their assemblage points, at which time they will realize that there is far more significance to the discourse than they could perceive at the lower assemblage point. Suddenly there are moments of insight, in which people finally get how the words of the teaching relate to their own feeling states and trajectory of experience. At that point, they begin to ask deeper questions that in turn enable the teacher to offer a discourse of a qualitatively different level of complexity (that may manifest as utter simplicity) and profundity. This process will repeat many times during the spiritual growth process.
Third, there is no more open and evolving approach to psycho-spiritual growth than Sat Yoga. We study not only every one of the spiritual wisdom traditions of both East and West, but all the sciences, from quantum physics to biology and health sciences to geology and climate studies, permaculture and biodynamic agriculture, philosophies, history (including alternative histories), linguistics and semiotics, anthropology and cultural studies, paranormal and extraterrestrial research, fortean studies, and the most up-to-date research in psychology, psychoanalysis, and psycho-neuro-physiology. Every week, we are learning new concepts and paradigms with which to understand our phenomenal plane of reality. Often these new learnings may seem to be in conflict with others, or simply counter-intuitive, but by doing the hard cognitive work of analyzing together with open minds and considering meditatively the significance and interrelationships of all the data and perspectives available, we are able to free ourselves of frozen paradigms and open to new horizons of meaning. We have found that with a silent mind open to receiving creative inspiration and insight that there is always a higher synthesis that unites the disparate aspects of every situation and state of affairs. The transformation of information into wisdom, and the integration of all wisdom into a coherent and unbiased understanding of reality is part of the work of Sat Yoga. We have discovered in this effort that all the scientific data as well as the higher esoteric spiritual insights are always in harmony, from the transcendent perspective of the eternal Self.
Fourth, the study of phenomenal reality can be considered the lower knowledge of Sat Yoga. This knowledge is of the vast multiplicity of the cosmos and is developed from the perspective of individual speaking beings, as a discourse that re-unifies cognitively the otherwise inconsistent multiplicities, or seemingly chaotic events, of the mundane world. The higher knowledge deals with the noumenal Real. This higher knowledge never changes, because it consists of the realization of That which is forever beyond conceptualization, beyond time and space, beyond duality. However, our discourse about the Absolute does evolve, since we employ all the developments in the disciplines of phenomenal plane understanding as metaphors to enable our limited egoic intellects to reach toward the veil that seems to separate the phenomenal from the noumenal and to penetrate that veil by transcending conceptuality and discovering that there is in Truth no separation at all. But the actual achievement of this ultimate realization can only occur if the lower egoic mind has been held in abeyance through surrender to the Supreme Real. This is what determines the necessity for discipline, renunciation of egoic jouissance, cleanliness of life style and conscience, and freedom from psychic instability and egoic fixations.
This brings us to the core of the problem. Many students do not want to give up egoic pleasures for the bliss of supreme nondual apperception and liberation. They want to have both the lower chakra enjoyments and those of the higher. Because they are frozen in their attachments to egoic pleasures, they cannot accept the teaching that the ego and its lusts must be transcended. Such students are free to learn from their own experience. Discipleship as a Sat Yogi is not mandatory. It is a voluntary choice. One can be a student of Sat Yoga (rather than a disciple) and take from it what one wants and leave the rest. The karmic result will be determined by higher law. But it is incumbent on teachers of Sat Yoga not to adulterate the teachings. If some behavior is karmically inaccurate, it is our duty to explain that. We must keep the teachings alive and always open to be poured into new bottles, but we must never allow the teachings to be contaminated with falseness in order to soothe fragile egos or collude with their lower desires. If we were to do that, we would fail in our responsibility as spiritual guides. Only a community of true yogis, fully surrendered to the Supreme One, can flourish and create the kind of energy field in which the healing of souls can take place. We can only resonate at the highest levels of divine love and clarity if we have gone beyond egocentricity and its attendant illusions, desires, instabilities, and anxieties.
Some students mistakenly feel that because we analyze the failings of the modern ego structure, and particularly the negative effects on the ego of the child of the anxieties and unconscious conflicts of the parents, that we are suggesting one should be angry with the parents. Quite the contrary, we teach the truth that most of us who have not done inner work are already suffering from unconscious anger and rejection of the parents, even if we pretend to ourselves, and them, that we love them. It is only by purifying our unconscious mind of the negative affects toward the parents, and eliminating the pathological elements of their input into our psychic constitution, that we can come to a place of forgiveness, understanding, and pure love for our parents. It is always Truth that sets one free. Without recognizing the unpleasant truth of our shadow, our unconscious negativity, we cannot do the inner work of arriving at a higher understanding that will reunite us and free us of projections that create disharmony and suffering.
Some students rebel at the idea that contemporary sexual attitudes are unhealthy. They do not want to give up their apparent freedom (that is actually a compulsion) to have non-marital and extra-marital sex; to indulge in infatuations and even multiple simultaneous uncommitted sexual affairs; to view pornography; to masturbate; to fill the mind with lewd and lascivious images; to dress in sexually provocative ways; to judge others as sexual objects; to act out perverse forms of sexual pleasure that harm others and oneself; and in general, to treat sexuality as a profane act of enjoyment that need not respect higher truths or be based on real love. The ideological consensus today is that we should be free to act irresponsibly in sexual matters, and to maximize our opportunities for sexual pleasure. The problem is that this attitude has extremely negative consequences, for society as a whole, for unwanted children who are often the innocent victims, as well as for one’s self.
It is a path that is based on mirages of satisfaction and leads only to psychological and spiritual devastation. Abortions may be legal, but they always leave psychic scars, if not physical problems. Sexual affairs may be considered harmless—in fact, many people nowadays think of having sex with someone as no different from having lunch with them—but the bill to be paid later is far more exorbitant than even the most expensive restaurant. We cannot engage in such interactions without degrading oneself and one’s partners. When we narcissistically use another human being to gratify sexual fantasies, or when we, out of egoic insecurity and fear of rejection and loneliness, surrender our body to be sexually used, in a context in which there is no mutual surrender of the two souls to God, we are cutting ourselves off from the root of our Being, and selling our divine birthright for a mess of orgasmic pottage.
The delusion that sexual conquests will prove our manhood or feminine irresistibility, or in general will add to our sense of self-esteem and empowerment, or make us wise in the understanding of human nature and more compassionate and gentle, will all crash and burn one day when the denial of higher truth can no longer be maintained, and we are due for a ride into the inferno of a very dark night of the soul. This is why so many of those who act out in accord with the vaunted and socially accepted sexual revolution are on anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medications, or self-medicate with pot and alcohol. Underneath the veneer of a life of free sex and unrestrained pleasure is a growing sense of lack, guilt, shame, and terror that eats away at our soul—and eventually produces disease symptoms in the body and karmic storms that ravage our lives.
But some students still insist on mis-recognizing their own sexual desires as manifestations of divine love. They want desperately to believe that their current objects of mutual infatuation are divinely ordained soul mates, rather than psychic events determined by interlocking phantasies of their unconscious ego-minds, destined to result in disappointment and remorse, or worse. They do not want to recognize that the ego desires to be desired. If the desire of the other is strong enough, the ego too often cannot refuse. Then it will make up reasons to believe this particular lover is the one who is meant to be one’s partner. Sadly, this illusion does not long survive the stresses of modern life. But it can last long enough to wreak havoc with one’s peace of mind. Even though they have suffered from the same delusion in the past, they insist on repeating it, and on remaining in denial so that they can enjoy the ride. They are like the man who jumped off a twenty-story building. Someone on the tenth floor shouted out the window as he rushed past, “How does it feel?” The man shouted back, “It’s great, so far!” No doubt he would have a different answer, if he could talk, once he hit the sidewalk.
To comprehend why enmeshment in chakra two jouissance is such an obstacle to Transcendent Self-realization requires a deep understanding of the nature of the false egoic self, its inherent sense of lack and anxiety, its fixation on frozen signifiers of desire, its intrinsic tendency to grasp at a mirroring Other in order to feel whole, and its repressed horror at its inability to know itself, and to mobilize its energies, except in relation to such an Other whom it projects upon as being the One. These projections cannot be prevented, but it is ethically incumbent upon us to re-direct their energies inward, to enable such seeking souls to discover the inner Self, rather than a projected, fantasy version of the Self. It is the function of spiritual teachers to manage cleanly such projections, to hold them as sacred, to guard carefully the students who have put themselves in one’s hands, so that they can quickly grow to the point that they are able to reclaim their Real Self, with no strings attached.
Another problem today is that few students are willing to put themselves in the hands of a spiritual guide, because of lack of trust of any authority figures, as well as the resistance to renouncing the lower attachments. This is why it takes so long to do the work of inner transformation. Even after one begins to trust one’s teacher, one has to work through the fear of surrendering to a community. And after that hurdle is crossed, there still remains the terror of love itself. Only after this barrier is passed is the path open to the Supreme Liberation.
Many spiritual communities have been shattered because the teachers (and students) had not transcended or at least controlled their chakra two desires. When sexual seduction occurs in such a sacred context, it destroys the harmony and trust of the entire sangha. When married members of a spiritual community divorce or have affairs with other members, it creates a destructive tension as well. Sides get taken, divisions based on judgments and projections create schisms that can be impossible to heal. Even as large a denomination as the Catholic church is suffering a world-wide hemorrhage of members because of the revelation of the widespread perverse sexual predations of priests. There is such a great body of evidence of the ruinous results of chakra two malfeasance that it cannot reasonably be argued against. This is not a frozen teaching; it is simple common sense and the willingness to learn from one’s own past experience, as well as the experience of the wisest teachers throughout human history.
Students are free to follow their own desires, of course, but after they enter into sexual couple relationships they generally create a self-contained dyad that resists hearing further messages from their spiritual teacher. Soon they leave the community, and even if they later realize they were duped by their unconscious, they will usually feel too much shame to return. So I want to emphasize that all who have left our community for such reasons are always welcome back without judgment or stigma. Often it is our destiny to learn the hard way, and that, in the end, can make us better teachers, more humble and wise because of our wounds, than we would have been otherwise. But nearly all of us have been around this block at least once already, and we have to ask ourselves how many times we want to repeat the same mistake. Time is of the essence now.
It is clear that very few want to hear this message. It is a far more inconvenient truth than the destruction of our biosphere. But as spiritual guides we are duty bound to deliver the message, so that those who do wish to get out of their hell realms and are wise enough to want to awaken spiritually and transform their lives can be helped to do so. It is far better that we create a small, dedicated, and correctly self-disciplined spiritual community that will not be destroyed by sexual tensions, traumas, and misbehaviors, than a large group that will not be able to maintain integrity and cohesiveness nor fulfill our mandate to reach higher consciousness and transmit divine love.
Some people, of course, enter a spiritual community as an already-formed couple. If the couple relationship is stable and healthy, then of course they should stay together, and make their marriage ever more sublime, supportive of spiritual growth, mutually life enhancing, and encouraging of each other attaining the supreme inner union with God. The question of whether to have children must be answered on a case-by-case basis. Of course, if children are already present, they may reject the parents’ new spirituality and consider the community a threat to their own position in the family system. Or they may realize the benefits for them in the parents’ stability and newfound centeredness and higher values. On the other hand, if the couple relationship is negative, abusive, and spiritually destructive, and cannot be repaired because one or both parties refuse to withdraw their projections and work on themselves, then, if no children are involved, the spiritual community can serve as a support network to enable both parties to separate in a mature manner and both remain in the community, if they wish, without loss of face for either person.
The truth is that sexual affairs today are about one-percent pleasure and ninety-nine percent trouble: involving disappointment, disgust, angry and abusive arguments, misunderstandings, frustrations, rejection, remorse, and finally, emotional collapse. In the few cases in which such affairs blossom into sturdy, committed spiritual relationships that enhance both partners’ lives, and lead either to the creation of healthy sacred families or mutual dedication to spiritual service of the world, the sexual element in the relationship will have been surpassed in the surrender to the eternal Flame of luminous Transcendent Awareness, to Cosmic Mind and Nature, and the pure enjoyment of bodiless blissful union with the Self Supreme.
There are other, even deeper reasons why at this historic moment, the end of a complete cycle of terrestrial time and beginning of a new one, the attainment of purity is so important. There are genetic and physiological changes that must manifest for us to enter into the new cycle with the proper capacities having developed. And that can only happen if we are resonating at the correct vibrational frequency. That is why it is so important to maintain a pure diet, lead a pure life, think pure thoughts, and achieve pure awareness in meditation, as well as attain purity at the sexual level. The Atman is not sexual. It is whole, both male and female in complete integration, without desire or fear. The Atman is blissful by nature. It has no urge toward orgasmic pleasure, which leads to depletion of life energies, confusion, depression, and loss of center. In Atman-consciousness, there is no identification with the body, and therefore, no desire to interpenetrate one body with another. We are light beings, not bodies. The method of reproduction in the next Age will not be the same as it is today. Pregnancy will occur at the accurate karmic moment, in the appropriate sacred marriage, from the union of two rays of divine energy emanating from an avataric couple in the highest chakra, which will result in a pure manifestation of divine parthenogenesis. These changes can only occur if we voluntarily surrender to the sacred transmutation of the organism itself.
Only when we thaw out our frozen identification with the physical body and the ego structure with its fixed patterns of desire and jouissance can we evolve to the level of consciousness in which we can recognize the eternal truth of the teachings of Sat Yoga. May you overcome all resistance to considering this issue objectively and with an unprejudiced mind, learn to think outside the conventional box, and allow your higher intelligence help you come to the most spiritually uplifting conclusion.
It may be your destiny to enter into marriage and to raise a family. One can still be a sat yogi under those conditions. But it is more difficult. It will require great wisdom, skill, purity of intention, and detachment, to maintain a loving divine relationship with spouse and children under the current stressful conditions of modern life, which is growing more stressful by the day. One will have to resolve with one’s spouse amicably so many issues in regard to child raising that are fraught with emotional depth charges—beginning with the kind of birthing situation one provides, with options ranging from home water birthing to hospital-administered caesarean; and including thereafter, whether to allow their infant to be vaccinated, in spite of the evidence that it can cause autism; to order circumcision; to breastfeed, and for how long; to send the child to day care; the kind of diet to enforce; the kind of schools to enroll them in; the kind of health care to entrust them to; the television policy; the disciplinary methodology; the way of dealing with physical disorders, learning disorders, or other psychological problems; the kind and timing of sexual education; the question of religious affiliation; how to deal with smoking, drug and alcohol use; and the list goes on for kilometers.
Given the uncertainty of current social and geophysical conditions, the precarious nature of most parents’ employment and financial situation, the fragility of most couple bonds, the uncertainty regarding correct child raising procedures, the negative influence of the media messages, the pathological peer group pressures the children will be under, the de-spiritualized, materialistic, and fiercely competitive kind of education that is generally available; and the unprecedented levels of stress that contemporary children must face on every front, one will not be able to protect one’s children unless one is in a spiritual community that offers a buffer against the chaos and depravity of the secular world. A rural self-contained community can provide a healthy extended family, village-like conditions of attention, safety and trust; and communion with Nature. But unless both partners are in alignment with the higher values and lifestyle of such a community, that will not prove a viable option. Such issues should be discussed in depth between two people who are considering becoming a couple and raising a child, before making such an irrevocable commitment. If there is not a profound understanding of the challenges they will face and a true meeting of hearts and minds in agreement with the demands of such a project, it is far better to agree to choose another path.
Today, it is extremely unfashionable in the Western world to adopt the lifestyle of a sannyasi, or a monk. People are fearful of what they mistakenly perceive as extreme asceticism and loss of autonomy. But the life of a monk in a monastery or ashram can be a truly fulfilling and sublime way of living. It is the only life style that offers true autonomy, rather than the superficial appearance of autonomy that is actually enslavement to a godless system.
A life that can be dedicated to contemplation of, and union with, the Blissful Supreme Presence is an incomparable existence. A life that can offer serenity, security, freedom from financial worries, the opportunity for perpetual learning and inner growth, a friendly community of colleagues, the ability to live simply and in harmony with Nature, the opportunity to help other souls who are suffering, of becoming a spiritual healer and teacher, a source of wisdom and stability for those who come on retreat to re-center themselves, is a truly blessed life. The renunciation of the lower pleasures of egoic life is realized as a complete relief, a release from suffering, stress, responsibilities for others that cannot be fulfilled, and the trauma of egoic inadequacy and lack. One can truly serve all beings in a state of well-earned grace by achieving transcendence of the ego and enjoying the simple, pure life of a liberated sat yogi monk.
This option is now available, thanks to God’s provision of a Sat Yoga ashram. It will not draw the masses, but for those few who seek such a sacred refuge, we can now offer to at least a few seekers that most ancient and revered way of life, in a monastic setting that is not weighed down by affiliation to a dead religious tradition, but open to new approaches to manifesting the eternal dream of divine community. The origins of Christianity, Buddhism, and other religions are to be found in such communities of saints and sages. We have the opportunity of continuing and improving on that most ancient tradition. We hope that those who feel called to the spiritual life will consider such a radical option. In truth, it may be the only option that makes sense in these apocalyptic times.
Whatever your path, may your consciousness become unfrozen from its egoic identifications and desires and be always steeped in the loving Presence of our Supreme Being. May your mind be clear and your heart pure. Thus, your steps will be guided to the highest destination of spiritual fulfillment. I wish you all blessings on your soul’s journey.
Namaste,
Shunyamurti