Wisdom Teachings - Sat Yoga, Costa Rica

Excerpt: “You know ‘SAT’ is an acronym. Did anybody know that? Do you know what ‘SAT’ stand for? Anyone know? It means: the Solid Abyss of Triumph. Triumph is the keyword; you will hear the word triumph often is the chants that Anuttara performs. In Sanskrit the word is ‘Jai’ and you hear songs that have the words ‘Jai Sita Ram’ and ‘Govinda Jaya Jaya.’ ‘Jai’ means victory or triumph, but what are we victorious over? It’s the triumph over maya, over the delusion of the ego that creates negativity, self-doubt, despair, depression, anxiety, envy, all the agonies of the ego that we all know so well they don’t need to be listed. So all of these need to be triumphed over, but how do we triumph over them? First we have to become solid…” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, September 20, 2012.

Excerpt: “All experience occurs within the Self and can be modified by the Self because it is actually all part of the Self, and a creation of the Self. But the Self never appears as an object, and the Self, to all intents and purposes to the scientific mind, does not exist. And this is why many have called Advaita and Buddhism forms of religious atheism. You could say that, but they are not atheism in the same sense as the materialist [who] doesn’t believe in God. The materialist is simply refusing to believe in Sunday school stories. But if the materialist had to actually consider what is the ultimate transcendental condition of experience, then that would be a different matter. So when the atheists attack God, they’re attacking a straw God, a false God. But when you ask ‘Who is doing the attacking?’ ‘Who is the source of the consciousness with that attitude?’ you can take that consciousness back to a level which cannot be understood. But it is fair to say that Advaita and Buddhism are forms of transtheism

Excerpt: “Many people’s egos try to convince them that this knowledge is too difficult to understand, too subtle. And it’s true that the ego cannot understand this knowledge. And yet everyone has a deeper intuition and a recognition of the Truth when they hear it. But the reason why the ego can’t understand it is that it doesn’t want to, because to understand it would mean the death of the very ego that comes to understand its own unreality. But it’s clear that everyone understands because it’s there in our collective culture. This information is hidden in plain sight, like all the other secrets that society holds back from itself.” Recorded in the afternoon of Tuesday, September 11, 2012.

Excerpt: “When we meditate we are detaching from the ego mind and all of its mundane concerns, and its pointless narratives, and all of its absurd fears and anxieties about life and death that are completely irrelevant to the infinite life of the Real Self. The Real Self alone is. The ego and the forms are merely temporary appearances and they do not have a consciousness of their own. The consciousness of the ego is only borrowed from the Self. It is a dream within a dream. When we subtract our attention and our identification from the form, the ego dissolves like a bubble that pops and we realize it never was. And all of its projections on the world never were. And in the state of the Formless Self we realize that the illusion of the world was only created by the language in the mind that labels everything and creates the deception of a subject-object duality. None of that is real.” Recorded in the afternoon of Monday, September 10, 2012.

Excerpt: “It is always important to remember why we are here before we begin and sometimes we take it for granted that we know why we are here.... In some cirlces what we are doing is called mysticism, but really there is no mystery to mysticism... or maybe the only mystery is why some people think it is so hard... because all we are doing in the mystical quest is recognizing who we are – recognizing our original true nature... but what makes it seem hard is that we have aquired a conditioned nature – a false nature so that we could adapt to the sickness of society and pretend that that is normal... and then we identified with all of the family signifiers, the cultural signifiers and all of the values of the society in which we live and we lost touch with our original nature... and once we bought into what our parents told us or implied between the lines or what we overheard or suspected or imagined or fantasized, and then what we were taught in school, mostly by fellow students but a little bit by teachers

Excerpt: “…Because that’s what Kali Yuga is doing to everyone now. Whatever can break down is breaking down, whether it’s our cars, or our plumbing, or our egos, or our bodies, that’s what’s happening. But don’t wait to have everything taken away from you before you realize that you are that which cannot be damaged or taken away. Be one who dwells in that undamageable, unblemished perfection of being now so that such karmic events won’t be necessary to liberate you, and won’t cause suffering and disturbance. But that no matter what happens you will flow with it in grace, and joy, and love. And you will know that you need nothing, because you are the source of all.” Recorded in the afternoon of Wednesday, September 5, 2012.

Excerpt: “Meditation is simply an opportunity to drop the illusion that you are a separate ego; to let the identification of mind and body fall away; and more importantly to let go of the identification of Self with mind. The Self is not the mind. You were not born with the mind; you were born with consciousness, awareness. Awareness that in its natural state is free: free of thoughts, free of images, free of desires, free of fear. But once the ego mind is created through the incorporation of language, with the desires, fantasies, fears imposed by the parents, family, society, larger global culture, then a knot is formed that keeps your awareness identified with mind. And the mind feeling [in] a state of lack, a state in which something is missing to make you feel contentment and wholeness and joy. And we mistakenly think we can find what we are looking for by thinking our way to it; and so we think furiously, constantly, chattering about what we want, what we don’t want, rehearsing how we’re going to deal wi

Excerpt: “…It is as if you hear a program on the radio and you like the announcer and you put a picture of the radio up on the wall and say ‘that’s what I like.’ The voice that is coming out of that radio isn’t the radio, it’s coming from a thousand miles away. But you are identified with it as if the words coming out of your mouth belong to that body, they don’t. The problem is this: we don’t just have a radio, we have a machine that has a tape and a radio, and we have it set to the tape machine that just keeps repeating over and over again the loops of the ego and the super ego voices…” Recorded in the afternoon of Thursday, August 30, 2012.

Excerpt:  "There is a very ancient metaphor in yoga that we talk about a lot and we include it in seminar one about the bucket of water that’s put out underneath the full moon and how the bucket represents the body and the water in the bucket represents the mind… and there seems to be a moon in the bucket as well, but is there really?  That’s the illusion… the moon we could say represents the Self, but the moon in the bucket is not the Real Self – we could say it is the ego self… and usually the bucket is being disturbed and the water is vibrating and so you don’t even get a clear image of the moon… you get different splinters of the moon-like light but it doesn’t make sense – it is an ever changing puzzle because our minds are going too fast to get an even image that is clear of the Self… but then if we do get that clear image then we are under the illusion that we somehow have to get out of this bucket – I have got to attain liberation, but there is no such thing as liberation because the moon i

Excerpt: “A Sat Yogi is one who knows oneself to be Ajata. Ajata is the unborn, the uncreated, the eternal, the all powerful Self. Do you know yourself to be Ajata? Do you know yourself to be all powerful? Every power is given you, but have you claimed it? You have been given the power of healing; you have been given the power of love; you have been given the power of truth; you have been given the power to conquer maya; the power to remain beyond suffering; the power to remain ever at peace; the power to remain in bliss; the power to be fearless; the power of silence; the power to stay awake in meditation. Have you claimed your powers? Or are you still a beggar before God? Or are you still attached to the false power of weakness, because you prefer to get pity than to claim the power and majesty of the Supreme One? Do you prefer to remain a child rather than to grow up to your full potential as the deathless Self?” Recorded in the afternoon of Monday, August 27, 2012.

Excerpt: “Tat Tuam Asi: Thou Art That – very ancient mahavakya, I am That. That which is the ‘I’ of the individual is actually the Supreme Presence. Duality is an illusion. There is one Self, and each of us is That. Can we feel the truth of that mahavakya? Do we resonate with it? Do we surrender to that truth? Do we realize the bliss that comes with that realization? There is really nothing more to know or to study. Because in that state, when the individualized has returned to That, to the Supreme One, to the realization that you were always That, and eternally shall be, then the journey of karma on this wheel of reincarnation, of multiplicity, is complete. Tat Tuam Asi is the sound of our graduation ceremony, the angels will be singing that as we arise to the Supreme Light. And in that realization, all suffering falls away, all fear, all the narcissistic wounds carried by the ego, can finally be enjoyed from God’s strange sense of humor. And that Divine Supreme Perspective heals all in this world, in all wo

“We come here to discover what is real. And the deeper we inquire within, the more we realize that everything is impermanent in this world of experience; it’s fleeting, it changes – it has no true identity. Even people we meet have no true identity: at one moment they’re friendly, another moment they’re angry, one moment they’re here, another they’re gone, different personalities appear and disappear, moods, attitudes, understandings, none of it is permanent; it’s just a fleeting appearance. So all of you, all of us as appearances, as egos, as bodily beings, are completely unreal. And yet our lives revolve around this non-existent concern with an unreal being, an unreal being in an unreal world. Because the world is in constant change, nothing in this world is dependable: not the climate, not the ground under our feet, not the air, not the solar vibrations where you see the sun, not the water supply. There is no guarantee that our existence will continue even for one more minute, or even that this planet will

Excerpt:  “There is really no point speaking about the Absolute… we can talk a lot about the ego and the unconscious and it’s structure and dynamics, but when it comes to the Absolute concepts are futile… one always ends up with paradox, inconsistency, contradiction, inadequacy and usually it leads to a distorted understanding on the part of those who are listening… and so many of the great teachers have simply sat in silence without saying anything, or they have taught in parables using metaphors and archetypal images… but nothing can be said about the absolute because the absolute is not a thing – not an object… but even to say that is incorrect…  in the Vedas it is called Nirguna Brahman… the Absolute that is beyond even the question of whether personal or impersonal and has no qualities, no gunas, no attributes… but the egoic mind cannot grasp that which has no attributes… and in fact the Absolute cannot be grasped because there is no one to grasp it… what really has to be realized is that the ego mind th

Excerpt: “The ego is a psychic sack filled with mind parasites. It has only a negative value. It’s a place in consciousness based on the falseness of an illusionary identity that gives a space for negative entities to hold on to and suck your life energy away. These mind parasites will destroy your life if they are not eliminated. The only way to eliminate these negative entities, that will drive you to insanity, destroy your health, and destroy your destiny, is through the surrender of the mind to God for the purification of the consciousness and the elimination of the ego. That is why this sacred act of meditation is so important. It is literally a matter of life or death, and not just this life but all of your future lives that depend on the sanskaras that are created now at the end of Kali Yuga. So we need to take meditation with the utmost seriousness. It is our one opportunity to link with God and feel the current of divine energy, and allow that current to come in with such power that it annihilates th

Excerpt: “Our natural state is pure awareness and absolute purity of mind and heart, and thus a state of love-filled joy. But we are only in that state if we are in the Real Self. And the problem for human consciousness is that a false self has intervened to disconnect our consciousness from the Real Self. And so we must learn to recognize the Real Self. And it’s easy to do because the Real Self differs from the false self in one essential way; the Real Self is non-arising. Any self that arises as an object, as a sense of being a body in the world, as having emotions, intentions, agendas, and relations in duality with others, is the false self. The Real Self is non-arising, and from the perspective from the false self, then, the Real Self does not exist because it doesn’t arise, it’s unborn, it’s unmanifest. But what the Real Self knows is that it’s that which arises that does not really exist; it’s not real because it’s fleeting, it’s impermanent, it’s in constant change, and it’s constantly fragmented, diff

Excerpt: “The two most important concepts in meditation are ‘Shiva’ and ‘Shakti.’ We need to understand the very deep inner significance of these two profound concepts that function as the energy source for our reality because when we are meditating, what we are doing is literally charging our battery. The soul is a battery; it’s a living battery. And that battery gets discharged over time. And the more that we function in the lower chakras, the faster the battery discharges and goes dead. And so every time we have an outburst of anger, or sexual lust, or insecurity, anxiety, paranoia, all of those lower chakra emotional fixations, the battery of our life energy goes dead. And if it can’t be recharged we will literally go dead. And our physical body then starts to have to compensate for the lack of spiritual energy and the organs become weaker, they become drained. And eventually we just have a meltdown, we can’t think, we can’t organize our self to act and function in the world, our emotions become out of or

Excerpt: ”How many of you believe that you really exist? Is anyone here still under that illusion? Admit it if there is. Anyone? No one will admit it, that’s good, it’s a start. It’s better to not admit it. Because we don’t really [exist]; it’s an illusion. Anything time-bound is not real. And all existence is simply an appearance followed by disappearance. Is the appearance any more real than the disappearance? No, but neither is real. You know a lot of times we talk about Jivanmukti as the goal of yoga, which means to be liberated in life; liberated from the ego with its illusory existence that is only an illusion. But actually Ramana says no, Jivanmukti is not the end; there is a stage higher than Jivanmukti. Does anyone know what it is? Sri Ramana calls it Videhamukti. And this means liberation even from believing you ever were an ego that has achieved liberation. There is not even the subtle sense of being one who has gone beyond the illusion – because you were never in the illusion to begin with. That’s

Excerpt: “…Those of us who have been here for some time have no doubt come to understand and been motivated by the fact that what we are doing is discovering who we are. Most of us have recognized that we have these experiences that are in a flux, almost like in a circle; our body and our minds are going through these changes, constant changes. And yet there’s a witness, there’s a center to all of these experiences, and what we call ‘imperiences,’ those which don’t happen in what seems to be an external world but happen in an internal world: dreams, visions, memories, thoughts; where do they actually happen? And to whom do they happen? And we usually focus our whole life on what is happening out there: ‘what a pretty flower,’ ‘what a strange person,’ ‘what extraordinary power of thunder and lightning and rain,’ and all these other things. And we have judgments about our experiences, and sometimes we have judgments about our own thoughts. But how often do we ask: ‘Who is it who is having the judgment?’ ‘To who

Excerpt: “Meditation is the act of gaining victory over death. And that makes it literally a life or death matter. Do we take it with that seriousness? One of the great names for a successful yogi is ‘Mrityunjay’ which means one who has achieved victory over death. There are two words for death in Sanskrit that refer to the two dimensions of death. One is ‘kal’ and kal also means time, and measure. Thus we have the word calendar (kalendar) in English, or calculate, or caliber, or Excalibur, the sword of immeasurable value, the legitimate wielder of which is given immortality. One of the great names for God is ‘Mahakal’, the great death, which is the death of death. It means entering into the dimension of eternity. But how you achieve that is revealed in the second word for death…” Recorded in the afternoon of Thursday, July 12, 2012.

Excerpt:  “I hope that you have all come prepared for intense erotic experiences… have you?  Those of you who were here for the film this week of the sculpture of Santa Teresa by Bernini will remember that here is a question that is open as to whether she is having a chakra four mystical experience or a chakra two orgasmic experience… and the art critics and philosophers and psychoanalysts are actually arguing over this point….  To the psychoanalyst like Lacan naturally it has to be a chakra two experience – there is no chakra four – that is the modern ideology… and this loss of the transcendent dimension has bought about the loss of the realization that our true relationship to God is an erotic one, but it is the Eros of the soul not of the ego….  The soul’s deepest desire is to be ravished by God – this is what we mean by surrender… you are literally abandoning your ego self and asking to be filled by Gods power – presence – love – bliss.  This is the true erotic experience not the other one at chakra two…