Chastity – 02.10.11

Excerpt: “There’s an old joke, I’m sure everyone knows it. . . . It was a joke about an academic scholar in the Vatican who was trying to understand the roots of apostolic celibacy, and he went to the original writings that were then copied by the scribes, and he found that one scribe made a mistake, he dropped out an ‘r,’ it was supposed to be celebrate!” recounts Shunyamurti, the spiritual director of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “And so the celebration was, originally, a coming together of those who were celibate, in solitude, in their inner solitude. . . . And only those who have realized the solitude of Self, and are no longer co-dependent on others, and don’t have voices in their minds that are attacking them, or causing them to have distorted self-images, etc., are truly free to celebrate, because everyone else is suffering and in agony. . . . But in any case, this was the original meaning of it, and the first celebration was of that Liberation from the ego that is co-dependent on others, both externally and internally. And so when we meditate, it is in order to silence all those voices in the mind, and to dwell in the solitude of Pure Consciousness. And that solitude is blissful. And it’s cause for celebration.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, February 10, 2011.