Shunyamurti on Spiritual Talent & Development - Why some people "get it" faster

[kieranperez]

I was listening to this episode below with Shunyamurti on Buddha at the Gas Pump and at 30 minutes in Shunyamurti talks about why he feels the commitment to Yamas in Niyamas is so critical in his ashram, SAT Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. After that though Rick brings up an interesting question regarding development on the spiritual path and the cultivation of the Yamas and Niyamas, asking whether they grow sequentially or simultaneously. Shunyamurti very replies, and I'm paraphrasing, 'most people start in the same place. Some people I've found really benefit from practices like pranayama to work out a lot of anxiety and tension that they hold in their body however there are also plenty of people who really don't benefit much from pranayama and are fine enough to go deep into deep modes of consciousness without it. It's a very individual thing. However, most people need to start by just sitting down, dealing with the pain and anxiety in the mind and body and then grow from there.'

This to me really struck me because I really tie this a lot to what @Leo Gura has been saying of studying diverse perspectives in nondual practice and also explains why you have people like phenomenon like Peter Ralston who have just such a bare bones practice of contemplating and don't need all the introductory sort of stuff like meditation, emotional work, etc. I remember reading his most recent book that came out at the end of June this year where it's a series of dialogues Ralston has with students and answering their questions. One of the questions in there asked why he doesn't talk about meditation and what not and he said it's basically a distraction from getting what you are. I think that advice in the end really isn't that well thought out because people like Ralston and a lot of these deeply enlightened people don't appreciate that they are one of the very very very VERY few that are able to go past a lot of newbie "trials" and "phases" and go for the prize right from the get-go (though I don't want to make it seem like they didn't have to work hard for it). 

I also think this is an important take because it shows that you need to be active in your role in conscious development if you're doing this all mostly solo. If you don't have a guru, swami, zen master you see or something that's getting an outside view of what you're doing wrong, struggling with, etc. you need to play an active role by reading many many many books, taking in different sources, etc. mostly just to find what works for you based on where you're at in life, your hinderances, neurotic tendencies, trauma, what you're strong at, what you're weak at, etc. NOT just to fill your head with an enormous mental archive of cute quotes and teachings from sages of the past and what not. 

 

[Leo Gura]

Gifted people tend to take their gifts for granted.

It can be difficult for some gurus to realize just how stuck, dysfunctional, and addicted most people are.

Ralston teaches stuff that 99.9999% of ordinary people will never get.

[kieranperez]

@Leo Gura I actually think yoga as a whole system with all it's different facets and schools of it is what makes it such a genius way of going about nonduality. I mean from body practices, visualization, meditation and all the different of it to paths of learning, selfless service, action, etc. it's such a broad path that encompasses all these different ways of cultivating spiritual development it's crazy in it's versatility. 

[Leo Gura]

@kieranperez Yes, there is enormous wisdom in yoga. It's a very powerful technology.

[kieranperez]

1 hour ago, Leo Gura said:

Ralston teaches stuff that 99.9999% of ordinary people will never get.

Does that include stuff that you have yet to talk about? Want to make sure I'm not getting into airy fairy thinking of what you mean by that. 

Edited September 19, 2018 by kieranperez

[Leo Gura]

@kieranperez It is not simply a matter of "new stuff". It's about the level of depth one grasps it at.

As I have said many times before -- but people refuse to hear me -- there are incredible degrees of depth to this work. Whatever you think you've understood or grasped, you can understand and grasp it 1000x deeper.

People mislead themselves by looking for new topics, new teachings, new experiences, when what is really most paramount is grasping old vanilla teaching more fully.

How deeply do you understand what existence is?

That is the key thing.

[Joseph Maynor]

53 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

How deeply do you understand what existence is?

That is the key thing.

That’s it.  People aren’t focused enough on sniffing out illusion and distraction from ‘reality’.  That’s what observational Metaphysics addresses.  Most people don’t know squat about observational Metaphysics.  Most people don’t look at ‘reality’ through the eyes of a genuine truth-seeker.  Instead, they just lazily go with the appearances.

Edited September 20, 2018 by Joseph Maynor

[kieranperez]

5 hours ago, Artaemis said:

Most everything can be revealed by staring at stuff alone and not ignoring whats there. 

Its right there in plain sight. Only its too obvious for people. They need to make it more complicated. 

You don’t appreciate how some minds have been conditioned and fragmented and the challenges some people might go through to not complicate what’s absolutely so. 

For instance, if you’re suicidal, extremely depressed, have ADHD, or have an illness like schizophrenia, you’re gonna have a much harder time than some in sitting down on the cushion and being able to see through the illusions that you create and all your projections and what not. Much less make the distinction that you are the one creating them.

This is why compassion is such a stressed component post-awakening because it’s easy to get trapped in seeing how obvious the truth of the matter is after the fact. Being grounded in compassion is important for people who are more advanced because it’s easy to take for granted how smoother it was for you than it is for other people who either beginning, still on the path, or the extraordinary amount of people who never get it. 

And no. Most things can’t be “gotten” by just staring at them. The reality is that a lot of people need to go through a long aruduous process. Hell, even @Leo Gurawould probably the first to tell you. If you think you can grasp all of reality by just staring at a wall, chances are that won’t happen. Sure, it can but that doesn’t mean that it will. 

[kieranperez]

38 minutes ago, Artaemis said:

I'm a beginner

Beginners know nothing. And that’s the part they overlook the most. And a big key to the whole prize is grasping the depth of how much you don’t know. Assume you will always be a newbie and that it will never end regardless of how long you’ve been on the path or level of attainments in your own life. Never assume you have it. Good luck.