Acharya Shunya: I know now that death is not the end that no matter how confused or how lost we have been, this whole cosmos is here to support us.
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
Now part two of my interview with Acharya Sunya.
Tami Simon: Why would, if I had been living in a higher loka, why would I come to earth?
Acharya Shunya: Yes. So this is interesting and the scriptures go on and on about it. The vaers go on and on about it. Apparently, um, it is connected to the law of karma. We go on a higher loca and we don’t come back from the sat loca, the bruel, very high locuses. We don’t come back. But there are some other in-between locas, like, there is no permanent heaven. There may be a like petro loca ra loca. There are some other locas, I’m just taking their name. we have done a lot of good karma, but we have not achieved moksha, we have not achieved nirvana. We have only done really great deeds and we’ve been really sincere, but we are still not fully, uh, identified with the truth of ourself with God and the, and God is self, God is not a person.
God is a principle in the way that then what happens is we are. are sent to these other locuses to take benefit of the good karmas that we have done. So we will have enjoyable life, good weather or whatever is going on, on those locuses. You know, maybe no mosquitoes, no COVID, whatever is happening just like we are here, we would be on some other loca. But when the karma clock keeps ticking and when the 522 units of good karma are over, it is time to come back and earnestly make choices again. those locas, those good locas are only places where we are, uh, benefiting from the, the positive karmas that have come towards us. Like Earth is not even good enough to give us that kind of positivity.
I feel like my own guru. was such an exemplary being that if he didn’t achieve moksha, he definitely must have traveled to a higher loca, to be sedated by the universe to get all the benefits, because if he came back on earth, earth will never give us pure happiness for a long, uninterrupted time. is really happy because, uh, light and darkness, shadow and self truth and deception go hand in hand on Earth. Look, it’s 50 50. 50 50. And that is why Earth is a unique dimension. Where Karma Boot, uh, is to be promulgate is to be, is to be navigated by you. Choices are made by you. Whereas in the other Locas, we are more passively rece receiving the benefits of good Karma or the um. it punishment, but we also call it expiring of some of our dark karma. It’s like, Hey, you want food here? Eat till there is no end. And it’s kind of a dark place to be at to go on eating, and that’s all you have is food, food, food. And you see the end of it. So here’s our very metaphorical descriptions, but Earth does seem to have an interesting role in, in this setup.
Tami Simon: So if I understand correctly, and once again, I’m trying to deepen my appreciation of the model, it’s only on earth that we have the possibility for liberation and the choices that lead to liberation. Is that what you’re saying?
Acharya Shunya: yes, yes. That’s what I’m saying. liberation is higher than heaven in the Vedic. Cosmology
Tami Simon: So tell us more about that moksha, what it is, and is it that moksha liberates us from this fifth stage of rebirth? What happens when a liberated being dies?
Acharya Shunya: when I liberated being die is nothing happens. There is no, uh, journey. crossing the river. No going to yama, no having no choiceless, living in different, uh, landscapes in this amazingly intelligent, crazy making universe. And there is no rebirth and no groping, grasping when moksha akers it is. And moksha, um, is, comes from two Sanskrit words. I go deep into my book, sovereign Self and Moksha. But, um, it comes from two words, Moha and shea means the end off. And Moha means all our delusions. All our illusions. So one of the primary delusion is that I’m a body and I am what I think, and that I’m not enough unto myself. That’s because we’ve be forgotten our core of the true self. And so I must fulfill myself material things and through living things, through relationships and through acquisitions. And we spend our entire life in it. And, and, and it’s interesting that no matter how much we acquire, we, it’s never enough. Because it’s not possible to be enough. It’s not
possible to fill a spiritual container with material sticks.
It’s just not possible. Spiritual container can be only fulfilled by spiritual knowledge, and the knowledge is that, ah, let me stop chasing for just a bit. Just a moment. Just a moment. And that’s why Moksha is one moment away. That is why liberation is very close to us, and every time we turn inwards, when a yogi, a meditator, somebody listening to your podcast, Tammy, they have moksha moments when they go in and they go, the chase. Chase is just a phantom chase, and I am okay and I don’t need to embellish myself or change myself. I don’t need to seduce many pade, serenade, do anything extraordinary. It’s that simple. And when this phantom like character that is saying, wow, here I am. Look at me, look at all my skills, look at all my gifts, look at my boobs, look at my chest, look at what I can do, look at what I can give you.
Look at how I can love you. And if it just stops it becomes as natural as the breath, the sunlight, the river flowing and it just comes into its own self recognition and finds its oneness with everything it realizes. And this is very deep Vedic understanding that, oh my gosh. Just like in a dream, I, I chase things that I already have. This is a super crazy dream of death and rebirth. And now we are back into the dream. So now I was just dreaming all this and this is crazy. And in the dream I was Dr. Being born and I was dying. And now you will say, wait, did it really happen? Or was it a dream? It happened till you believe it happens. And then you wake up in a consciousness where you realize none of this is real.
And only what I am deep inside is real. That person has achieved the end of all delusions and illusions. They are in a state of moksha at the right time, death will come, body will fall apart. The subtle body, the subtle intelligence of the mind will become merged with a cosmic mind. And the, the and, and so, and the karmas, because the moment one realizes that one is one with the divine, one with the universe, one has nothing to chase. One carries on one ordinary life, but one doesn’t have any desperation. So there are no more karmas, you know, crowing at us and like or wolves saying, come on, you need a true birth because you have this passion and this unquenched feeling and this desire, and, and you must explore sexuality and you must explore what it means to be rich. You are quiet, the karma are quiet. And at that time, the drama that’s nirvana, the drama comes down. You become one with a divine fabric. And now if you take birth if you take birth, you may come from a choice. can say I, because you will have the whole thing revealed to you. You will understand the whole thing. And many of the Rishis and Ikas, the Sears, the men and women of great knowledge in DIC times were there because they had taken a birth from choice. And they revealed this knowledge to us and they said, okay, we’re done. My own guru, my own guru Baba, they’re not my humble grandfather, they lived this life from complete wholeness, complete wholeness. And at the moment of his death, said, no one leave. I’m leaving. And I wondered where he’s going. He sat in Lotus position, chanted home a couple of times. His eyes opened with complete joy, and I found a yogi in yogic Lotus position had left his body. He came with attention. He lived with attention and he left with intention. And I am also planning a designer exit. So once we have this knowledge, we are no longer at the mercy of this universe, this world that we know. The universe is a bigger thing, but this earth and our earthly life, have finished our work of the school. We were a, we were a, so jiva hunted around running here and there through different bodies, but we recognize our divinity.
And I’ll just say one more line. Tammy, all the GVAs are, are not, they feel separate and during their separation they feel lonely and they feel like they, they, they are dying and they’re being born and they’re having all these experiences. Just like when a person is depressed, they experience all these fandoms and all the sorrow, and when they come outta depression, they realize that my family loved me and they were waiting for me all along. In the same way, when we are in duality, we experience all this, but when we achieve moksha, we realize the non-dual essence. And just like we need to wake up from a nightmare that we are having in our bed and waking up from it is such a relief. the same way there is one more waking up we have to do while our eyes are open and we are being diseased in it.
We are being de deprived in it. We are being betrayed in it, and we are dying in it. And we are being born in it. And this is the dream we are dreaming with our wake. Eyes woke. Eyes wake, eyes awakened, eyes awake, eyes opened. Eyes. When we wake up from this dream, there is a third level of reality where we are all one, there is light, where God is not a person separate from us who we have to worship, pray, uh, and you know, blackmail to help us. God is dwelling within us and ultimately the Vedic sea laugh and say, oh, this is divine sport. God is having a dream of becoming many and then the many coming back to become one. This is ala. This is a play. Have some humor.
Tami Simon: I’ve never heard this, uh, phrase, a designer exit. I like that Shia. And I’m curious, in your own designer exit from your food body, what are you imagining? Are you, are you going to choose a rebirth?
Acharya Shunya: I have two plans. One is if I’m going to have a rebirth, see, I’m already creating my other body, because as we create karmas, as we act, as we think, as we behave, as is our deepest thoughts, our deepest thoughts, if our deepest thoughts are of love, of unity, of kindness, of non-competition, then I already know that probably my birth will, I will happen if on earth, uh, in a very, in, in a, probably, probably not on a, probably on a higher loca, I’m not saying this from vanity.
I hope people get this. I’m saying this from watching my own behavior change, from being a self-absorbed person to being truly a truly genuine, sincere. Selfless person. Yeah. I’ve seen my own So I’m not saying I was born this way, this is the way the teachings I give and I live every day. So I already know from the law of karma that there is no way, there is no way that I will even have half or one fourth or one eighth of any of the challenges I had in this lifetime. You know, because whatever you plant, that is what you saw. This is the law of karma. Secondly, probably the next birth would be in another loca. And if I can continue working towards moksha, which I cannot say for sure, but this much, I know that recently, uh, you know, I wiped myself after using the restroom and I saw some drops of blood. And Tammy, this is how I know. I am ready for a designer exit. I got excited. I was like, ah, for a journey. Nothing, just relaxed. even running to take some iron with the herbs, what body has given me a lot of health. When the body wants to drop, it’ll drop. will move forward. I have a journey. Yama is, uh, the encountering with my true self. And, and I am ready. So I know that my baba, my guru when it was his time, he knew and, um, he could chant his own and he was fearless. And you know, he gray, blue eyes like, you know, like the way Indians don’t have. And I don’t know why, but if he looked, it was more gray than blue. But there were hints of blue. And when I looked at him when, when there was only the physical shell that he had left behind, he was wearing white that day and his hands were in mudra and his eyes were open. And I dunno how they got frozen. And the joy, joy in his eye as if he had seen the ultimate was captured. You know? And people, just, people instead of crying next to his corpse felt blessed. And they looked at him and they felt like a relief. And I haven’t made it a big deal about, I mean this word came out, design or exit while in conversation with you. But I have to say that, um, this knowledge, having, having conversed with some disembodied breaths. Uh, at a certain period of my life when I was open to it,
I know now that death is not the end that no matter how confused or how lost we have been, this whole cosmos is here to support us.
I have even met some who have come from the lower locuses onto Earth. I met them, I know where they’ve been, and I see how they are being helped to evolve again.
They have learned, and some of these very people want to eat better, want to do better in life. So because they’re done, they’ve enjoyed the sensuality, they’ve enjoyed the luxuries, they are done.
Tami Simon: Shania, I have to ask a couple questions here. Meeting beings from, uh, lower Locas that are here on Earth. What, what are you talking about?
Acharya Shunya: That was like an eight year period in my case.
And I, I don’t have scriptural references to give you, but this was when I would meet with people one-on-one and I would immediately know, um, not only where they’ve been, like where they are coming from, I could see their story the Maya, within my mind and their mind, it was, I could connect with them because I was, I didn’t have such a curtain. And also I would be able to tell them before
they spoke, was bothering them, why they were there. Uh, all this knowledge would be revealed to me. And even now, Tammy, a lot of knowledge. You know, I, I, you, you can delete this part if you want, but I don’t share this often, but it’s, it’s a fact that our human mind, our subtle body, it becomes more and more fine tuned.
It becomes more and more connected with a cosmic mind feel. We are able to gauge much more knowledge than the ordinary mind. So that’s what I would say.
Tami Simon: I am also curious though, about what happened to you during this eight year period in your life. When you say you met with many Preta, what was that? What was going on? Tell me about that.
Acharya Shunya: Well, the, apparently these breathers, when they are, um. When they are disembodied, freshly from the physical body and they are moving around, um, are in a, we have a name for it, but it’s a, it’s a, it’s a state of, it’s a state of, it’s not matter and it’s not non matter. It’s an in-between state, you know. uh, that’s why our instruments cannot ever discover them. So, um, they, they traveled through that. And when I was open, it was like I was an open channel to view this. And I would, I would sometimes, uh, be up at night and I would be aware of passage, not just of one or two, but many. would also then tune in on a anybody who had died recently, who I. To see if I could provide some support or comfort. So during that time, I would say I’d become a channel for those who had freshly moved on, and I conveyed some conversations back and forth, but after that I got bored of all this. So I It
Tami Simon: Now it’s okay. It’s, it’s interesting to me that you had this eight year period and then it sounds like a veil that opened,
Acharya Shunya: yes.
Tami Simon: uh, closed in a certain way or you reconstituted in a new type of way of being. And here’s one of my questions, which is part of my working hypothesis behind this series on reincarnation is that in some analogous way, we get a window.
Into the five phases that you mentioned into the death gap and rebirth process while we’re living, that there’s something that happens in our lives where we go through such profound shifts, potentially, potentially, that we actually get some sort of sense of what it might be like to die and go into that journey of no return and get reborn even while we’re in our current incarnation.
And I’m curious what your thoughts are about that.
Acharya Shunya: I think I’ll agree with you because after that eight year period, the word is reconstituted and, um, I think I’m the person I am today. I was not that person without these experiences. All my books came afterwards. My English, my language, not just English, my language. It changed completely my ability to express, my ability to empathize, my ability to know, my ability to hone in.
I even now, I can hone in into any person and deeply experience what they really need. You know, what they really need to hear right now or to know right now to move forward. And I think this whole of knowing it theoretically, and then experiencing it, experiencing it, being chosen to experience it while living, made me, um, more comfortable with life, with death.
It made me value my time in this body. It made me become even more, um, grateful to understand and then to be conscious in maneuvering every day in this body. It is not that I’m ready for death, so I don’t value this. For this birth, I value it even more now. value what a journey I have completed to be here, to be a cherish union, to be in this body, to be born my uh, guru’s home. And yet when it shall be my time, I shall be fearless with a cheeky smile to see what is this journey going to be like? And that’s going to be something fascinating and one of my. almost every day. And this is an important part that I must share, which I forgot to mention Hammi, and I’d like to bring in is that, our last thoughts, our last thoughts are important as to our entire, um, after death journey. Now, why are last thoughts important? Because the last thoughts are not in our control. We can think certain thoughts because we are choosing to choosing to choosing to. But when all these waves of physiology are being disturbed and disrupted and our brain is no longer our own control, the conscious mind cannot think at that time.
It is a terrain of the subconscious mind that takes over, and it is the subconscious mind that then determines whether we are going to face a very dark and, uh, horrid, uh, river of crossing or an easy one. Uh, a nice one, a generous one, a kind one full of lotuses. These are all metaphorical for what we will experience. what I really love is that this knowledge and this experience and my ongoing study of the s and the yoga and this path has truly confirmed to me that who I am in my conscious mind is who I am. In my deeper mind, there is an authenticity that is taking over. There is a love that is taking over. There is a unity consciousness that has taken over. So I feel pretty good that my last thoughts would not be panic around my son or my husband or, you know, my property. Uh, it would be around or my unfinished business. Like, oh no, darn it. I was trying to finish that book and it didn’t finish. It would be more around, I’m ready to meet God, I’m ready to meet the truth. And so this last thought is important, and so let’s keep working on really matters inside us, and let’s really bring that spiritual awareness into our being. Yeah,
Tami Simon: One of the points you make in quite some detail in sovereign self is this notion that we can cultivate non-binding desires instead of binding desires in our lifetime. And I wonder if you can help people understand that distinction.
Acharya Shunya: non-binding desires. Binding desires are where our ego wants to leave a signature. Where the ego says that, you know, this is me doing it. right now when I’m sharing all this, my ego can say, you know, uh oh, you know, whatever language it talks to me, it can take some credit here. But even before I logged on and I began speaking to you, I had a quiet moment where I became an instrument of the divine. And I became an instrument of the greater truth flowing through me. So when we offer our actions, our thoughts, initially we practice it and it feels like we are performing it, but not really. are every minute, whether I’m washing dishes, whether I’m teaching a class, I’m talking to Tammy, I’m writing my book. I keep being an instrument of the divine and I keep offering, to the divine. And what that happens is that as such, this body, this mind, this intellect, the guru I got through, you know, biological coincidence or DNA matching and, you know, um, ability to write books and then meet you and have this conversation. Have I instrumented anything on my own? Has my ego authored this? Not at all. I can’t even grow my nail. I say about growing my being, my life? So everything is part of a greater cosmic intelligence. When we offer what belongs to that intelligence, back to it, the good and bad karmas, of that don’t come to us.
They don’t find us. They go back to the original author, which is that great, boundless, formless, divine, known by many through different names. But it is that one light, one truth. I try practicing it and it is called Karma Yoga in the yogi language. I teach it, I practice it, and it works out. feel light at the end of the day.
I feel good.
Tami Simon: One of the parts of Sovereign Self that was very. Operational for me in my life, very livable, I could really put it into practice, was this notion that we can find ourselves attached in a binding way in three different arenas. And you talked about how one arena is worldly, acknowledgement, fame, money, all of that.
The other is this attachment to our physical form. I am the body. And then the third is that we can be attached to our ideas about things, our intellectual knowing, our, you know, very solid in our perspectives. That was really helpful to me. I started seeing, oh, that’s my worldly attachment moment, that’s my body attachment moment.
I realized I wasn’t that attached to pr, you know, uh, intellectual views except on certain situations about certain things. So anyway, I found those three ways of exploring binding attachments. Helpful, and I wonder if you might wanna add to what I’ve said in some way.
Acharya Shunya: Thank you when these attachments are called Ana or Samskara or Tendencies. And uh, the worst part is that they, they live in our subtle, a causal body. come up in our subtle body and they travel with us across bodies into different lifetimes. And that is why we, if we don’t see through Ana, don’t see through this. craving or drive. You know, we can have all the drive we want, but it should not be mindless. It should be mindful. We should have looked at how much is enough and you know, what is the, when is it enough? So that’s really important. So probably these cravings follow us across lifetimes, it’s almost like the clothing that our ego wears.
You know, now I want to be recognized in the world, and then there is no end to it. There’s just no end to it. Or now I want, you know, to be recognized for my knowledge. And then we become these, um, full speakers and talkers, but not levers of the knowledge. Many people in India boast, oh, I can ch the entire bag with Gita, 700 verses. Has even one verse gone and lived inside you question, you know, so we don’t want to become that either, or just chase degrees and chase knowledge. And finally, the body ana, where it’s all about our looks all about bodies and how the bodies are dressed. And that’s a very basic wasana that takes over, but it, but it takes away decades of our life if you are caught up in it. And and what is your existence beyond these, um, you know, clothes that are ego wears? Who are you? If your body has now white hair, are you? If, um, you know, who are you? If you are no longer that ideal weight? And does it, does it stop you from your spiritual work? Who are you if. You, you, you don’t have a lot of knowledge, but the, but the, but the knowledge you have, you have a very sincere and direct transformative journey with it. know, it’s not just words and words. It’s transformational for you. And, and, and it’s very important to drop the worldly now because, um, you know, that, that had corrupted, even corrupted me for a while. Not just even me. These things come to us and so you don’t know it, you don’t know it’s a world was now.
But for a while there, I think I lost a decade trying to be a spiritual teacher to the world without really trying it. So I didn’t even do a good job with it. It was just there at a subliminal level that this is how you are. A teacher, whereas discovering and taking off those layers and saying, who’s a guru, who’s a teacher, truly? being a teacher to my own gva, to my own ego, and, and then, uh, and then taking things forward. Um, it’s been such a delight. Uh, and it’s not like I’ve recently discovered that, but yes, in my early thirties, that’s what it was about. Okay. That’s how a teacher is. You walk in, there’s a lobby, there’s a receptionist, there’s this, what a waste of time. So we don’t know when these wasana sketches, and my hope is to be wasana free, have a full life, have a full wardrobe, have a receptionist, have a beautiful car, have everything, but not from Wasana. Not because you must have it, because that’s the only way you can be full, but because it’s abundance, it’s Lakshmi and it’s coming to you and it’s your way to enjoy earth,
Tami Simon: Shunya. Part of the inspiration for this series on reincarnation is that one of the things that came to my attention over the last several years is how much research has been done methodological sy. Really systematic research of people, young children in particular who remember their past lives. And then the investigators went and said, oh, this per young child is telling the story about X, Y, z place that they were and where they died and what their parents, and it all turned out to be true.
How could this child have known these things? And I’m curious when you look at this through the Vedic lens, ’cause I was particularly interested when you were talking about reasons why someone would have an immediate rebirth, I thought, huh, I wonder if that’s what’s happening in some of the cases with these children who are reborn Or how do you understand all of this evidence where certain people remember their past lives with such accuracy?
Acharya Shunya: I think it’s amazing, and I want to tell you that scientific research was conducted in India 2000 years ago in AK Samar, which is a scripture from Ayurveda medical Science, Cher Zaha, has forwarded case studies. Of reincarnation and memories, you know, trying to, trying to tell the people back then that reincarnation is a reality.
Trying to tell people then that, you know, your story doesn’t end with one story and that, uh, you know, you can build your. life story, the big life story, the cosmic life story. So, um, and then I looked further and it seems like, there is more evidence of the memory remaining intact for a few years till Maya the whale takes over in the mind, becomes very here and now mind exactly. In the very cases who’ve had traumatic death, um, or, um, some force of karma has propelled them. know all the reasons why it happens, but some force of karma, obviously by design, they’re not accidents. They have immediately taken birth, so they have more memory. Those of us who have gone through, they’ve crossed the river washes us out, who have gone through the review, who may have visited other locals or come back or not directly. We tend to be starting from a more, um, of so-called cleaner palette, you know, but we have all of them kind of subdued those memories.
Tami Simon: Do you have memories of your past lives
Acharya Shunya: didn’t in the beginning, then when I went through the AIA phase, um, I went through it and in my immediate past life I was a male monk .
Tami Simon: I wanna talk a little bit more about Moksha liberation because I think that’s some of the reason someone would listen to understanding about Death and Rebirth and wanting to deepen their own understanding. In the book Sovereign Self, you define moksha, you say literally it means free of all wrong notions, and I wonder if you can share with us what a few key wrong notions are that we need to free ourselves from.
Acharya Shunya: Well, one wrong notion that, um, helps being free of is to think that God, we may have a God who lives in a church or a temple or a mosque, and that’s fine, but godliness, the great omni dimension is. Is far from us. Like one notion is that probably, or even if it’s far from us, ’cause I don’t want to discuss culturally what is appropriate, but wherever that God is, if you think the God is far everywhere or near doesn’t matter, but this God is accessible, God is kind, that this God, according to the Vedas, your deep most self, beyond the bodies, beyond the outer body, which drops away from time to time, beyond the subtle body that tends to get distracted in the world beyond the causal body that gets all crowded up with suffocating karmas, there is a godly self within you. And try and discover that Godly self, don’t just think of yourself as a being that is made of flesh and bones and pus and plasma. Think of that as an outer unit. Think of your mind, even if it’s going up and down. Crazy, moody, panicky. Think of it all as just some instruments for your greater journey, for your higher journey for the self.
And try and discover that self through meditation, through spending time in nature to listening to teachers whose words calm you and help you discover in that inner calmness something beautiful. the interesting thing is that a yogi May or a yogi, an ancient yogi, would sit under a tree, probably naked or bearing, wearing bare minimum clothes, holding no property, holding, no assets. And they would close their eyes and they would be in bliss because deep inside there is bliss. We call it the akma, the self, which is made of an and the pure bliss. So whatever bliss we experience outside in biting into a cheesecake, or in love making or in buying clothes, those are only reflections of that bliss. So my, uh, my, my loving suggestion to you is to occasionally make time to be with yourself and to expect to find something beautiful inside. Close your eyes smile, and you will realize that there is something beautiful bubbling up. And, and, and the more we know this, we reach our deathless nature because this part never dies. First it is encrusted with three bodies. Then it’s encrusted with two bodies, then it comes back that has three bodies. Again, we want to recognize our true nature beyond the body. Recognizing that achieving moksha is not the end of your life. This is the beginning of your life. You start experiencing a boundlessness within you this art, this self is boundless.
In fact, the definition of art, that which is boundless. is boundless. It is magical. And when you start connecting with that, something boundless happens within you, your creativity becomes boundless, your speech becomes boundless, your ideas become boundless, and your capacity to reinvent yourself become boundless.
Why not lead a more boundless life than a very contained demarcated life? Uh, you know, and, and also this part is resilient. It is not supposed to die when the body dies. So there is an inherent imperishable part of you. And when you connect with that, you’ll find that if traumas took you years to recover, you recover within months.
If it took months to recover, you recover within weeks. If it took weeks to recover within a weekend, you are back. And if it was a weekend that took you out, within few minutes, you are able to shed off. Whatever was holding you back so that deep well of elasticity, spiritual resilience is discoverable when you achieve moksha. And moksha is, you know, um, is simple. You don’t have to, um, you know, go somewhere or have to find a teacher or anything. It’s, it’s just your true nature. It’s discovering it, not putting it into place, but just it’s self revealing. The moment we realize even these conversations help you wait, so I’m not the body.
I’m not the body, I’m the self and spending some time with it. this self interestingly is one, is the same self wearing different bodies and different subtle bodies and different causal bodies and different food bodies. So when we achieve moksha, we realize that maybe. There is something common in all of us.
And so a deep, deep spring of unity, consciousness, oneness, compassion, Dharma springs within you. Unasked. You don’t need to read Sanskrit. You don’t need to change the way you eat or pray. You just love all beings. You find a capacity for them. Forgiveness flows through you. You may still be strong and set a boundary where you need and roar like a goddess with rage even if you need to, if it’s dharmic but it’s coming from love. it’s not coming from prejudice. It’s not coming from smallness and being collapsed into your body mind unit as me and mine, and that’s it. And that’s your world. You don’t want to shrink. You want to expand. And even if you are halfway towards moksha or 10 steps towards moksha, this also improves the. Future life stories you have because, um, the B Gita says that none of this effort is ever wasted. And even one good book you read in this lifetime, one good thought. You think all of it comes back exponentially for you. This universe is magical. We are here in a unique school, I would say, where we are being supported through the shadow and through the light
Tami Simon: You know, I, I wanna hear more about that, Shania. ’cause sometimes I think, you know, in, in the work that we offer through sounds true and insights at the edge, I feel successful that we’re delivering to people what you describe as moksha moments. These glim glimpses, if you will, moments of boundless bliss filled true nature.
But then those moments end and I feel a sense, just quite honestly, I can feel a sense of despair that it’s not enough. It doesn’t really change people. It was just a momentary glimpse. And then back to a center of gravity. That’s not that conscious. And what I’d like to understand is how moksha moments add up to a real transformation.
Acharya Shunya: They won’t add up unless we change the very identity that we have and that change of identity from being a samsaric worldly person to being an ethnic, spiritual, imperishable, immortal. Beautiful, eternal entity. That change of identity happens after continued listening about this truth from teachers like myself, and is a whole journey that the sages have described for us, and I’ll just take a few minutes. First, there is bhati yoga where bhati actually translate not as worship, but bhati means love and um, love of something higher, not lower. So it’s not love of coffee or love of caffeine, but love of guru God nation flag something higher is bti and bti yoga is a whole discipline of, of a higher principle than us recognizing it everywhere.
So it’s a simple. Agreement lovingly engage with God goddess. And I like to define God as the great o omni dimension. It’s, it can include, uh, you know, cultural motives, but it is a all encompassing dimension. What Bhati does is it makes us not feel so alone. So when, for example, for a moksha moment in Bhati would be um, something that I was planning didn’t go well. go well and I didn’t know where else to go. So I go to my altar or I go to the grove of trees in my backyard where I experience a great omni and dimension. I hold my heart and I cry, and then slowly the air kisses me and the sunlight filtering through the leaves touch me and I feel like God’s making me whole again. And religions are built around these kind of experiences, but you experience this love and you feel held even in difficult times and that’s a start because this, what BHA the yoga does is it stops us reaching out to the partner, the human partner, come on, help me. You know, that has its place. I’m not saying I won’t talk to Sanjay, my husband, but there is this other communion that I have with God, know, similarly.
Um, so it’s kind of a falling in love with God. as karma Yoga, where. Whatever actions we take, we offer to God and whatever results we get, good or bad, we again say, this belongs to God. What that does is it starts softening our ego. Our ego is so ready to be, you know, glorious. And that takes us away from that moksha state. And when disappointment comes, it falls. So some of that drama gets cut out of a seeker’s life through the practice of karma yoga. So I, for example, in my I teach B, the yoga I taught for two years. Now I’m teaching karma yoga for 10 months and maybe a few months if you are not completely takes that kind of time. then what happens is, as my students are practicing car yoga, as I have practiced car yoga, and the glorifications don’t make. Don’t make the ego become either swollen up or too depressed and instead there is space to experience the love of God, the love of something else. There’s a quietness, and I mean that quietness is what is special. There’s this quietness. Now we are prepared. The soil is prepared for deepening moksha. So these are moksha moments. But now for deepening moksha, now comes yoga. when I churn the ga three mantra to the rising sun, or when I ch ohm or when I do anything you know, yoga asana or pranayama breathing practices or any of the things we teach, it’s not mechanical. it’s not the ego saying, I’m tired, or the ego saying, oh, look at me. I did nine maah. It’s more like one guy, three mantra. And it becomes a, a vehicle like, um, like a ladder connecting me to something transpersonal. Something transcendental. So ana yoga is of or pathis yoga is apart, starts giving us this silence and this grace. These experiences. And finally, so I will teach that for a year or so when the time comes, then yoga comes in where I start chanting from the open. Now look who is listening to me, not the people who are just coming for a hi. The people who are listening to me now are people who have already melted in love, surrendered in Carme yoga, become in Oana yoga. when they hear the Isha I start chanting to them about their true nature, their true divine self, that God is shining within, and that you created all of this. Come on, wake up, recognize what happens is according to with us, this is like waking up and person who is having amnesia. And so you wake up to. you are. And that is why the Veic tradition is known as the sh tradition or the spoken tradition that a teacher speaks it. It must enter your ear. Yes, yes, your eyes, but your ear. as it enters your ear and you’ve already prepared the soil. And third, or fourth or fifth mantra is enough. And this is known as the yoga of knowledge. The knowledge comes into you and me when somebody tells us that and we are ready. That you are the, the power of this universe. You are. And suddenly all the misconceptions fall away, then on you live. Yes, these roles are mine. This is my child, this is my dog, this is my husband, this is my organization. But they’re all like very loose clothes. They are not tight on you, and you live out your time on earth. You are not afraid. If death will come and never have to journey, that’s okay because I know that other part too. In the, in this world, the conscious mind leads in that world, the subconscious mind leads.
Okay, I get it. But either you’ll come back on earth and complete the journey to moksha or in this life itself, you feel the moksha, you feel like you are living in a more and more expanded life. And now moksha is not interrupted. So it’s not moments of moksha, it is moksha of freedom, mostly interrupted by wherever that ignorance still remained, but even that starts going away and joy. Cheerfulness Um, and more than that freedom, and this, I don’t want to use this word, but I’ll use it. It’s like you start living in a sacred, miraculous field, um, a continuum. You’re not separate. I have durga here and I have Ganesha here, and I have a stiff neck, and I have, um, you know, a, a a a, a garden that needs to be watered.
And that’s my life, inner life. As I tread closer, I don’t know if I have achieved moksha or not, but I know I try it. I know that it’s just spring. It’s good, it’s easy, and so many things fell and so many things got taken away, steadfast, clear, relaxed, and. So moksha is definitely our goal. Definitely. I also want to remove this misconception that once, um, moksha happens, we immediately die. Or once moksha happens, we turn Hindu, or once moksha happens, we sit under a tree and CHT home. That’s not true. Moksha is coming back to our true nature. When we come back to our true nature, incidentally, it is not just a bulb of light, it is electricity. You have more Shakti, more power surging through you. You have, you are everything more. the best part is everybody thanks you for being in their life. The garlands I receive, the cards I receive, the thank yous I receive are not because, um, um, I have to impress them. people I don’t even know. These are not just the readers of my books, but the people who study with me or even hear five minutes of a podcast and they say, I heard something. What did they hear? They heard the eternal Tommy. They didn’t hear the small, small, um, you know, person from this understanding of herself, which I was once we all start there, okay?
And that old mosha also doesn’t mean that we give up our rules. I’m still a mom. I still have my dog naughty, I still have my father to take care of it, but it’s a joy it’s not, it doesn’t suck the life out of me. Wherever we go, we, we share the perfume of moksha that is the beauty of it. And yes, in that process, I had some cities or miraculous experiences of being able to talk to the dead or see somebody’s life. But I don’t build my life around that alone because I feel like, yeah, with my five senses I can see so much five senses and an ordinary mind. I can see quite a bit with the same five senses and an extraordinary mind. Of course, I’ll see more what’s the big deal? But this freedom, resilience, this to want to bless everyone and feel blessed. This is the gift and this is what I want to hold onto.
Tami Simon: As we conclude, Shaya. Would you be willing to lead us in a blessing and leave us with a blessing from your tradition for this teaching? We’ve had the joy of hearing.
Acharya Shunya: Yeah, grandma. In this verse, we are bowing to the inner guru, the higher self, the ahma, and we are saying that you are aum. You are the one in all, all beings. You are that oneself, you are You don’t die. You don’t have to be born. You’re just always there, gentle presence. And you are the witness, the inner observer. You are beyond my emotional rollercoaster, the gentle presence. You are beyond the Gunnar of Rajas, which makes the mind turbulent which makes it depressed or even makes it balanced. But you even transcend that ’cause you don’t need balance to be balanced. You are that eternal being that simply observes you are like the worst sky within me, which teaches me about my own boundless boundlessness, about this inner guru. The, this is the worst from our tradition.
Tami Simon: Thank you so very, very much. This series is so enriched by your contribution. Thank you so much.
