The Limits of Language and Reason - 12.03.09

“Sri Ramana Maharshi has said that the Real Self is the state in which the word ‘I’ does not arise; not even implicitly as a concept. This might seem like a paradox,” argues Shunyamurti, the spiritual founder of the Sat Yoga Institute in Costa Rica. “How can it be a self if there’s no I? But when the I arises, the Real is split open,” into subject/object, I/you (i.e. duality). And this journey into binary opposition is sustained by the use of language. Language may have its benefits when it comes to communication—and thus sciences, logic, etc—but it can not exist in the Real. “So the Real cannot actually be graphed by science or logic or any system of thought. So every system of thought comes to a point where it no longer serves us. . . . What the yogis have discovered is . . . no system of understanding can grasp Reality. The only way to grasp the Real is to realize that you are the Real.” Recorded on the evening of Thursday, December 3, 2009.