The Technique of Detachment from Technique

Question:

How does one know their new ego is actually coming from the higher intelligence and not just an inflated version of the previous illusory ego which truly believes itself to be enlightened because of having some wonderful spiritual experiences?

Shunyamurti’s Reply:

Only after going through authentic ego death, and love union of the soul with the Supreme Lord, can the nature of the post-egoic ego be understood. But to get a better sense of what such a being is like, read about the life and conversations of Sri Ramana; or study the events of opening that occurred to ibn Arabi when circumambulating the Ka’ba, and his level of consciousness thereafter; or enjoy the anecdotes of the sage Zhuangzi; or the life of Ananda Mayi Ma, and the presence of wisdom and grace will become clear.

Namaste,
Shunyamurti

Question:

What happens if you’re suicidal?

Shunyamurti’s Reply:

Suicidal thoughts are what start to be emitted by an ego that is disconnected from God, once its good karma is exhausted. This is the lower death drive in action. But if you are willing to do the inner work to discover that you are not the ego, and that its thoughts are not yours—and that the ego is your enemy—then your soul will be able to awaken in time and can choose the upper death drive, which is the will to put the ego to death but keep the body alive to become divinized. The results of committing suicide are not good. Consciousness does not die, but the world dream can become much darker and more demonic. It is wise to give your heart, will, and whole soul to the Supreme Light and Love of God.

Question:

How do I forgive myself for the things I’ve done in this life? Do I ask for forgiveness and pray?

Shunyamurti’s Reply:

Of course, it is essential to forgive yourself and to connect lovingly with the Supreme Lord of the Universe, Who is both without and all-encompassing, manifesting the world, and also within, as your inmost Self. God is the Self of all beings. If you need help in overcoming resistance to forgiveness and God-realization, then I suggest you work with an adept yogic guide who can help you accelerate the process. We have such guides at our ashram who would work online with you, if you are interested. In any case, blessings for a new lease on life, as a humble server of God who values the priceless gifts of life and consciousness.

Om Shanti,
Shunyamurti

Question:

While I understand and agree with the essence of Shunyamurti’s teaching, I don’t fully resonate with the language or framework he uses to describe this process.

Specifically, it sounds a bit unrealistic to me when he talks about “killing the ego” or “annihilating the ego.” Is this really possible in our physical existence, unless one attains a state like that of Ramana? Shunya himself seems to have a very “healthy ego” structure, which allows him to function well in the world while living a spiritual life. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that; in fact, I believe it’s part of being human. Masters like Yogananda, who attained unity with God, are another example, in my opinion. Did he “kill” the ego? I don’t think so, but he did possess a very healthy ego structure combined with deep spiritual realization and high attainments. Did he transform his negative tendencies? Certainly, but he was still “very much in the world, just not of the world.”

Perhaps I’m misunderstanding what Shunya means by “ego.”

Shunyamurti’s Reply:

The term ‘ego’ has a long history in the teachings of yoga, and must be considered a ‘term of art,’ that is used with different meanings in different contexts. The word ‘ego’ is borrowed from Latin, and simply signifies ‘I’. Now, when we examine the teachings of great sages, like Sri Ramana, we discover that the ultimate state of enlightenment and liberation from all illusion and suffering is referred to with the phrase ‘I am I.’ Therefore, it is clear that the Real I does not die, but is eternal Presence.

Ramana also often praises the text in the Old Testament in which the Lord declares that His name is ‘I am.’ Therefore, since it seems like the true ego does not go through any death, we must question the meaning of the term ‘ego death,’ which Ramana also uses repeatedly to refer to the attainment of Self-realization. Since the goal of spiritual development is to realize the Self (another term for ‘I’), what is described as being annihilated cannot be oneself, or one’s consciousness.

Again, in the usage of the word ego (or egoity) by yogis and Indian philosophers of all schools, it can refer to any of three functions of consciousness, depending on context. It can symbolize, at the top of the spectrum of consciousness, the revelation of the all-pervading Infinite Self.

Second, it can mean the fabricated program that is installed in every human during infancy (beginning, in fact, during the prenatal period), which is then systematized as a complex once language is acquired, becoming an instrument of control by the parents, the wider family, and later the educational system and the social order at large.

The infantile ego is supplemented by further acquired sedimentary layers of structure, consisting of behavioral commands, a growing repertoire of mimetic roles and attitudinal orientations, reaction formations to traumatic events, and emotion-laden self-images and concepts projected into the behavioral control system by the individual’s trainers.

This artificial program then determines the psychological development pathways that are open to the individual. This neurocomputer code, because it was installed in infancy—and retains those primitive tendencies at its core, even though they may be repressed or dissociated—severely restricts the freedom, empowerment, and full attainment of healthy maturity from manifesting. The operating system of the mind remains mired in the past. It is this sort of ego program that must be deleted from one’s consciousness, and replaced by an upgraded version. To accomplish this, most tribes and cultures in earlier times provided rites of passage into adulthood, consisting of a wide variety of severe ordeals, vision quests, meditative retreats, the taking of solemn vows, and deep study of sacred knowledge and inner journeys—sometimes involving the use of psychedelic substances—that are undertaken under the tutelage of a shaman, guru, or spiritual guide of some kind.

Once the transcendence of the obsolete, immature identity schema is achieved, a new name is often given, along with all the rights and privileges of a full adult member of the tribe. Such rites of passage have become ineffective formalities in most current cultural conditions. Therefore, many biologically-adult persons are still functioning under the control of an ego apparatus that internally identifies as a hurt child or adolescent, erupts often with volatile emotional reactivity, and persists replicating other noxious behavioral proclivities that create self-sabotaging events, project and provoke interpersonal conflicts, and helplessly repeat obsolete patterns of suboptimal performance despite resolutions to the contrary.

It is this incoherent robotic form of dysfunctional ego that yogis are referring to when speaking of going through ego death. In other words, ego death means to grow up, to become a healthy adult.

The third meaning of ego, as applied by yogis, is the upgraded version of identity and performance that is installed after the death of the infantile ego. This new kind of ego can be either a manifestation of the soul level of our Being, or even, in the case of such sages as Sri Ramana, of the Supreme Self. Therefore, indeed, Ramana presented with a very healthy, mature, capable, virtuous, compassionate, and wise ego. So, as is shouted in monarchies when an old king dies and a new one is crowned: ‘The ego is dead! Long live the Ego!’

The purpose of annihilating the old ego complex is to eliminate all the self-limiting beliefs, performance anxieties and inhibitions, dysfunctional psychological reactions, and constraints on the ability to love and to continue expanding one’s intelligence to ever greater levels.

I hope this explanation of the history and usage of the term ‘ego death’ has made you more comfortable in reading and listening to discourses by all the yogis, whether Vedantins, Shaivites, Buddhists, or Daoists, who speak of ego death. It is also a term commonly used by shamans, and even by some Western psychoanalysts.

By the way, the term is not used all that often in Sat Yoga. Much more often, we refer to Self-realization or God-realization, or liberation, or simply total presence. It is clear to most students that all these terms, plus others from non-Vedic roots, such as divinization, deification, Christ-consciousness, Buddha Nature, Emptiness, or the Absolute, all refer to the same life-fulfilling existential event.

Om Shanti,
Shunyamurti

Question:

Thank you for your valuable teachings Shunyamurti. I wish to have some clarity for the confusion that I’m having about the yugas. It has made a lot of sense to me how you have shared about Kali Yuga and time coming to an end and then turning into a Sat Yuga. Especially when looking at the increasing destruction in the systems, solar storms, and other natural storms and glitches while also more people waking up. Recently though, just one day after this video was uploaded, another well-known yogi uploaded a video on YouTube where he shares that the Kali Yuga has ended a few thousand years ago and we are in the Dwapar Yuga, soon entering the Treta Yuga. As an example, he shared how in the past it was common and acceptable in societies to treat people in horrible ways, for example women’s rights, slaves, etc. And in these times, yes, still there are horrible things happening but at least we know they are wrong and in the past, it was more acceptable. This also makes sense to me that the darkest time was already in the past. But looking at it in a different way, your way of teaching also makes sense. I just can’t tell which one is correct or is there space for both to be true, as Shiva loves paradoxes? I guess however it is, it’s most important to not be distracted by these theories and just remember the Self.

Shunyamurti’s Reply:

Dear Soul, first of all, you are right that what is most important is not to be distracted from abidance in stillness in the pure light of thought-free consciousness. But regarding your question, it is useful not to fall into the false propaganda about progress. It is also helpful to discern that the same signifiers can have very different meanings in changed social conditions.

If we go back to the so-called ancient world (meaning early kali yuga), the natural environment was much more pure and healthy. The societies were originally organized in some regions as tribes, some engaged in settled agriculture, some nomadic. Life was ecstatic and free. Then, in some areas, agriculture-based clans grew larger, and were reorganized as city-states, such as Athens and Sparta in the region now known as Greece. They occasionally raised armies of citizens and fought occasional wars, but they mostly did not involve massacres of civilians.

Those soldiers who surrendered to opponents in hand-to-hand combat, which involved fighting according to agreed rules and with disciplined martial arts skills, would become slaves of the victors, for some period of time before being freed, but they could easily have run away in those days, but they stayed as a matter of honor. It was not at all like the slavery of Africans on the North American continent before the U.S. civil war, which was far more oppressive and totalitarian. Moreover, the concept of nobility of spirit had real meaning back then. It is true that once the Greek period passed into the time of the ascent of Rome into a large empire, a more warlike attitude became dominant, but the purpose was still the glory of God, chivalry was still honored, and conquests were not simply about territory, political control, and amassing of wealth. It is only in the modern period that imperialism, colonialism, and wage slavery of conquered peoples became the hallmark of capitalism.

All the current religions of the world had their beginnings at that axial time of prophets and epic mythologies, and were at their highest level, producing many great sages and saints, unlike the sad state of religions today. Women were far more honored and revered than today. There was much more freedom back then to go on vision quests and pilgrimages, to live alone as a hermit or shaman, and the ideals of friendship, hospitality, devotion to God, and dedication to achieving union with God, were still powerfully alive throughout the world.

If you read the works of philosophers of the ancient world, whether Daoist sages from China, Magi from Persia, the Vedic, Jain, and Buddhist sages of India, or the Greek philosophers, you find extraordinary intelligence, clarity, and liberating words of wisdom. Philosophy today has lost that metaphysical orientation.

Today, technology is used to construct world-destroying weapons, widespread use of mind-control methods, massive disinformation and censorship, and most recently, the final depopulation program and digital enslavement of the remaining inhabitants. Humans are more dumbed-down than ever, more obedient followers of the mass psychosis, and more ignorant of the truth of our history and of our real nature as ineffable awareness than ever in the past. We are in the very depths of hell now, the most savage and criminal regimes in history are ruling lawlessly today. To think we have risen to a higher level of spiritual, aesthetic, ethical, and philosophic consciousness is a bad joke.

Namaste,
Shunyamurti

Question:

(There were several comments on the teaching God is Transgender: Both Shiva and Shakti.)

I don’t like this term at all. Isn’t it enough that God is everything and the Nothing, or that God is the One and the Zero? Why are you using this term? With respect, I don’t like it.

Shunyamurti’s Reply:

Some listeners have misunderstood this teaching, confusing the spiritual use of the term transgender with the woke ideology that is part of the depopulation program, intended to convince naïve children to get surgically neutered, or at least to renounce a gendered identity in accord with their physical anatomy, thus suppressing the life energy that would otherwise become expressed as a love relationship between man and woman. However, this teaching has a different focus. The genders of God are not male and female but rather unmanifest and manifest. God is both transcendent and immanent. As immanent, it makes sense to consider Nature as Mother, giving birth to the multiplicity of beings as a world of Beauty. The unmanifest, formless Source of the luminous energy that constitutes the fabric of creation is the Fatherly Self-reflective potency of Truth. The bond that unites Truth and Beauty is pure, unconditional Love. Each of us, whether in male or female body forms, is animated by that trinity of principles functioning as a unity. In subtle form, the two genders can best be qualified as yin and yang. Each human, regardless of sex, has some aspects of personality that are yin and others that are yang. The distribution of tendencies is unique to each being. But there is no true transgender human. The reality is determined by the will of God. It is not a matter of human choice. Nonetheless, such an imaginary attempt to escape the destiny of gendered existence must appear at the end of time to complete the manifestation of all possibilities of attitudinal degradation from the divine to the demonic. And all is part of the Beautiful Truth of God’s perfection.