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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
nonprofit 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've been thinking today about all I've
learned from you over the years about misogyny.
And I just wanted to ask you to grip on how what
is happening right now is
basically misogyny at its root.
SHAMBHAVI: I probably did say it was misogyny
at its root, but then I also want to say that
we're always trying to find out what came first.
And that's actually part of supremacist,
colonialist thinking, which I freely
admit I engaged in in that moment.
We're always trying to find what
was original, what was first, et cetera.
What leads from that is a hierarchy.
And colonialism and humanism in general,
humanism itself, is a form
of hierarchicalization that is violent.
So humanism is this idea that humans are
the best species, the most worthy species.
and that all other species are
ordered in different ways below us.
And then of course, if you only look at the human
part of that pyramid, then all humans are ordered
until there's some white European guy on the top.
That's basically humanism.
And we have been trying to recover
from that kind of thinking.
I can't really say that misogyny,
like in all honesty and not just saying something
totally on the fly,
misogyny is at the root of everything.
But misogyny is certainly a huge motivator
for this, what is going on in the world right now,
and a huge enabler of what is happening,
including all of the violence against trans people
and queer people in general
and women and children.
All of this is related to misogyny.
So what is misogyny?
Obviously, it's a point of view and a set
of practices that says that anything
contaminated by the female is lesser than.
That includes people who don't conform
to their assigned gender roles also.
Homophobia and misogyny are
really inextricably linked.
But what enables that?
I've always just thought it's very simple,
that what enables that is that in general,
throughout time, people who are born male
have more physical strength.
If they couldn't beat us up,
this wouldn't be happening.
It's really how I think about it.
And of course, that translates
into military might also.
These old colonial supremacist powers,
they're sort of having a little moment of
resurgence of their hard-ons
that they had lost for a while.
But⦠[laughs]
If they didn't have all this military power,
they wouldn't be doing this. Period.
I'm not saying that this is the right way to think
about it, but this is the way that I've always
thought about it.
That if someone can't overpower
you, they can't do that supremacist thing against
you in whatever way they might overpower you.
But we have to find a different way
because this just isn't working.
The whole idea that might is
what is running everything.
That's just not working.
And so I'm hoping that we really are seeing
the beginning of a shift in what's called a yuga
in Hindu thought
and an era maybe in other places,
where things would be on a different basis.
There would be more wisdom available to us to have
our relations and our cultures be on a different
basis not just changing the players.
Does anybody else want to say anything about this?
STUDENT: The last thing that you said
about changing the players
I just am really feeling that so much
even like leftist or liberal views.
I feel like even in those places,
the hierarchical stuff, it's just
wearing a different costume, right?
SHAMBHAVI: Totally, totally, 100%.
Yeah, I wasn't going to go there,
but yeah. [laughter]
Misogyny is just rife in those
spaces a lot of the time.
There's certain leftish or
progressive or queer spaces
if you even mention violence against women,
all of a sudden you're labeled as
something.
You're out of step you're out of date.
There's always going to be the person that is
either dumped on or dumped on and forgotten.
It's like disabled people, and fat people, and
people with certain mental disabilities,
and women to a certain extent.
They're just still dumpable
on-able. And that somehow makes
whatever the new wave is feel powerful.
And we really, really need
to not be doing that anymore.
If we want something different,
I'm not here doing this because I just want
a better version of the same old, same old.
I'm sorry, I'm holding out for something else.
[laughs]
Even if it's not in this lifetime,
which I doubt it will be.
STUDENT: It seems like there's so much
gatekeeping, and the gatekeeping itself is a
symptom of the whole patriarchal structures.
SHAMBHAVI: We want equality.
It can't just be based on some namby-pamby idea.
It's got to be like thoroughgoing.
Like complete respect for everybody
and recognizing our common origin.
STUDENT: I feel like I need a deeper unpacking
of the understanding of devotion and
the distinction, I guess,
between devotion and attachment.
SHAMBHAVI: Devotion is a feeling of but it's
a feeling that expresses something.
It always results in some kind of action.
It's not just sitting and having a feeling.
So it's very activity-oriented feeling.
And the activity that it's oriented toward is
wanting the best for everyone
and trying to be supportive
and helpful so that people
can have the best experience.
That's how devotion expresses itself.
It's a caretaking feeling.
So it's not about taking up a position.
For instance, I was just talking to somebody
the other day about when I first started getting
trained as an organizer when I was in my 20s.
And the person that was training me was a Marxist.
And when she would work with groups of tenants,
because we were doing tenant organizing,
she had a Marxist agenda.
She was trying to create more Marxists.
I wasn't anything.
I was just somebody who wanted
people to have better housing.
And one time she said to me, you don't really go
into these tenant meetings with an agenda, do you?
And I said, no, I just try
to figure out what people want.
And then as long as it doesn't conflict with my
sense of ethics, I'll just help them to do it.
And then she went, ugh. [laughter]
You know, she thought that was like
a wasted opportunity.
But that feeling of just not having an agenda or
not having a strong position and just wanting in a
sense to go along with things in a helpful way,
that is one of the, not the only,
but it is one of the expressions of devotion.
And I think devotion is very
flexible, very adaptable.
It isn't like a fixed position because devotion is
very attentive, very attentive to what's going
on and responding to what is actually happening.
Unlike being a Marxist,
which is you're always that.
It doesn't matter what room you're in or
who you're with or what's happening.
You're a Marxist.
That's not really the quality of devotion.
And then the other aspect of devotion is
that it's not something that individuals have.
Devotion is part of the fabric of reality.
And so it's just a matter
of how open we are to it.
And then it just gets expressed naturally.
It's not something that is inside of us in some
sort of closed off way,
like belonging to us personally.
When we're feeling devotional or devoted or
devotion, and we express it, it's like basically
going along with nature more than anything else.
It is also not limited to people
or animals or plants, let's say.
When you are in touch with this more
primordial kind of devotion,
there's no limit to what you feel devoted toward,
including inanimate objects,
because nothing seems separate from God.
So you take care of your house better,
and you cook more carefully,
cook food with more attentiveness and care,
and you just tend, you just tend to things better
when you're experiencing this natural devotion.
SHAMBHAVI: You just mentioned following nature
as part of that devotional feeling.
Can you talk about leading a guided life?
SHAMBHAVI: Well, it's just a different way
of saying leading a guided life.
This is a phrase that came from a teacher of a
woman practitioner and teacher named Irina Tweedy.
I think she was from the UK,
although I'm not 100% sure.
Anyway, she studied with a teacher who was
a North Indian tantric plus Sufi teacher.
And she wrote a book called Chasm of Fire about
her experience working with this teacher
and reported on a lot of the teachings
that her teacher gave her.
And one of the things that he said to her was
that the fruit of spiritual
life is to lead a guided life.
This is really in contrast to what you hear around
these kinds of traditions,
which is more like
the point of the practice
is to become somehow a master of something.
And he said, no, the point is to be guided,
to be able to lead an entirely guided life.
This just really sunk very deeply into me
and really resonated with how I just am
in the world.
And it means that we're listening
and feeling for instructions.
And it's not like sentences, but just
that feeling of what is the right way to go.
I can just give you an example from today.
I've been asking the question, and many
people who are at least in Portland know this.
I've been asking the question about whether I
should shift gears a little bit and start
approaching the world situation
more through
traditional spiritual practices.
In other words, instead of spending so much
of my time creating resource lists for people
to learn about Gaza and Iran and trying to elevate
voices of different people in different situations
and trying to get things to change in different
ways that are just more standard political ways,
whether I should do things like just lead people
in a lot of mantra practice and just
change my focus a little bit.
I hadn't really answered that question,
but I yesterday decided to start
doing more mantra practice.
And today I gave everyone the schedule for that,
the weekly schedule for that.
And I just feel a complete shift in something.
I just feel like I'm being told now.
Yeah, finally. [laughter]
It's not like I heard a voice
or anything like that.
It's more just like I can feel the energy shift.
I can feel wisdom, Ma,
just being happier with me about this.
And I can also feel the shift
in energy in this room.
So it's like now I'm somewhere.
Having stepped through a door and I'm just feeling
like, okay, I got to keep going in this direction,
following this sense of happiness
in what I'm doing from wisdom.
Not like, I'm not like so
happy that I'm doing this.
I'm just saying, I'm trying to describe something
that's not describable, but it's a subtle feeling
of like, okay, I've stepped through a door
and now I need to keep going that direction
step by step and keep listening.
But you can live that way
every moment of every day.
by checking in with the heart space and doing
inner divination, like feeling,
should I go in this direction?
What am I being told?
If I go rest in the heart space for a minute,
what does it feel like when I think of doing
a certain thing or not doing a certain thing?
That's wisdom talking to you.
This is something I learned to do 30 years ago.
And I've told this many times before,
but I got taught these practices of going
in the heart space and consulting
about what you're doing or not doing.
And I remember one day,
literally in graduate school, I realized I
am making every decision in my life this way.
Every single one.
It was like astounding to me at the time.
I wasn't doing anything but that.
I think every person encounters this livingness,
this intelligence that we're absolutely
immersed in, this vast intelligence.
I think everyone encounters it differently.
We, of course, have been trained to rely on what
we think is inside of our heads,
the so-called intelligence in our heads that
somehow scientists have identified with the brain.
I mean, all of this is just so small
compared to what's actually available.
Whatever's going on in here is completely
liberated and free and vast everywhere
in a form that is so dazzling
and has such incredible clarity and
compassion and devotion built into it,
that there really isn't anything to do
but follow that once you recognize it.
When I learned these techniques,
I already had a sense of something I was following
in my life from when I was a little girl.
But when I had a more full-on encounter with this
through Ma, at that point,
there's just absolutely no choice.
You just cannot do anything else.
You can consult the heart space.
You can ask a direct question.
And you'll get an answer.
It'll be a feeling of yes,
do that, no, don't do that.
And then you just do it.
You just don't even worry about it after that.
STUDENT: I realize that I think some part of me
that kind of like doesn't want to follow wisdom is
because I'm afraid to have less self-concern.
It feels pretty deep and like
kind of overwhelming.
SHAMBHAVI: Yes, everyone feels
exactly the same thing.
So the fear of vastness, the fear
of losing the boundaries of the self.
You don't lose yourself.
You actually gain self.
It's just not your small, little, constructed self.
It's really a fear of vastness.
It's a fear of death.
It's a fear of the unknown.
But you're really not doing yourself any favors.
by holding on to that very tense,
small, self-construct.
And this can be gotten over by just small
experiments, small experiments
of following over and over again.
You don't have to do anything huge.
The more you do consult wisdom
and follow wisdom, the easier it gets.
Why? Because every time you do it,
no matter how much fear you feel beforehand,
Afterwards, you're going to feel more relaxed
and in a way that is confirming something
for you about who you really are.
Not just relaxed in an ordinary way, but a sense
of rightness, a sense of your own goodness.
As you do little steps, little followings over
and over again, it really builds momentum.
And eventually, it's just what you're doing.
And your whole sense of self changes.
And if the result were really not good,
like your fear is
you don't know what the result's going to be,
but if the result were really not good,
why would we be doing this?
One of the points of having a teacher is you
can see the result is actually good, hopefully.
Gives you some courage, gives you a beacon.
So remember that.
The result is actually good.
Better than what you have now.
Take courage.
STUDENT: I was curious if Trika or Dzogchen
or Ma or other sort of wisdom traditions
that you've been a part of that
maybe have some things to say about courage when
times are dark and confusing like they are now.
SHAMBHAVI: Yeah, I don't know that there's
like specific discourses around courage, but
certainly when you read stories of practitioners,
you recognize that it takes tremendous courage
at different points to keep going
and let yourself be dismantled in certain ways.
And certainly I know that intimately from my own
life as a practitioner of more than 40 years.
So I don't know that I could reference
any specific teachings on it.
But basically these traditions,
these so-called direct realization traditions,
like Dzogchen and Trika
are entirely destructive and I think all spiritual
life is but the discourse around them sometimes
tells you otherwise because we have certain
tensions, we have this whole self construct
and all the stories we tell about ourselves to
ourselves and all the efforts we make to keep some
sort of semblance of a coherent self together.
All of this needs to go away. And one of the rules
that I've learned, natural laws, kind of,
of spiritual life, is whatever it is
that needs to go away, it needs to go away before
we know what's coming next.
I think that's the crux of the courage that's
needed is that you have to like stick your foot
out and put it down
not actually knowing where you're putting it down.
[laughs]
But I found that the more you do that,
the more you have confidence in that,
that if you, let a process continue where you're
being taken apart or something is going away,
then it's not necessarily a violent going away,
but even the most mousy things that go away,
the most mousy ways people get very afraid of.
So in any case, the more you just let that happen
or you participate in it or acquiesce to it,
even the fiercer versions of it,
the more you recognize that on the other side
of that, even though the particulars
of circumstances might be different
or not what you expect,
the actual internal experience is always the same
100% of the time,
which is that you experience more
intimacy with life.
You feel more relaxed.
You feel more in yourself and right with yourself.
And you feel more intimate with other
beings and just the world in general.
A hundred percent of the time,
knowing that after going through that sort of like
stepping into the unknown a bunch of times
and then finding out that that's the case,
it's not as scary anymore.
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,
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