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Shambhavi and the Jaya Kula community gather for satsang and get real about all the questions we humans want answered. Intimate, courageous, heartfelt spiritual talk about pretty much everything. So happy you are here! A podcast from Satsang with...
Welcome to our weekly Satsang with Shambhavi podcast. Shambhavi and the Jaya Kula community gather for intimate, courageous, heartfelt, and often humorous conversations about spirituality, politics, culture, and pretty much everything. Published each Wednesday here and wherever podcasts are found.
Our podcasts are recorded at live satsangs. They are delivered to you each week fresh and new.
You are also invited to join Shambhavi and the Jaya Kula community LIVE for satsang & kirtan every Sunday at 3:00pm Pacific. Come in person to 1215 SE 8th Ave, Portland, OR, or email sayhi@jayakula.org to request the Zoom link for satsang.
Shambhavi Sarasvati is the spiritual director of Jaya Kula, a nonprofit organization offering opportunities to practice in the traditions of Trika Shaivism and Dzogchen.
Visit https://jayakula.org/ to find out more.
Get Shambhavi’s podcast, teaching schedule, ramblings, and other writings on Substack: https://satsangwithshambhavi.substack.com/
Help others find these teachings! Please rate and review our podcast. Jaya Kula is a community-supported nonprofit organization. You can make a donation at https://jayakula.org/giving. You can also choose to contribute by offering a paid subscription to our podcast at https://satsangwithshambhavi.substack.com/. Subscriptions start at $5/month.
Thanks for listening! And much love to you, wherever and however you are.
Join Shambhavi Sarasvati for a weekly exploration of self-realization, death, love, devotion, and waking up while living in a messy world. Satsang is an ancient spiritual practice from India. It means "being in reality together." During satsang, people gather with a teacher to learn, ask questions, find community, chant and sing. Shambhavi gives satsang in Portland, Oregon and elsewhere. The dharma talks offered here are recordings of the live satsang.
Shambhavi is the spiritual director of Jaya Kula, a nonprofit organization. Her training is in the View and practices of Trika Shaivism from Kashmir and the Dzogchen tradition of Tibet. She is a householder sannyasini and a devotee of Anandamayi Ma. Visit jayakula.org for her full teaching schedule and more information.
Shambhavi's books include Mother Poems and A Crack in Time (2025), The Reality Sutras: Seeking the Heart of Trika Shaivism (2018), Tantra: the Play of Awakening (2012), Pilgrims to Openness: Direct Realization Tantra in Everyday Life (2009), Returning (2015), and No Retreat: Poems on the Way to Waking Up (2016). All of Shambhavi's books are available on Bookshop.org and on Amazon.
Hi, this is Shambhavi.
Welcome to my weekly podcast about spirituality,
love, death, devotion and waking
up while living in a messy world.
The Satsang with Shambhavi podcast is recorded
live each week with students of our
non-profit community, Jaya Kula.
For more information and to find out
about attending a satsang, visit jayakula.org.
Thanks for listening.
Much love to you, wherever and however you are.
STUDENT: I feel like we're in a moment of disaster
but it's also like part of some crisis ordinary
and I'm wondering if you have thoughts on the
responsibility of the spiritual practitioner.
SHAMBHAVI: Well, I think first and foremost
to keep practicing, to stay grounded
in your practice and grounded in the View.
Try to work with everything that's happening
because you said practitioner, not necessarily
someone who's highly realized.
So it's easy to get swept away into various
conditions that render you less
helpful to yourself and others.
I would say that the first and foremost
responsibility if you're being in our practice
is to use these circumstances as a way
to deepen your practice.
We all find ourselves tested by the things
that are happening and our responses to that.
We're all learning about ourselves and applying
our practice and applying the View, looking for
ways that we can relax and be more open-hearted
even in the face of disaster,
I think is our first responsibility.
What that looks like outwardly
is completely up for grabs.
This tradition doesn't say there's one particular
form of life that everyone should be following.
It doesn't say we should be in ashrams.
It doesn't say we should flee disasters.
It doesn't say we should
stay and be in the disaster.
It doesn't really have any advice like
that because It's assuming that we
each have quite a unique dimension.
We're each going to express our lives differently.
And as long as we're sticking to our sadhana
and being in the state of our practice as much as
possible, it doesn't actually matter
what the outward form of our life is.
When we're being more in the state of our
practice, what needs to happen just happens.
When we're not being contrived,
when we're not trying to
formulate some sort of spiritual persona
or decide in advance how we're supposed to be,
then we can just be in the state of our practice
and be more spontaneous
and meet the moments more
spontaneously with an open heart
and more skillfulness and more clarity.
And that's all that's really required.
We don't actually need to have
a plan of how it's best for us as
practitioners to do something.
If we're being in our hearts and we're being
in our practice, whatever we're doing,
whatever we're saying, is the best we could do
in that moment. I'm not talking about people
that are like super realized
I'm just saying ordinary people who are doing
practice who have incomplete
realizations of those practices, you can still be
in the state of your practice as best you possibly
can, not letting yourself think,
Oh, things are so hard, I can't practice now, or
something like that, or letting yourself get
totally carried away by your habit pattern emotions.
If you can do that as much as possible, be in
that more relaxed condition as much as possible,
that is the best thing you can do.
And then whatever comes out of your mouth,
however you relate to people or wherever you live,
whatever form of life
your life takes, that is all fine.
The condition you're in comes before
what the form of your life looks like.
The condition you're in should give rise
to the form of your life naturally
rather than deciding on some form.
STUDENT: What if what arises naturally then
is pictures of cats instead of talking about Gaza?
That sounds like a smart-alecky question,
but I'm really wondering.
SHAMBHAVI: The question was about practitioners
and in this tradition particularly, one of the
hallmarks of being more relaxed and
being more open is you are more moved by life.
Whatever you're doing,
you're not hiding from life.
You could be living on a mountain,
living in a café.
Whatever you're doing,
even if you're relating to cats,
there's going to be some way in which you are
expressing a natural desire to be
helpful, whatever you're doing.
STUDENT: I know someone who sends their
pet pictures to someone in Gaza.
STUDENT: I'm loving this satsang.
I feel like the dharma, the View,
and the sense of connecting in the most
honest way with what you have is enough.
And every time I have a question,
I can hear you say, keep practicing.
SHAMBHAVI: Yeah, and it's going to
look really different.
Like that way of connecting in the moment
is going to look really different
for different people.
I've had people come to me and say,
students and other people,
say they're afraid that
they're not doing as much as I'm
doing around Gaza.
They're afraid I'm going to judge them.
I came back to this form of life after a hiatus.
I was politically engaged and community
engaged since I was really a little girl.
And then for about 10 years,
after I took sannyas and I was doing some other
stuff, I just decided for various reasons
to not participate and to not vote. So for
10 years I did not participate at all or vote.
And then I just decided to come back into it
like it was a different stage of life and this is
my natural form of life. I like this.
I'm enjoying participating in this way,
but that doesn't mean it has to look the same
for every person, and I don't expect it to.
What I have been dismayed by isn't
people who aren't saying certain things, but
people who are clearly not being moved
by what's going on.
Mainly people who are in the position of spiritual
teachers who are literally not
taking care of their flocks.
They're not taking care of all the different
emotions and conditions and fears of the people
that they're supposed to be supporting,
and they're not doing anything that shows
that they're actually moved by any of this.
And I just find that to be like,
okay, that's fine.
But I don't think you should be in the seat
of a teacher if that's your condition.
We're here to be moved.
Ma said, she had this word
that a lot of you know, kheyal.
Kheyal is a form of improvisational music.
And we know that when we're improvising,
there's a way in which there's this energy field
that's established and you're being
moved by that circumstance.
There's a kind of weird, uncanny spontaneity to it
where your skill is invoked, but in a sense,
you're being incited to move by what's happening.
And this is what Ma is talking about.
She said, what are you
people talking about freedom?
I don't have freedom.
I have kheyal.
I have this improvisation, and she said, I don't
do anything unless I am moved to do it by kheyal.
But the implication of that is that our entire
lives could be motivated
by the sense of being moved.
Since I first encountered this from Ma
many, many years ago, I really got it.
It just felt like something that really was
already in me and just needed to get called out.
And I really understand now, many years later,
having practiced for many more years,
how much that is part of realization.
Just being in this situation and
being moved by it.
And that means moved to action,
but also just moved in a simple way,
moved to tears or moved to joy for someone
on behalf of someone, or moved to help,
to actually care for their students.
We just had this conversation,
and I think anyone could glean
from that conversation that there's people in this
community in many different conditions
and circumstances, and there's some people in this
community that are much more vulnerable
to what's happening in the world
right now than other people.
There's other people who have more
privilege or are more insulated
or whose difference is less visible.
If we're being in the world being moved,
if that's our form of life,
then we're being moved
by that and by our students and by the desire
to support people to continue
to practice, like you said.
And we're not just sitting back and putting
on some face of spiritual equanimity.
Long rant.
[laughter]
But it's to say that it is enough to connect
and just be in the state of your practice.
And then out of that flows
your natural form of life.
And so what's flowing out of me
is my natural form of life.
STUDENT: I'm reading your book,
The Reality Sutras.
There was this passage that gave me a little
glimmer, but then I didn't really understand it.
So I jotted it down.
And this is your sentence from the book.
"In sentience manifest,
an aham is totally obscured.
As in, for example, a toaster."
But I wondered if you could speak to that.
SHAMBHAVI: Yeah. So aham means I am.
It's a grammatical formulation.
But it's also one of the key
mantras in Trika Shaivism.
So we use it in practice.
Aham.
So the A is pronounced like the "uh"
in the English word 'but'.
So it's "uh-hum".
And it is the 'I am' that is
announcing itself in everything.
It's a way of pointing toward and evoking
the self-awareness that is inherent in everything.
So if you say 'I am' something,
that is a form of self-awareness.
You're reflecting on yourself.
The very formulation, I am,
is sort of the essence of self-awareness.
And this whole reality is self-aware,
in full, in every aspect.
But when it purposefully and playfully limits its
perceptions to create different forms,
it can do so to such a degree
that it creates versions of itself that are
play-acting insentience.
This is easy to see with us
because we're not insentient.
We have an 'I am', we have self-reflection,
we have self-awareness,
but we have limited self-awareness.
We don't know all that much about ourselves.
[laughs]
And we're constantly wondering
about ourselves and stuff like that.
So you can see that in us that 'I am'
of everything is somewhat limited.
It has created the artwork of you
by somewhat limiting itself.
It can do so, though, to a much greater
degree in order to create for itself
an experience of rocks or cars or toasters.
So in this tradition, there's
not actually any insentience.
Everything is sentient when it's seen
from that more absolute perspective.
And then insentience or lack of self-awareness is
more of a local relative experience
that is being enjoyed by this reality.
God is enjoying playing the role of toaster.
The toaster is performing the role
of an insentient object, but it is imbued
with the full self-awareness of God.
STUDENT: Would it be fair to say that God knows
the toaster, but the toaster doesn't
know itself, or am I off track?
SHAMBHAVI: Yes.
This is why I say that people who are vegetarians
and are in non-dual traditions,
who explain their vegetarianism by saying that
we shouldn't eat animals because they are sentient
beings, are not really being
in non-dual traditions.
I mean, there's reasons not to eat animals.
I'm not against vegetarians,
but that particular reason,
making this big divide between animals and other
forms of life here,
especially like plants even because
now there's plenty of research
that plants also have forms of awareness.
So where do you draw the line, really?
I've gone through some times in my life
where I've been a vegetarian,
and the reason I didâmy first time I did it
because my boyfriend was a vegetarian.
[laughter]
I was only thirteen.
I can be excused.
But a couple of other times,
I did it because I felt I wanted to be
in solidarity with animals who were so mistreated.
So I think there's reasons, but it's not because
they're so different in category
from other beings.
STUDENT: I feel like my memory has changed
as I've relaxed and that I have forgotten
things but in a good way.
Just being more absorbed in life or like
in contact with another person and not having
little thoughts that are pulling me away like,
oh I need to remember to like be this way or talk
this way or even, oh I could do this
thing later, I want to remember that.
And it's been kind of surprising and really lovely
to be like, oh I forgot about
myself for a minute there.
But it also makes me think
about sitting and forgetting.
SHAMBHAVI: Meditation.
STUDENT: Yeah.
I'm curious if you could
talk about that a little bit.
SHAMBHAVI: What you're describing about memory
is really the leading edge of a change
in your perception of time.
Memory is one of the ways we
create a sense of linear time.
And when we're being more immersed in presence
and it feels like we're not remembering as much
in a relaxed way, that's how we begin to enter
into more of a sense of maha time,
or time as volume
rather than a line and we're just there
and things are happening or not happening.
We're experiencing that and
being immersed in that and
memories might happen but we're not
constructing linear time anymore.
This is one of the reasons why when people
first start to let go of their inner narration,
whatever it looks like,
it usually has a lot of memories in it
or future projecting depending on
the person, but when you first let go
of that, even for a moment,
it can really feel scary.
You know that simple Dzogchen practice of ordinary
presence where you just narrate what's happening.
Say, I'm reaching for my cup.
I'm picking my cup up.
I'm sipping water.
I'm swallowing.
I'm putting my cup back down.
You're doing that silently in a very neutral way
but when you do that it replaces
that linear time narrative. And this seems
ridiculous, but some people get terrified
just doing something like that for a few minutes.
Because you just suddenly feel like you're
in free fall, you're suddenly in space
rather than in the line.
And the sense of hurtling in space
can get kind of intense.
But then you're entering into it more gradually,
but that's really part of that change
in your perception of time.
Satsang with Shambhavi is produced by Jaya Kula,
a non-profit community offering opportunities
to learn and practice in the direct realization
traditions of Trika Shaivism and Dzogchen.
If you enjoyed listening,
please help us keep this podcast
and many other teachings open to all
by making a monthly or one-time donation.
Visit jayakula.org to make a donation
and explore more of our offerings.