Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
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: Could you talk about narratives?
SHAMBHAVI: Is there a reason you chose the word
narrative rather than story?
STUDENT: Yeah I guess narratives as in
like the narratives we have going on inside of
our minds and not like in general.
SHAMBHAVI: One of the most fundamental
principles of reality
is that everything works the same way at every
level. There's seven or eight processes just
traveling through all of existence,
expressing themselves in a more expansive
free way, all the way through on the continuum
to a more contracted and limited way.
So if we tell a lot of stories,
if we have a lot of stories going on in our heads,
which we know we do. In fact, it's not just in our
heads. We have stories going on in our heads.
We produce stories talking to other people,
like pretty much everything we're saying
is some kind of story most of the time.
We watch stories incessantly.
We entertain ourselves with stories.
Our lives are filled with stories.
So if we think of the principle of as above,
so below, what can we infer from that?
STUDENT: God is telling stories.
SHAMBHAVI: God is telling stories, yes.
If we are literally telling stories,
even in our sleep, we're telling stories.
We never stop.
What we can infer from that is that storytelling
is part of all of reality, aka God.
And the real question is, what's the difference
between our stories and God's stories? [laughs]
Of course, our stories are God's stories.
We can't let ourselves off the hook there,
pretend it's all so different.
It's not.
God is telling our kind of story, too.
But from our relative perspective, our stories,
well, sometimes they are creative, spontaneous
productions closer to what God is doing.
But what you're referring to, you know,
those things in our head that were living there,
as they say, rent free,
those stories have a huge karmic flavor.
And what is the hallmark of karmas?
What does karma mean, first of all?
STUDENT: Patterns of body, energy,
mind traveling through time.
SHAMBHAVI: Yep.
So the body, energy,
mind are patterns of awareness and energy
and they're moving through time or they're
creating a sense of time, of linear time.
And they're repeating.
You weren't a frog this morning and now you're
a person and tonight you're going to be a tree.
You know, you're showing up as
this pretty much all the time.
The stories that are repeating in our minds or
coming out of our mouths are often characterized
by repetition, compulsion,
emotions that repeat themselves.
They're often very emotion-laden.
And they are far from the spontaneous stories
being told with pure enjoyment by this reality,
aka God, Lord Shiva, living awareness.
So when this alive aware reality is being us
telling our more limited compulsive stories,
it's just taking its storytelling capacity,
its power to tell stories, and experimenting
with how many weird stories can I tell?
Everything that's happening here is basically part
of the self-expression of this reality, of God,
if you want to say that,
which I don't mind saying that at all.
But everything that's happening here is
the art of or the self-expression of God.
And that means that having svatantrya,
unlimited freedom to create any old thing,
any story,
telling our limited repetitive stories and making
us run around chasing our tails
is just part of the drama.
It's just part of the drama.
So we aren't degraded
in comparison to all of reality.
We're an aspect of that.
Going back to the wave and the ocean
metaphor, which is very common.
We don't stand on the shore and like point
at waves and make fun of them
for being small and limited. [laughs]
We enjoy all their shapes and their differences.
And we even like the teeny little waves as they
creep up on the shore and turn
the sand a different color.
We enjoy all of it, every wave.
I mean, have we ever seen a wave and we're like,
oh God, I really don't like that one. [laughter]
That wave is such a turn off. [laughs]
STUDENT: Surfers might do that.
SHAMBHAVI: Well, yes, they might say, I can't surf the wave,
but that doesn't mean they
don't still like it as a wave.
So that's God's relationship to us.
Like we're all the little waves
and those waves just keep repeating, man.
God is a wave junkie.
So there's absolutely nothing wrong with the fact
that our stories are limited and we suffer
from them and they repeat.
Because we don't understand what they really are.
We aren't recognizing what they really are.
So how do we get out of this?
Well, the idea isn't to get rid of all stories.
You know, in some traditions, largely in India,
but also in other countries from that part
of the world, there's this idea that the goal
of spiritual practice is to not have thoughts.
This is absolutely not taught
in the direct realization traditions.
The idea that we would run around practicing
for our whole lives trying to get rid of thoughts
is just ludicrous according to these traditions.
This tradition says,
because it's really so thoroughgoing,
it's one of the things I really like about it,
just so thoroughgoing, it says everything is that.
Everything is that Self expressing itself,
including your thoughts.
We don't want to spend our lives pushing
thoughts away or running after them.
They just have the thoughts.
It's not a problem.
Our thoughts do change when we're more realized.
The quality of them changes.
The quality of our dreams changes.
The nature of our storytelling changes.
But it all gets more enjoyable and we suffer less
because we recognize more what
the real nature of those things is.
But we're not at war with anything.
We're not at war with our emotions.
We're not at war with our limitations.
We're not at war with our karmas.
We're not at war with our thoughts.
We're not at war with our mistakes.
We're just not at war
with ourselves in this tradition.
It teaches us don't be at war with yourself
because everything about you is God.
At the same time, we are not
thinking we must improve this.
That's just another way of somehow
feeling something's wrong with us.
Nothing is wrong with anyone. And the desire,
the urge to experience things differently, to be
on the part of the story arc where our stories are
more spontaneous and free and creative and freely
expressive to be telling stories like that instead
of like, [mimicking complaining] and then she
said to me, and I didn't like that.
And then she said to me, and I didn't like that.
And then she said to me, and I didn't like that.
[laughter]
I mean, we bore ourselves, right? [laughs]
It would be really nice if our stories weren't
like that from our perspective
of our own experience.
So we have a built-in desire to be free of that.
And we have a built-in desire to find
ways to relieve ourselves of suffering.
Different people have different ideas about that.
At some stage of development,
your idea of relieving yourself from suffering
might be to get into a normative marriage,
buy a house, have kids,
save money for retirement and die.
That could be your idea of salvation.
But anyway, there's more thoroughgoing
ways to relieve ourselves of suffering.
But there's nothing about that that is separating
us from the nature of God
or the nature of reality.
All that is just natural and built in.
The fact that we think there's a path,
that we have teachers, that there's teachings,
that we think we can feel better,
that we want to feel better,
that we feel devotion, that we get into all kinds
of urgency about whatever
we get into urgency about.
All of this is also just
an expression of this reality.
There's nothing about that that proves
that there's something wrong.
It's all part of the same Self.
As practitioners, we can keep that idea,
even if we haven't experienced living presence
much, we can keep that idea in our back pocket
that what we're doing is naturally built in.
And when we're doing sadhana,
and when we're being in a community or following
a teacher or reading teachings or feeling a big,
deep yearning to be freer, that we are
just going along with what God does.
There's nothing independent about it.
There's nothing better about it.
There's nothing better about it than what
other people do in any absolute sense.
I have a pitta personality
and that means that I like adventures.
I get bored easily.
You know, you'll often hear me say,
oh God, that's so boring.
That's a very pitta statement.
Like there's not enough variety here.
There's not enough adventure.
Let's strike out in a different direction.
All that is constitutional.
From my perspective,
doing this kind of path is just fun.
It's adventurous.
I like it.
I like not knowing what's going to happen next.
And I like being used in a bigger way.
We can have these kind of feelings.
We can have any feeling we want.
We can even think, oh, you're being saved.
If you feel like you're
being saved, go right ahead.
You know, it's not what this tradition is about,
but if you want to drag that in from
the Abrahamic coalition, go ahead.
It's fine.
Just to understand that this is the big arc story.
I really, really love this TV show [laughs]
called Fringe.
It has five seasons.
Yeah, five seasons, 20 some episodes each season.
And so some episodes have like
just a little self-contained story.
And then there's this big complex arc
story that goes through all five seasons.
STUDENT: I have a question about stories.
Does God tell all of the possible stories?
SHAMBHAVI: No.
Because there isn't a set. There isn't
a set of all possible stories.
STUDENT: It would be infinite.
SHAMBHAVI: Yeah, it's infinite, right?
So there's no way that you could tell them all.
Because they're spontaneous and there's infinite
permutations. Think about something that you tell
a story about to different people
and how you change little things about it
each time or your intonation slightly changes.
Those are all different
stories about the same thing.
The famous thing that Abhinavagupta said
and that Ma said too was God makes the impossible
possible and the possible impossible.
In other words, has total freedom
to create any story about anything.
And there's no limits on that whatsoever.
There's no end to it.
There's no like, oh yeah, okay, I've done it now.
I've done all the stories.
STUDENT: I have a question about me personally.
I guess I'm asking for some tips and tricks here.
I have come to the conclusion that my health
might not actually be much better
than this for the rest of my life.
How do I go about living a fulfilling life?
Because I feel like I really struggle with that.
How to live a happy, fulfilling life
knowing that this is just how it is?
SHAMBHAVI: You know, I've had illness
a lot in my life also.
And recently spent
some time being pretty debilitated.
And I think one of the things is to really try
to disabuse yourself of concepts you have
about what a fulfilling life would look like.
I think you have some strong concepts around
that. Because there's fulfillment
in so many little ways all around us,
even if we're just sitting still
in an apartment or a house.
So there's the fulfillment of, just talking about
myself and maybe that will help you,
of like being in a environment that is beautiful
where I can enjoy textures and colors and enjoy
the care that went into creating
the environment that I'm in.
An environment where I'm surrounded by reminders
of Ma and my practice
and the real purpose of my life.
And then the contentment
of being able to give to others.
Like there's nothing that can
stop you from doing that,
even if you're lying in your bed,
only able to move your eyes. You know,
you could still be giving to others.
And to me, that's just hugely fulfilling. To be
able to give whatever it is that I have to offer.
Is really hugely fulfilling.
The other day I was preparing a astrology reading
for somebody and I was thinking to myself, oh God,
this is on some level,
this is just a slog preparing these things.
Maybe I'll just stop doing them and only focus
on divination, which is a lot dearer to my heart.
And then I was doing the reading with this person,
and you could just see all of the tension
of their life just falling.
The reading was just reminding them of who they
really are and what they really want,
and they were crying, and it was just likeâ¦
The slog was worth it.
You know, it was like to be able to use this
skill that I don't even like using that much.
But it is a skill that I've worked on for a lot
of years and had a lot of teachings about, but
kind of reminded me of what's actually fulfilling.
To be able to touch somebody and have somebody
be reminded of what their life actually is.
You know, you're a doctor, so you get
opportunities to be in those moments with people.
But it's not just that.
It's like these days in particular,
when things in the world are so horrible,
just being able to have a conversation
with somebody in a store or on the street or
being able to look into someone's eyes and have
a real conversation and ask them real questions
about themself and engage people and
just let out the kindness.
And just let it out at every possible opportunity.
That to me is just hugely fulfilling.
And when I'm feeling down or frustrated
because of my health, I just think of Ma
and I just know that wherever she's taking me,
that's where I need to be.
That's what I'm supposed to be doing,
including the illness.
So I don't know what it's all for.
I don't have any grand theory about it, but
I feel especially lately just a deeper sense
of surrender and just like being here in a simple
way. I just feel there's just a real simplicity
of just being here and giving and that's it.
And trying to stay in touch with what I feel
devoted to at the center of my life.
And that's a life. That's a beautiful life.
The fewer things you must have in order to feel
happy, the fewer things you're telling yourself,
if I don't have this,
I'm not going to be fulfilled.
I won't have lived well if I don't have that.
Those things are sources
of abject suffering, really.
Because you have so many opportunities
to give the wealth that you brought here.
STUDENT: The traditions you teach from,
is there the concept of dharma?
SHAMBHAVI: It's not prominent in
the sense of a finger wagging, you must be dharmic or
live in a dharmic way or do your duty.
It's not a sense of the law being laid down
and some sort of narrow path that you have
to follow like it is in some other traditions.
Something that Anandamayi Ma expressed very well,
that dharma is whatever is helping you to wake up,
whatever is leading you to wake up more.
That's what dharma is.
Because she said, human beings only have one
ultimate duty, and that is to wake up,
to realize the nature of the self.
She said, that is our sole duty.
And so for her, that's what dharma was.
And I think
that pretty much covers anything that we would be
doing to help ourselves to realize
what's actually going on here.
Dharma can be interpreted in a lot of different
ways, including just ordinary duties
like your job and stuff like that.
But it can also be interpreted by spiritual
traditions as somehow following some kind of law
laid down by shastra or something like that.
But Ma had a bigger idea of it.
STUDENT: What is shastra?
SHAMBHAVI: Scripture.
Following scriptural rules of some sort
could be considered dharmic living.
Or following eating rules of Ayurveda
could be considered dharmic eating.
People often ask Ma,
is everything in the shastras?
And she would say, no, it's a map.
You don't see every leaf and every
tree and every blade of grass on a map.
But then she would pause and say, well, yes,
but on the other hand,
everything is in shastra. [laughs]
But I think she meant everything is in everything.
In any case, I think her definition is
the ultimate definition of dharma,
which is whatever is helping you to realize
the nature of reality of the self.
If we can recognize that that is our sole purpose
or our only actually important purpose,
it's not the only thing we do, but I'm sayingâ¦
It is the core purpose of our lives.
It's built into us.
If we can recognize that, then we suffer
a lot less from all the rest of life.
I could be doing things that I think
of as lazy or something like that.
But as long as I'm feeling that sense of devotion
to my teacher and keeping aware of presence,
it doesn't really matter because I know that I'm
keeping to the core purpose
of my life and everyone's life.
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.