In Conversation With An Enlightened Master and Teacher To Thousands – Acharya Shunya. I had heard of her, seen her videos, read about her for years and finally, I get the honor of interviewing the remarkably enlightened and anointed Teacher and Guru to thousands Acharya Shunya. And it was nothing short of spectacular.
Her wisdom beyond her years, carrying the secrets of Vedika from a lineage of going back several generations we are lucky and beyond blessed to have this incredible light in the world.We connected one on one and I discovered first that she will be my teacher in the years to come.And I had a few questions for her.
Her responses profound and prophetic.Here is a brief part of our exchange. She shared so many insights I am compelled to share it all in the coming days, but will piece it out. It is truly great and insightful information we can all use powerfully to help us in some aspect of our life.
A BRIEF PART OF THE INTERVIEW
For now, her is the intro to our conversation.
Sue: I’m really interested in learning from you. I’ve been watching you and learning from you. I’m so honored I cannot thank you enough for giving me this time.
Guruji: You have all my blessings. Sometimes souls hear their inner callings and they get attracted to my deeper teaching. So I welcome it. You might be completing some journey from some other lifet, me my dear.
Sue: I feel like I’m just blessed to have this time with you. I think it’s so special that you come from this lineage. You are the chosen you. So can you tell me for you what’s that like?
Guruji: For women to be leaders in lineages is not something brand new in the Vedic tradition. In fact in the Vedas women, spiritual teachers are known as Brahmavadini. We all know the term Rishi which means sage or seer, but we are unaware that there is also a term called Rishika and 23 female seers have contributed to the mantras of the Vedas so that’s not a small number.
So in ancient India men and women were at par and in fact, in the Rigveda, we find references to women going to war leading infantry and leading legislative assemblies and becoming advisors and ministers and also spiritual teachers. There are mantras where parents pray to give birth to a scholarly Pandita a student, a daughter who knows God and can show the way to God. So I come from that tradition, but then India went through the dark ages when there were invasions and Indians lost touch with their own heritage.
Especially when the elite empire the Moguls was a more patriarchal system to gradually the Indian women to the Vedic women too went not exactly under the parda, but they went into the background. And the Vedas started being taught only to the males, the male candidates, but my lineage was fortunately populated not just by ordinary men, but by tremendously conscious and liberal and truly deeply Vedic people and so my grandfather had opened the doors to his school to the girl child long before I was born.
And so for some reason, he chose me. He must’ve known one day that I would be doing what I do. Confidently. Happily and humbly. And I had a lot of male cousins and I also had some of his male disciples, but he chose me.
He continued to groom me and when I turned 24 he said now you shall lead the way, but in our tradition just because we’ve been told by the guru doesn’t mean we suddenly announce to the whole world and then become a star guru. I took my time. And I continued to have fewer students in my life, but mostly continued to practice spiritualness in my own life to see if I could be peaceful.
If I could truly live those teachings and then at age 40 I announced that I’m available for more public teachings. And since then there has been no looking back. For my lineages international avatar right here in California.
Sue: Wow. And now can you tell me for you what advice you would have especially for being Indian, I’m Indian the kind of having men women and the discrepancies even in India still for powerful women who want to do things. What advice you would have for women?
Guruji: I think the discrepancy is very obvious in the Indian community and unfortunately I see worldwide too just in subtle ways. And the whole world set standards to the great spirit in a male body more than in a female body.
I think the best advice I can give to any Indian woman is to no longer be in competition with the male counterparts because that’s your situation and it’s circumstantial, but go more within and connect with your soul power. And instead of talking about your power start living with power. It’s also important to find role models as in teachers, colleagues where there are more female-centric teachers because that then just shows us away.
We learn more osmosis then just by memorizing something you know then by learning it. So when you see somebody empowered you start behaving in that manner. And I have noticed this that whether you are Indian or American or tribal it doesn’t matter when any human being be it whatever sex they come in their power from a place of peacefulness not from a place of confrontation because that still shows that we are unsure, but really hone into who we are and we no longer attach to external approval or esteem and we just are totally coming from within. We know our wholeness our fullness our power lives within us.
The whole world starts bowing to you. I’ve seen that. So I’m always ready to tell Indian women to stop living on scripts. And just really quickly there are four kinds of thoughts in the Vedic tradition. This is my original teaching from the Vedas that whereas instinctive thoughts I’m hungry, I’m lusty, I’m mad. You know just quick reflex thoughts and then there are scripted thoughts that come from being an Indian or being an Australian so Indian women have a lot of scripted thoughts. So we need to think is this a script?
And then there is the third thought the deliberative thought and this is where we need to be. All women need to be here. Or anybody. Or even say of a different race or a different sexual gender which is being ostracised. We all need to come from a deliberative place where you say should I be pandering to this? Am I really a victim? What are my real choices? Should I be behaving in a certain way?
Should I be defending? Should I be defensive? So it’s a deliberative place and when we are there more and more we are connected with our soul power which is equal for everyone. And finally, this turns into spontaneous thinking whichwhen you become a teacher or you become a joyful leader because now you don’t have to think it you’re flowing it. So for me growing up from India though I came from an ultra-liberal family, progressive thinking family interestingly not modern progressive, but ancient progressive I am still a mother and a wife and a part of that Indian culture so what I’ve always done is look at scripts and say this is a script.
This may work for other people. It doesn’t work for me. And I don’t let anything come between me and my freedom to not walk a script, but then I don’t go to war for it. I’m very gentle. I’m a firm person. Most people don’t contend with me. I will never raise my voice cause I don’t need to.
My conviction is my guide. And I have now found that my presence has empowered so many Indian men and women along with my students worldwide so I hope that helps.
Sue: That does help a lot. So just a follow-up question. For somebody who doesn’t know what is just a little piece of advice, you could give someone to kind of start tapping into that soul power.
Guruji: Yeah so this is a mudra for wholeness and power and I would like anyone who needs to get in touch with their power to go into this mudra often and then you can’t just touch it here you actually have to think this path – my wholeness my power my power my worth belongs to me. I own my life. I own my quest. I own my dreams. I own my no. I own my yes. I own my own life journey.And this plus this gesture has been changing the lives of my students.