Acharya Shunya: There is no greater justice than death. There is no greater justice than the dissolution of everything we have known. we’re like standing in the sunyata this emptiness. and it’s a moral field in which truth catches up with our self deceptions. it’s not punishment that we are waiting for but we are waiting for the wisdom of the cosmos.
Tami Simon: Welcome friends to this Special Sounds True series where we’re exploring the case for reincarnation and the gap between lives once more.
In this episode, my guest is Acharya, born in India. Acharya is the first female leader of a 2000 year old Vedic lineage. She’s a bestselling author on a mission to restore the sacred fire of yoga in modern times with its full power and authority.
She is the author of several books and audiobooks with Sounds True, including Roar Like a Goddess and Sovereign Self, in which she draws on the wisdom of the Vedas Bisha and the Bava Gita. Shunya, welcome.
Acharya Shunya: Thank you, Tami. This is such a beautiful, profound topic and feel excited to talk about it with you.
Tami Simon: I am excited to have you in putting together this series Exploring Reincarnation. Our team wanted to look at it from many different perspectives, and when it came to understanding the Vedic perspective, this thousand year old tradition, and how the process of dying and then this gap. Then yes. Is there a process of rebirth?
What do the great Vedic sages have to teach us about this? I thought of you, you as the perfect person to educate us on this, and here we go. Help lay out, if you will, the map from the Vedic perspective.
Acharya Shunya: Yeah, ever since you asked me, I was wondering how to bring this vast topic into a sequential format. Um, not only for everyone else’s sake, but for my sake, because this was my opportunity to reenter this realm, um, which is, um, beautiful but challenging at the same time. And I, and I figured these are definitely clear five steps that are laid in the DIC scriptures. It doesn’t say 1, 2, 3 for five Tami, but it definitely has these five phases of consciousness from the moment of death until the new rebirth, the reincarnation. So it may take just a little while, but I would love to paint a picture so we have clarity.
Tami Simon: Please, I want to hear all five steps.
Acharya Shunya: Okay. So, um, uh, let’s talk about, um, the Vedic, uh, tradition to begin with. And in the Vedic tradition, one thing is really clear that. is not a full stop, and it is a pause between chapters. And there is an ancient text called the the big, and it says that as a caterpillar reaches the end of one blade of leaf draws itself onto the next leaf.
So does the self, leaves one body and draws itself into the other. And this coat must be more than seven to 8,000 years old. clearly there is some aspect of us that does not die, it only lays aside the body like it unzips the body suit and moves on to find another body. this is what we are investigating. And I believe pretty much at this point, the whole world knows about the bta, which is the most famous, uh, if I can say that. Uh, scripture from the way the Hindu tradition, and in this scripture in chapter two, verse 22, a very famous verse, which I would like to chant. Uh, it’s the most, uh, it, it evokes for us the real nature of reincarnation.
And it goes like this. And this was saying as a person, discards, worn out clothes and puts on new ones. does the embodied self behind old bodies that are worn out and takes on new bodies. So this verse is the most iconoclastic, verse for reincarnation in our tradition. And it, and it makes it so natural in some sense.
Tami, it’s not fearful. It’s not woo woo. It’s something like. this intelligent, amazing being the self. And when we’re done with one body, one story, uh, we’d like to continue evolving and exploring and yeah, we’re just gonna wear some new clothes. And then there’s built around this verse or this, these core teachings, a majestic vision of, I would say, life and death. Where, um, after birth, the soul is not, um. Judged or punished, but matched with its desires because it is said that the self is an aspect, if not the supreme self. And so rebirth is the discarding of one body and taking on a new body to support the evolution of the being within and not to punish or penalize it.
So, uh, in the Vedic tradition, one thing I want to be very clear is that we are not sinners ever. Even the most hardened criminal is not a sinner. We’ve simply forgotten. forgotten the light. And so reincarnation is, um, uh, is a journey in and out of different bodies, different stories. To remember the light and, and death and rebirth are the universe’s way or the divine way, God’s way to help us to expedite this remembrance.
And we not only are reborn on earth, but we will go into it later. But there are, um, 14 realms of existence, um, besides Earth where we are zipping in and out through different bodies because, um. Um, according to the Vedas, the universe is not horizontally expanded. That’s our perception. It’s really a vertical axis of layers of consciousness or dimensions of consciousness, more evolved and more dense with earth right in the middle.
So seven more densely, uh, realms of, uh, consciousness and seven, even more rarefied and lighter realms of consciousness. we’re exploring, and you and I, Tami may have visited some other realms and here we are on earth. Um, and so that’s an interesting conversation we can have later on. So, um, I would like to begin with step one, Tami. Death. So the main point about death is that, um, as I mentioned, it’s the body that dies, but we have three bodies. So this is a revolution, by the way, does all our scriptures, um, from, and all our sciences, Ayurveda, yoga, they all, they all stand by this, that we don’t have one body, we have three bodies and the outermost bodies, the dense material body known as made up of the food, we’ve eaten all our lives and borrowed from our mother’s, um, placenta. And so that food body is what we zip and step up. You know, we keep aside. We don’t wanna take this with us. But now the other bodies are, are what that travel. And inside this gross body is a subtle body known asma. That’s which is subtle. It’s invisible to eye, but it’s there. this ra is the intelligent body behind this matter body. That is why when the intelligent body steps aside, the physical body is there, the brain is there, the nervous system is there, but everything just lies there, like inert matter. Uh, because the intelligent body, the subtle body has stepped away and this subtle body is composed of Tami, 19 organs or 19 faculties, which includes. One mind, one intellect, one ego, one, uh, memory faculty, uh, the storehouse of all our impressions. Five pranas or five vital layers that do all the housekeeping within physiological housekeeping within the body. five faculties of the sense organs, the eye of the eye, the ear of the year, the intelligence behind our sense organs, N five motor powers, how we move, how we, how we excrete.
So those are all intelligences. All of this comes together to be 19 faculties or 19 organs. This cannot be seen, but this is what animates the body. The body is just, you know, just a piece of cloth and it becomes alive. I’m talking, I’m moving my fingers because of this. Subtle body, and it is this subtle body that gets ready to travel.
And inside the subtle body is the third body. It is the real body. It’s called a causal body because it causes us to be who we are. In Sanskrit, it is known as the ka means body, and kana means that which is the root cause, and it is in this ka shara or causal body, which contains all our sa latent impressions.
All our karmas from past lives and the new ones that we have created now, and the karmas are reactions of everything we have thought or spoken or acted, and according to the law of karma. Um, as most of our listeners may know, our viewers may know, is that whatever we do, there is an equal and opposite reaction that’s created. And that reaction may not transpire right away, but it gets recorded. And where does it get recorded? Right inside our causal body. So when we do good and nobody’s looking the causal body. Got it. And when we are being silly, the causal body knows when we are sabotaging ourselves, the causal body knows. So we have a record of our, um, karmas and we have carried over for many lifetimes, and new ones generated, recorded. We have a record of our deepest desires. We may say, you know, um, oh, I’m not into expensive clothes, or, or, you know, I, I I think that it’s more holy to be without sex. Or, or, or, you know, we may have a performative. Being going around the world, but our deepest desires, our unfulfilled needs, our warmth, our lust, all of that stays in the causal body. You could even call it like the deepest container of the subconscious. Well, that’s getting ready to travel too. And again, in the BRI it says that gradually for a dying person, when the eyes no longer work, they are being, they’re going inside and uniting with the subtle body. When the person is no longer able to hear, it’s going back inside and uniting with the subtle body. When the tongue is no longer able to taste, then you know, often a person says, I don’t wanna eat anything. Well, then it’s uniting with a subtle body, everything coalesces inside. And then an aspect, the reflection of the. True self. The higher consciousness known as Atma is what is, you know, what is the real deal with these two bodies? It is the, it is this composite complex package, which leaves the body at death. This is what travels. And in Sanskrit we have a name for it called the gva. We can call it the Personality unit because it has the mind, it has the ego, it has the likes and dislikes, it has the hidden desires, it has the craving, it has all the fapa moments of this life and other lives.
It has all the glories of all our lives, everything packaged into one. It just doesn’t have a physical body suit that is what is lying. Um, you know, in the coffin box or on the, or on the ground. Like in our tradition, we put, we put it back on Mother Earth when there is a corpse, because we say that’s the first mother. And so. That is what people are mourning for. But interestingly, um, the person, the person who knows you, who talked to you once that’s standing there invisible, it’s, it’s actually left. And we’re gonna talk about the second stage of what happens when this invisible gva, this invisible being, is ready to travel only minus one body.
So the moment of death is an unbinding, it is the coming out of the intelligence plus the karmas, plus the ahah ready to travel.
Tami Simon: Okay. Just to, just to ask one clarifying question, Shunya, so the gva, the traveling
Acharya Shunya: entity.
Tami Simon: entity is a combination, if I’m understanding you correctly, of the subtle body and the causal body? Both.
Acharya Shunya: And the original self, like the consciousness, divine consciousness that’s always there because these are just bodies.
Tami Simon: Okay.
Acharya Shunya: Bodies,
Tami Simon: I’m with you.
Acharya Shunya: Yeah. With me. Okay.
Tami Simon: I am following the fact that our food body has died and these other two bodies, plus source or originality, what you, whatever you wanna call it, are all forming the traveling entity known as the giva.
Acharya Shunya: the Jibo. And so I wanted to take a moment to say that the Isha, which are important text in the Vedic tradition, the most important are the S. The end portion is called Isha, which have high pristine philosophy. They give an um, lens into this trans migration process. And much later text called the Piana, uh, give a, uh, gave us details in the trans migration process. And one of them is known as the Garda Purana, is, uh, from the first century. has 19,000 verses, all 19,000 verses are dedicated to this. Um, it is such a. Mystical book and it reflects what are the observations in the Isha that average Indians are afraid of the book, Tami. But I have, uh, studied the book and I have brought and verses and my own clarity from the study of the Isha and the Guru Purana. And, um, one of the worst there says that the body composed of five elements is left behind. the airy body, it likes to call the giva, the airy body becomes the vehicle of the soul, the self, the tma, and it journeys beyond. So we are here now. I want to say this before I go on to 0.2 and talk about this airy body, that this, when it leaves its travel, is not aimless. It is being guided from deep within by the causal body. a basic premise is that if we have desire, God desire, you are gonna get another body. all your desires end and you are comfortable, and all you want to know is God and the self, whatever name you call that ultimate cosmic, you know, truth, then there are no more. There are no more transformations, and we’ll go into that later, the causal body wants to live a life of sensuality. Then it is traveling to find sensuality it has craved for the guru and not found the guru in this lifetime. Then, and the last thoughts are for the guru and you know, a deep belief in the causal bodies.
Now I must be guided to find the ultimate truth Then, then the next birth may be in the guru’s home. For example, in my case, I was born in my guru’s home. And he was the first to hold me. So probably when I, when my GVA moved from past life, it was very clear, no more distractions. I want to study the, and I want to, and, and I want my guru to find me.
And, and that is what happened. So there is a direction to the traveling. And the traveling JVA carries with itself all its past deeds, current deeds, subtle impressions, tendencies, desires, and starts to travel. So now we are going to talk about this airy body, this jva, and there is a new term, which is secondary.
We can keep calling it the airy body of the jva. But in the Hindu Vedic tradition and in the Guru Ana and all of these, it is called Preta, P-R-E-T-A, the PTA phase. The preta is a liminal journey. And at this stage, uh, preta literally means the one who has gone forth and the one who has gone forth into non-material mystical experiences.
So, uh, a preta and uh, preta is the giva now disembodied. It is not the previous body and it is not reborn. Something like the Tibit Bardo experience, Tami and. Sometimes people try and translate it as a ghost, but I don’t like to do that because a ghost has negative connotations. Um, but, uh, a preta is not a haunting spirit. preta is a transitional form of the GVA minus the minus the physical food-based body. It is undergoing karmic processing, and it’s in a temporary state, not because it’s a punishment, but we all go through this. It’s a natural passage, which the Sears found in their meditation to be true. And so it’s also called as the, the airy body, like I mentioned. And, um, um. The pre we are in this pre, the pre for the JVA goes on from 10 to 13 days in on Earth days. You can say, um, and the situation of the Preta is that is also set to be in a suffering body, but the suffering is not like in hell where somebody else is punishing you. suffering is because the gva. doesn’t know each his diet sometimes it now is beginning to understand that it’s not in its regular body, but it has because it has its mind, its intellect, its ego, its memories with it. It has these sensations. It experiences hunger though it has no stomach. It experiences thirst, though it has no mouth. It experiences the desire for touch, though it has no skin. So it’s like, it like, it’s like when we are in a dream and we might feel thirsty, really thirsty, and even though we have a glass of water on our dresser next to our bed, we can’t really drink that and we go looking for water and we suffer. So it’s a deep inner, our suffering transpiring between the subtle body and the karmas and the tendencies. And it is a shaira or a body of. Suffering. And it is a deep internal suffering, and it takes 10 to 13 days for this, uh, to, to understand or to settle down its own suffering. And often the preta body or the giva as a preta hangs around its old story, as we have heard from people who’ve had near-death experiences. Um, the more attached a person is in their lifetime, the more the preta stage is of suffering. I am hoping that when my, when my GVA is in the preta stage, I would be able to figure it out, oh, I’m in the preta stage and, you know, um, and, and already there is detachment, so there won’t be this extreme yacht now or G So. Um, yeah. So this is what it is. Then around the, between 10 and 13 day is now the third stage that begins. in the third stage, just like in, we came into this world and we met all kinds of people, animals, birds, good people, bad people, saintly people, noble people, godly people. We met all these entities.
We know that dinosaurs existed. We know little ants exist. We know that all kinds of creatures exist. Well, there are all kinds of other creatures in this vast, um, universe made up of consciousness. So on the 13th day begins our journey onwards, and this is the journey of no return sometimes. Tami, when we hear of people who say, well, I nearly died and I was dead for so many days, and I was wondering about, and I was wondering towards light or this or that, or some people have dark experiences also that maybe in the stage, maybe I’m just, I’m not, I’m not an expert, but I can say maybe. once this thing, according to the Vedic tradition, 13 day onwards, we enter a journey. The point of no return. There is no waking up at all possible, you know, not even by mistake. And in the 13th day, um, the Preta is met by non-human entities who are set to be the ambassadors of Yuma, the, deity of death. YAMA the or the intelligence around death. There are some entities that support and they are invisible, but we know that we have been met and we are taken forward, and we know that, that the Preta knows that it is now walking towards the greater dimension of light and truth. Uh, it is not a place of judgment.
It is a. Place for realization. And so where all the facades will fall away and the preta will see, um, a totality that it never saw in its human, um, existence or had forgotten about. So the YAMA ambassadors are not shown as monsters. They are forces or messengers or, um, non-human entities that, that help us that lead us towards greater awakening. And um, in Soviet, we led to YAMA where is also. It is at that time that there is some kind of a scribe known as Chi Gupta, which means it is from within the causal body, reveals all that we have done, all the choices we could have made. And this is not now being, I’m hearing that many traditions and many people who’ve had, um, you know, near death experiences talk about it. but um, we go through almost, um, whole, um. If we go through an experience, a symbolic narration of our life, of our choices, what we could have done differently, but nobody talks to us. It is you and you. It is you and you in that conversation, in the realm of Yuma consciousness, which is the consciousness, the real purpose of death was to review previous life and to reach this.
It is said that the walks, um, across this corridor of light, but if one has been, um. Distress. So one feels like they are being pushed along. Uh, sometimes some people feel they’re gliding along some, some report of flying along. Some feel like they don’t know how they are moving along, but they are moving along some kind of a corridor where there is light. And, um, an interesting thing is that in the middle of this, because it roughly takes 348 human days, earth days to complete this journey somewhere, midway is the river that has to be crossed. And this river is a very interesting river. Our ancient text semi describe it as the river. It’s a long name, but I will call it the river of, um, Karmic Reckoning. every GVA must process. It’s. It’s an interesting river because it’s a river, but it’s projected from deep within due to the subconscious tendencies of the causal and the subtle body and this non non, uh, space and time dimension. This strange new space and time dimension that the GVA is in. So for some it feels like a gentle river. others, it reflects their unresolved situations and it’s tumultous. So some see the river as made of blood and puss and toxins and it’s really hard to cross. And for some, it’s like a river with lotuses growing along. And so the river is a complete projection of this gva all by themselves.
They are crossing that river. It’s a karmic crossing this has to be crossed to reach that light. And so for some, it’s a stream of nectar for the others or stream of the most tumultous experiences with creatures crawling. But it’s a river and it ends. It’s not going on forever. That’s the interesting thing.
It’s not a literal river, but a karmic river. And um. Um, and this matches the open where the say that death and the afterlife is shaped by the contents of one’s inner world. This is mentioned in the BHA and the Kaha, and where means that which must be crossed or the formidable passage, one must traverse after death. It’s the realm between the world we left behind and the realm of truth and death, which is Yama. a moral threshold of sorts and. aspecting of the universe is a big deal in the vados, where the law of karma, death and, uh, digesting it in afterlife and then being bonged again to try again. This is all connected. And so for the righteous, for the dharmic, it appears clear and easy for the, for the more challenged ones who have been sleepwalking through their entire life. It appears as a difficult river to cross. But remember, yamas ambassadors are there and they help us ultimately.
So what, what is their role? They help us. They help even the most difficult haran be crossed because we are all being helped over is the, is the promise. And once we cross that river, we come closer and closer to Yuma’s dimension. It’s a dimension. And in that dimension. This is where we are guided to have a review of our life. And, um, and, and in this dimension, Yama is not sitting on a, although, know, the pundits would have us believe that the Yama is a God wearing shiny clothes, sitting with, you know, sitting on a throne. But if you go deeper into the scriptures, YMA is. and there is no greater justice than death.
There is no greater justice than the dissolution of everything we have known. It’s, we we’re like standing in the sunyata this emptiness. um, and it’s a moral field in which truth catches up with our self deceptions. And, um, it’s not punishment that we are waiting for oh, or the wrath of Yama, but we are waiting for the wisdom of the cosmos. And it is here, um, that, um, that, that the soul grows, the soul, the gva recognizes that what I have to do, what I have to don’t have to do. And um, and the whales are uplifted from the deep causal body and the subtle body. And all the suppressed fears, regrets, unresolved choices, who rush? And they’re around us and we can see them.
This is the third. And I want to say that it is at this time that either some GVAs are returned back to earth to finish their unfinished business, to continue with what they need to do to evolve, and the others are sent. By this intelligences like you and I were sent to Earth, could be sent to, you know, seven higher dimensions of existence, or seven lower ex dimensions of existence. And the good news is that none of them are permanent because Earth plays a special role as a school for GVAs, because then we do come back on earth again.
So coming back on earth is an enviable position because it is really on earth that we get to try again because the higher locus are where we are more blast, comfortable, restful, and um. And, and supported. And the lower locusts are, you know, interestingly the lower locusts are not just dark and oil is burning and we are going to be cooked in it.
No, the lower locusts are full of sensuality and materialism and different kinds of species. But the main problem with the lower locus is we see that as the only reality and it’s next to impossible to wake up there. It’s next to impossible. Earth is the first fear in between, between the seven lower and the seven higher, where we get to say, wait, we get to be self-aware, self-audit, self recognize and say, is there a third way? I can do it this way, I can do it that way, but is there another way? This is where why the human body and the human mind and the human avatar is very important for the gva. And so, um, everybody returns even from the higher locusts and Earth is like an airport where you have all these flights coming in from the lower locusts and people who come from lower locusts immediately, uh, want some of that.
The, you know, their lifestyle to choices and even their tendencies will at least in the beginning reflect some of that until they’re educated. They read a few books, they’re exposed to some other noble ideas, because Earth, somebody can go from nothing to. the highest realm of consciousness, or one can drop down from the highest to the lowest. And similarly, there are some children who are born by us. There are some, there are some saints who we knew they’re going to be saints from age three or five. The reason is that probably they were visiting back from a higher loca already. And if circumstances align with them, if they don’t have some dark karma to go over, they might now move towards even more and more evolution.
So earth is that school. All right, that’s for sure.
Tami Simon: Now there’s, there’s a lot more Shaya that I wanna, uh, ask you about, but I think it’s important to, I think it’s important to lay out the whole five step model first. So let’s keep going into stage four.
Acharya Shunya: Okay. Yeah, let’s, let’s do that. now I just wanna talk the stage four is really the realms. And I’ve, I feel like I’ve already talked about it a little bit here, but I want to say that, um, when we are in these realms, um, example, this is Earth. This is known as B loca. The next one is Bja Loca, where there are some semi divine beings. I think a lot of us channel them and call for them. I, myself have a lot of help from the loca just above. Um, then there is the s sw loca, the, the loca even higher where they are divine beings. and so we keep going forward. Then there is the highest seventh loca is known as loca, the loca of truth. And this is the place where if one goes to the seventh loca, this is the loca, or loca means dimension of existence. This is the loca of, uh, those liberated beings who have, um, uh, who are no longer going to, who don’t need to take. Another body to explore something, be delusion, disillusioned. they have already discovered, according to our tradition, the ultimate truth, which is the truth of or self or pure consciousness. And now they know that they can simply be and they’re enough and they don’t need to become to search for enoughness.
So it, it’s a very simple thing, but it drives us across lifetimes and stories and bodies and death and rebirth. Similarly, we have these lower locas, for example, in the loca, just below earth is the atala loca. And in. There is, um, way more materialism, way more denseness, and you know, the highest beings, the highest, probably the ideal is to lead a life of luxury and that’s about it. And you go further, further down and, um, you will, the lowest loca is a loca that’s crawling with violence. And really there are no values at all. So there are these different beings, and if I go even deeper, there are descriptions of these beings, but, um, that’s not the point that we are trying to explore. is also an interesting loca that I wanted to talk about, the loca of ancestors called petro loca. It doesn’t come among these traditional 14, but it is just a little near earth petro loca are the ancestors. Loca is a nice loca where a lot of good people, just like good, they may not be spiritual, they may not be high-minded, they may not be doing er, they’re just good people.
They’ve not hurt anyone. They’ve not done anything. They’ve, they’ve not a lot, but they’ve not hurt anyone. They may go to petro loca. They become our human ancestors for a while. They rest. These GVAs, get some rest, some, and and, and they meet a lot of their old relatives also there. And then when it’s time they come back and I wanna talk about, uh, rebirth in the next stage.
But I can come back to this if you have questions about the locus. Tami? Uh, when we do questions, we are almost,
Tami Simon: definitely have questions about the Locos, but let’s keep going here. Yeah.
Acharya Shunya: But I would like to definitely talk about now rebirth. some souls. They reincarnate immediately, quickly. They might even bypass the 13 days of wandering in the airy body, the 348 day earthly time journey to Yama. Then Yama will send them back on Earth or so at least it takes one year. Or send them for thousands of years or hundreds of years or days or time on human earth to some other loca and then they come back. But there are some souls and our and our scriptures agree, they almost immediately take birth. And who are these? Where there is a strong unfinished karma. The para, the fixed karma said that somebody was going to live for 18,000 days, but they used their will you know, commit suicide 10 days prior, or you know, one year prior. And so they might be born. For exactly those many days that they needed to finish their story. And they might become a stillbirth or they might, um, you know, have a very short lifetime in the next one. So one is when there is unfinished karma, when the universe says, no, it’s not your time. Go back. And so you are given an image yet body, uh, sometimes there is. Um, so that happens. So that time, literally the guru purana, the scripture says that the, the giva, the subtle body. causal body, with the blessings of leaps, the word is leaps into another womb, whichever womb is available, and, um, you know, has to, has to manly go through it. So suicide may not always be an escape according to our tradition. Then there are these evolved souls who may choose a conscious rebirth they know that they are passing, but they know that they are needed and sometimes evolved Souls are so evolved that they are now corresponding with the divine we always have that potential because according to weather, we are not just lost beings.
We are, we have just forgotten our true power. So sometimes it, we call them yogis or saying so both they can reincarnate immediately out of compassion or on a mission for the universal. Divine. In fact, the BWA Gita says that if such a yogi is born into a family of yogis, like they choose their birth and they come back. Um, so this is, these are some reasons why it happens, but for the rest of us, rebirth happens in a very interesting manner after the yamas. Um, justice, uh, we have to come back now either directly to Earth because we are told or we understand. We are not told as in somebody’s talking to us, but the mission is clear for the GVA that I have to come back and start again with my residual understandings, or we go to a loca and come back. So how does it happen? is a very interesting karmic mapping that’s going on, and it’s a very poetic understanding of how. Spirit or how subtle body or the subtle airy gva becomes part of the sperm of the father. Um, so, or the egg of the mother. So it is said that, um, when rain is falling at that time, many Chivas that are now mandated to take birth, join the rain and come down they become part of the soil and then they become edible crop, and then they are eaten by humans and animals and insects and all of that, and then they become part of the semen. ’cause it’s, it’s all invisible. This intelligence keeps promulgating itself from food to flesh and from flesh to semen, and then through semen or through egg, it waits. And at the, because it’s all decided who will be the father, who will be the mother, will be your gender, what amount of happiness and sorrow you will, um, get. What will be your main challenges and how you will use your willpower. Some idea is given. Like, I’m using my willpower towards spiritual things. So are you, some people are using their willpower for other things. So, um, this basic f ideas are there. So the precise GVA enters the precise parents food. And how all this happens is universal intelligence.
It is beyond us, but this is how the gva reenters the food cycle, the flesh cycle, the semen or egg cycle. And then we are, uh, now the GVA has entered the womb of the planned mother and father. There are no accidents at all. Even if a child is born in a Petri dish, well that is all something is planned, whose sperm and whose egg, uh, whether it is, it is a goat sperm and a goat egg, or a human sperm and a human egg, or a sparrow, sperm, whatever, which way, and not, not everything has a sperm, but whichever way it has to come through, the womb is decided. Human animal, insect, bird, all those things are ec decided Now, something I want to say is that by month by month development is given both in our medical scriptures of Ayurveda and in the piranhas and in the Isha. And there are now other articles that I can quote on how amazingly, forward looking it was.
But there’s something I want to tell you um, apparently in the fifth birth, the GVA has now regained some of its subtle body and its subtle mind, and it starts remembering its past births. And then in the sixth month, it starts experiencing trapped suffering because it’s being tied in, you know, it’s tied into a small cramp space.
It’s hung upside down in a, you know, a fluid filled space. And at that time the GVA cries out like, oh. Whatever is that higher reality, let me be free from rebirth. So there is this moment of wanting to be free, and this is known as gerberg or realization in the womb for a while. The, the, is And this fetus is not an innocent little fetus. It’s a, it’s a old wine in a new bottle. It has had many lifetimes. So as delivery nears, it begins to forget because the veil of Maya, the fog, the metaphysical metaphorical fog takes over and it comes out. And in a way, my eye is helpful, it’s compassionate because if we remember all our past births, we would be very uncomfortable. So. Um, you know, the shock of birth, the shock of being in matter, the sense contact, uh, this is where, um, the incoming infant forgets or everything, and then has to read our books and listen to conversations or go to teachers and then remember its whole purpose. So this is interesting and this, like I said, this memory failure is not this memory, this memory failure is not a failure, but it is a protective mercy to forget that.
And Carl Jung, I believe, has spoken about symbolic memory of the fetus within and all of that. And in Tibetan Buddhism, I was talking to one teacher also spoke about, what happens in the womb for the incoming being. those are some ideas. So this is rebirth and um. And then suddenly that ancient GVA traveling has made it through the rain, into the soil, into the crops, into the food, into the sperm, into the womb of the, of the target mother. And then at the right time there is a rebirth and new people say, oh, look at my baby, this chair up. It just has the nose of its grandfather. And, but along with DNA, which it has definitely borrowed from the parents, it has brought, again, its old of year old or infinitely old subtle body that mind has come in. And the causal body, the karmas. And that is why the moment a chair up starts growing, it starts, it starts having opinions, which is, you know, a good thing. I’m not speaking from sarcasm. And it has its own mind. If it’s allowed and it has its own, um, gifts, suddenly out of the blue, the child is a prodigy, or the child has interest in Vedic tradition while they were born in a Christian or a Buddhist tradition, or a Hindu child has interest in, um, you know, Christianity, it, you know, we are beings, were traveling all over the universe and, you know, we have that culture or the womb that we belong to. um, it’s a lot of pressure to keep it contained in that box because we have old tendencies, old memories, and old, um, projects to complete. And this way, uh, continuation happens. this is the fifth point, of the journey that rebirth has happened. And just, I’m concluding now that, um, in Gita chapter six, verse 43, Krishna says that birth then the person regains, regains the past impressions, tendencies, and purpose of his past life. And so we are all completing strands of all stories until we wake up completely and realize that we are choosing our own tail, in my opinion, and we settle down. So thank you so much for your patient listening.
Tami Simon: I wanna ask you to begin with here, Shia. What gives you confidence that the Sears of ancient times knew what they were talking about? And I say that because from a western analytical quizzical viewpoint, you could say, really, there’s 14 locas? Why not 16? You could say How many days? Really? Oh, sometimes not.
Sometimes. I mean, there’s one thing to have this basic map, but when you bring in this level of precision, I think what comes up for people is, is this just superstition?
Acharya Shunya: You know, could be, but in my, I’m 58. In my 58 years, and probably I started studying at age nine. In, those many years, I have found the Sears of the Vedas to be pretty accurate and they did not, um, develop these ideas based on human beings with long beards. Uh, discussing how it should be. Um, this was not that kind of deduced knowledge. They meditated and in meditation, lot of the knowledge of the universe and the self and the came to them, it was revealed within them. And, for example, the 14 locusts are only 14 dimensions. It, it is not 14 parallel. Un these are not, are not galaxies. These are not universes because all those multiple universes could just be belonging to one dimension itself.
These are just 14 dimensions of consciousness. So it is, it is to be understood differently. Now, whether it has millions of worlds in it, billions of galaxies in it, that is not, it is not a material journey. This is a non-material journey in the realm of the subconscious and in the realm of, um, consciousness I can say. then I was wondering that you will ask this question and, and, and I never share this on my own. Some people do, but I don’t because I have so many other things to teach and share about. So I didn’t want this to be the central, um, you know, spine of what I am and what I do in the world. um. In early two thousands, this fog, this Maya fog, we call it Maya. Uh, this is the fog of materialism, which makes us think we are this body. There’s this earth, and you know, and, and, and we have this very contained understanding of life and the living of life. And through meditation, through yogic understanding, through parts of yoga that I walk deeply, I, it’s not just physical yoga of bending my body, but of, of exploring the depths of my consciousness and the heights of my consciousness.
That’s my daily, daily work. Daily practice. the Maya was removed. For a while, Tami, was, um, um, I had many gifts to be able to see the journey of the preta, to be able to, um, see beyond the veil of the ordinary life and the ordinary death the ordinary birth. And even when I would sit with a person, um, that knowledge of their past lives would become available to me, as was my own knowledge. And this lasted for about 10 years, you can say. Until I, myself, um, felt like, yeah, I know it’s enough so I can say that in my case. Then I went back and read all this and it felt like. I don’t remember the horny river, I, I, I have this deep of crossing metaphorical obstacles and so it’s not like a check, check, check, but from discussion with disembodied beings to, reading up books about it, to talking to other experts after death experiences, I realized that probably the way there’s know a few things, some I can believe, some I would discover. Yeah.
Tami Simon: Shaya, when you talk about the dimensions or the locas, I do think that part was the part that I might be the most confused about. So I wanna go into that a little bit more.
Acharya Shunya: Yes.
Tami Simon: When you mentioned earth is like an airport and then you go to a different dimension, I think that’s where I started thinking of these dimensions as you were describing them as places.
But are you describing them as simply dimensions of human experience? So I’m a human being in a certain dimension of consciousness on earth, or, I think I got confused at this point.
Acharya Shunya: No, Tami, just like Earth exists and there are people here we don’t question
Tami Simon: I.
Acharya Shunya: why trillions of planets there is life here, Just like that. These dimensions are dimensions of existence where the GMA G GVA can take birth. There is no guarantee that when I die I will come back on Earth. I may find myself having an interesting conversation with someone else in some other dimension, time and space. It’s entirely possible are sending out spaceships to find them. We are sending out intelligent machinery to find them. Well, the way thats, um, discovered their own 14 dimensions, and they said that the universe is vertically stacked up. but the way to reach these dimensions is not in our ordinary, mundane consciousness.
We will send out our supersonic equipment and go look for them because all of this universe that we know with billions of planets and stars and black holes is still in earthly consciousness. It’s when we will
die. We will discard one bodysuit and we become enabled in our airy body suits, in our subtle and causal body, and then aided by higher cosmic intelligence, the Yama intelligence can be then be propelled into the other dimensions . So…
Tami Simon: Please join us next week for part two of this interview
