Wisdom Teachings - Sat Yoga, Costa Rica

Excerpt:  "Sat Yoga is a finishing school - probably the last of the finishing schools.  Feminism killed off most of them, but here we have a co-ed finishing school… and yes we are here to finish off the ego but we are doing it not by destruction but by allowing it to attain its perfect form and then the ego blossoms into the soul and if we allow it the soul blossoms into pure spirit.  We teach about different assemblage points here.  Each assemblage point is really an opening up to love at a higher, broader, deeper level.  But the essence of what we are is love at every level - even at the level of the ego, which we say “oh, the ego cannot love”, which is true in terms of divine love, but the ego is love because that’s all that is, is love.  At the first assemblage point the problem is the ego’s circle of care and love does not go beyond its own self-image… it loves what is sees in the mirror and it loves others adoring gazes and saying yes etc. and it loves sensual pleasures and that kind of thing – what Fr

Excerpt: “…And within that idea of return there is a crossroads that one encounters. One leads to the bliss of the Absolute and the other leads to nihilism – that leads to an emptiness that is a barrenness. And we have two kinds of spiritual teacher in the world: one who is pointing to the bliss and the light and the power and the joy of God and the other who points to absolute nothingness. And so it’s very important that when you let go of the ego and allow it to dissolve that you recognize there is still an awareness that is witnessing that. So you are still there when your ego has dissolved. You are still there when the mind is completely silent. But when there are no more narratives, who are you that is there? That’s the question. The real inquiry that Ramana recommends of ‘Who am I?’ only begins after the disillusion of the ego when you know you are not that, you are not the traumatized person but you’re the witness. And then you can begin to ask ‘but what is this witness?’ that is still there after ever

Excerpt: “The Christians talk about transfiguring the wafer and the wine into the body and the blood of Christ. It’s the theory of transubstantiation. But what it means is that you recognize that Real One, a mere wafer, a mere cup of ordinary wine, is actually simply the symbolic representation of Real Two, the love of God, the act which is the actual body and blood of God. But in our version of transfiguration everything is transformed, all of Real One, and all of the Imaginary of the ego is transformed into Real Two and into the archetypal realization that everything that appears here; including yourself, your own body, your own mind, is simply a symbolic representation of the Real that is God.” Recorded in the afternoon of Monday, October 15, 2012.

Excerpt:  “We are here to do what the song just said… which is to Swaha - it means give everything to Rama… surrender every illusion that you are separate from God so that you realize who you truly are… surrender every bit of negativity, fear… every piece of anger, hatred, depression, anxiety… throw it all into the fire… throw everything that separates you from your realization of oneness with the supreme being and by doing that and invoking the supreme presence you will be free of suffering and you will be in bliss and you will be filled with power and creativity and clarity and you will be filled with love and you will know that you are loved and you will know that you are one with the source of love and that love is what is beautiful and love is what is good… love is what is real and eternal and you are that and everything that you might have thought that you were that is different from that is an illusion… it is Maya and if you don’t hold onto any Maya and you can let it all go, you will achieve liberatio

Excerpt: “What is it that we see when the third eye is open? The first thing we see, as all the ancient sages have testified to, is that this world is unreal. Do we all see that? To be unreal doesn’t mean that it doesn’t appear; it is real as an appearance, but it is not real as a world with all of the veils of the ego’s projections upon it. The projections are unreal; they are fantasies. And once those projections are put out there, superimposed upon the phenomenal plane, then that’s what we get back, are our own projections. And so the first thing that the Eye of Shiva must do is burn away the projections so we see the world as it is, as a creation of Shiva. And then we see it not as a world any longer but as a hologram, a multidimensional dream field, in which everything that appears is a symbolic manifestation of the mind of God.” Recorded in the afternoon of Monday, October 8, 2012.

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