Acharya Shunya: An Infinity Mindset and its Implications for Your Health

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In this podcast we join Sounds True founder, Tami Simon, in conversation with Acharya Shunya, a master of Ayurveda and an internationally renowned spiritual teacher and scholar of Advaita (nondual wisdom). Give a listen to this informative dialogue to hear about Acharya Shunya’s book, Roar Like a Goddess, and her empowering insights into : Awakening the inner goddesses of the Vedic tradition; the progressive revelation of Durga, Lakshmi, and Saraswati; “ugly power” based on ignorance, and the devas (or light bearers) who cultivate power ethically; how symbolism helps you discover your power; healthy rage and “correctional, super-conscious anger”; the divine, ultimate truth of nonduality at the core of Vedic wisdom; the river of light that flows within all of us; and more.

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Acharya Shunya: Sovereign Self

Acharya Shunya — December 29, 2020

Acharya Shunya is a classically trained master of Ayurveda and an internationally renowned spiritual teacher and scholar of Advaita nondual wisdom. The first female leader of a 2,000-year-old Indian spiritual lineage, she has dedicated her life to the dissemination of Vedic knowledge for the spiritual uplifting of all beings. With Sounds True, Acharya Shunya has written a book titled Sovereign Self: Claim Your Inner Joy and Freedom with the Empowering Wisdom of the Vedas, Upanishads, and Bhagavad Gita. In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Tami Simon and Acharya Shunya explore our spiritual journey from feeling afraid to feeling powerful, from bondage to sovereignty. Offering unique perspectives that come from being both a woman and a householder, as well as the spiritual leader of her lineage, Acharya Shunya describes the boundless essence of spirit we all have within, the importance of breaking free from the cultural limitations that prevent us from remembering our true spiritual freedom, and how Vedic wisdom provides us with a timeless guided journey to spiritual sovereignty.

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Meet The Author of Sovereign Self

Acharya Shunya — December 11, 2020

The Author
Acharya Shunya is an award-winning and internationally renowned spiritual teacher and scholar of Advaita (nondual wisdom) and a classically-trained master of Yoga and Ayurveda. The first female head of her 2,000-year-old Indian spiritual lineage, she has dedicated her life to the dissemination of Vedic knowledge for the spiritual uplifting of all beings. She is the president of the Awakened Self Foundation with its international headquarters in San Francisco and founder of the spiritual nonprofit Vedika Global. Learn more at acharyashunya.com.

Sovereign-Self-3D-Cover The Book
A comprehensive guide to yoga’s most influential texts, making their profound teachings both accessible and immediately practical for modern seekers. Filled with hidden insights and engaging guidance, Sovereign Self will help you awaken and recognize your potential to be joyful, resourceful, abundant, limitlessly expansive, and sovereign.

Show us a day in your life.

I lead the life I want to lead, every day, my heart leading me, and not because I must.

Acharya-Shunya-Saying-a-Prayer-to-her-Guru

Acharya Shunya Meditating in the Early Morning

In the early morning I say a prayer of gratitude to my guru and meditate on the beautiful and divine, forever sovereign presence in my heart, that is my true Self.

Self rises silently in meditation to fill my heart with light, and bless me from within. I become, as if renewed, to meet my day with my spiritual power, full on.

out and about

Many spiritual seekers and members of my Vedic lineage often join me through my day.

Acharya Shunya Hiking with Friends Acharya-Shunya-Teaching-Moment Acharya-Shunya-Teaching-Group-scaled

I go hiking with students, lead them through meditations, and impart Vedic wisdom from my 2000-year-old Vedic lineage from India.

in-hill-house-study-room working-on-my-book-copy Conducting-fire-cermony-in-mid-morning-to-evoke-Universal-Peace

From lunch onwards, I like to be mostly by myself in my study, to think and imagine, to feel and to surrender to my higher Self, and capture my inspiration in words. On many days, I spend time in Vedic ceremony and its consciousness awakening inner rituals and meditations.

Acharya-Shunya-with-her-Chef-Husband-Sanjai

I also value spending time with my husband. Sanjai is a trained Ayurveda chef. Here we are enjoying the fruits of his labor in our kitchen.

Has your book taken on a new meaning in the world’s current circumstances? Is there anything you would have included in your book if you were writing it now?

Shunyaji

In today’s uncertain world, embracing one’s unimagined power can open up possibilities as we synchronize with our true Self.

According to the Vedas, Upanishads, and Bhagavad Gita—India’s oldest body of sacred yogic wisdom—human beings can be inspired to awaken from conditioning, shed limiting patterns and shackling attachments, and tap into the wisest, boldest, and most authentic and fearless parts of ourselves—which dwell as an invisible potential inside our heart, called Atma, the boundless one. This mighty Self, with all its hidden powers, becomes activated through right knowledge, meditations, and insights, making us true masters of our destiny, able to forge a path of sovereignty in every circumstance, good or bad.

Knowing the sovereign Self in our heart can alter the course of our life; this Self-knowledge can become a source of inner equanimity in any circumstance in life, not only when life is fun and people around us are acting supportively and lovingly, but also when life is unpredictable and people’s behavior is shadowy and dark.

Naturally, this book has taken on a new meaning since I wrote it because today, our world is besieged by uncertainty and possibilities of disease; death is stalking each one of us, invisibly. To add to our collective sense of anxiety, we’ve also witnessed one of the most polarized elections in this country’s history. Social and racial injustice is at an all-time high. Our reality and our values stand to be changed forever. Now, more than ever, the sanctuary beyond fear and impermanence lies within the rediscovery of our true, invincible nature.

If you are a sensitive and evolved soul who believes in dharma, nonviolence, equality, and justice for all, my book, Sovereign Self, will be like a balm to your soul, a flame lit softly in a pitch-dark room—a path revealed, where none existed before.

Share a photo of you and your pet. Did your pet have a role in helping you write your book?

Acharya-Shunya-with-her-pet-and-writing-companion-Noddy

Noddy, my six-year old labradoodle, has been my constant companion through the writing of Sovereign Self, which took almost three long years. The process required me to let go and descend deep within the mystical realms of my being, and connect with the true Self—the boundless essence, Atma, which I talk about in my book.

It is from here, from that boundless essence where I have always been perfect, complete, and inseparable from Source, that ideas would emerge spontaneously and words would become sentences that shall become path-showers for seekers all over the world. Many times, I would meditate and be lost in trance for hours. Noddy would sit patiently by me, and even sacrifice his desire to bark at his arch-enemy, “Mr. Squirrel.” As long as my eyes were closed, my baby would be quiet as a mouse. But the moment my eyes opened, he would greet me with an explosion of love and affection: “Woof, woof, welcome back to my world, mama; how was your inner world, mama, did you find me in your heart, mama?”

Noddy and our next-door neighbor’s German Shepherd, Peet, have unresolved karmic issues from a relationship in their former lifetime. As a result, whenever Peet barks, Noddy barks back with recognition and emotional resolve to sort the karma issues in this lifetime itself! As I wrote and talked about the human ego and how it becomes lost in the chase of relationships and things, the experience of watching them go back and forth in their dance of egos, through playtime and tug-time and wagging-tail-time and angry growl-time, made me smile, and reminded me that we really are always enough in who we are. This is what Noddy means to me—when he kisses me with all his inner sweetness intact, he reminds me that while my ego may be employed in worldly tug-of-wars, my true Self remains whole, happy, and incredibly sweet within. Noddy, you are such a reminder!

Sovereign-Self-3D-Cover

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Love: The Shining of Being in Every Heart: A Message f...

Rupert Spira — March 5, 2025

Being is the shared element in all people, animals and things. Just as there is one universal physical space that pervades all individual buildings without being limited to them, likewise there is just one unlimited being from which everyone and everything borrows its apparent existence.

Just as the space in a room is not contained within its walls but is an apparent limitation of universal space, likewise the individual being that each of us seems to be is not contained within or generated by the body but is an apparent limitation of the one infinite being.

Infinite being is felt by each of us as the amness of our self. This feeling of ‘I am-ness’ is infinite being shining in each of our finite minds. Just as universal space seems to acquire the limitations of the four walls within which it seems to be contained, but in fact always remains the universal space,likewise infinite being – God’s being – seems to acquire the limitations of the body within which it seems to be housed, without ever actually ceasing to be infinite being. The apparent mixture of infinite being plus the content of experience seems to create a temporary finite being, a separate self or ego.

As a concession to the separate self or ego that we seem to be, most spiritual teachings give us something to do to become enlightened. This is like giving the space of a room a practice in order to become universal space. But the space needs no liberation, for it was never bound. The space inside is always and already identical to the space outside.

Likewise, our self needs no liberation or enlightenment. If we go deeply into the simple experience of being, we find no limit there – it is already infinite, already free. While thoughts, memories, feelings, sensations and so on have limits, these limitations do not pertain to our being.

Even to say being is mixed with experience isn’t quite right. Just as space remains unmixed with the walls that seem to contain it and the objects that it seems to contain, our being is never really mixed with experience. It always shines in its original condition: untarnished, unmixed, unlimited, unmodified. Inherently free and at peace.

Infinite being needs no enlightenment or spiritual practice. So, for whom are the teachings and the innumerable practices that have been elaborated in the various religious and spiritual traditions? For the temporary, finite separate self we seem to be. They are, as such, compassionate concessions –legitimate ones – but ones that ultimately perpetuate the illusion of a separate self. Therefore, the highest teaching is no teaching, no teacher, no effort, no practice – just the shining of being, the one being we all are.

Imagine that the vast physical space of the universe is conscious. If you were to ask the aware space in the room in which you are sitting about its nature, it may look at the walls around it and describe itself in terms of their limitations. And it would imagine that the space outside the walls was separate from it, and might engage in various efforts to know it or unite with it. But if instead it looked only at itself, it would recognize that it contained no inherent limitation. It would recognize that it is already the vast space of the universe. All its efforts would cease with that recognition.

Similarly, our apparently finite being, seemingly located in and bound by the body, looks beyond its limitations at the vast universe and ponders the nature of its reality. It may even engage in great efforts to know that or unite with it. But all we need do is look closely, to taste the nature of our own being. If we do so, we find no limitation there – our being finds no limitation in itself. Our being is already the one infinite being, the only being there is – in religious terms, God’s being. There is just that, just this.

This utter absence of anything other than itself – this absence of otherness, separation, duality – is the experience we know as love. Love is, as such, the shining of infinite being in each of our hearts. It is the taste of God’s being in us, as us.

Rupert Spira discovered Rumi’s poetry at age fifteen, sparking a lifelong journey to understand the nature of being. He studied Advaita with Dr. Francis Roles, explored Sufism, and drew inspiration from Krishnamurti, Ramana Maharshi, and Nisargadatta Maharaj. He also pursued an interest in ceramics, training with British pioneers before opening his own studio. Meeting teacher Francis Lucille in the 1990s deepened Rupert’s understanding, integrating the teachings of Advaita and Kashmir Shaivism. Rupert holds regular in-person retreats, as well as online retreats and webinars. For more, see rupertspira.com.

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