Shambhavi Sarasvati on Expanding our View (#108)

About the Guest

Shambhavi is the spiritual director of Jaya Kula. Her principle training is in the View and practices of Trika Shaivism (a.k.a. Kashmir Shaivism or Shaiva Tantra) and the Dzogchen tradition of Tibet. She has also studied meditation with teachers in the Kagyu and Nyingma traditions. Her root Guru is Anandamayi Ma.

Shambhavi is known for making complex teachings about the nature of the self and reality understandable, practical, and always relatable to everyday experience. Her teachings are grounded in her more than thirty-five years of daily personal practice and personal retreats. In addition to offering teachings in spiritual practice and view, Shambhavi conducts festival day pujas, yajñas, and also weddings and other rites. She is a trained jyotishi and diviner. At one time, Shambhavi taught at Northwestern University. She left academia in 2004 in order to devote herself to practice, writing and teaching in her spiritual tradition.

Shambhavi’s Books

Shambhavi is the author of The Reality Sutras: Seeking the Heart of Trika Shaivism (2018), Nine Poisons, Nine Medicines, Nine Fruits (2017), The Play of Awakening: Adventures in Direct Realization Tantra (2012), Pilgrims to Opennness: Direct Realization Tantra in Everyday Life (2009), Returning (2015), and No Retreat: Poems on the Way to Waking Up (2016). In addition, she published an academic book, Avatar Bodies: a Tantra for Posthumanism. She holds an MFA in Fiction from Mills College and a Ph.D. in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University.

In this Episode, We Discuss:

  1. The nature of reality as wisdom and compassion even in the face of obstacles
  2. Spiritual challenges we are facing in the Covid19 pandemic
  3. Staying in our spiritual practice even in the face of existential threats
  4. Leaning into fear and finding refuge in God and nature
  5. Building the Ojas, immunity and the bridge between ordinary love and universal love
  6. The teaching of Ananda, holding the absolute and relative reality at the same time
  7. Reconciling the teaching of the naturalness of death with the commitment to stay engaged and to help others
  8. Accessing the heart as a gateway to unconditional wisdom
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