“The Divine Goddess Kundalini is working inside trying to clean our house, yet we continually pursue self-centered desires and objectives on a daily basis, which basically is the same as throwing items around the room. In the Hindu or Buddhist way of looking at things, the idea is to rise above cause and effect, to come off the wheel of samsara, and not be a victim of circumstance. That’s liberation, that’s enlightenment. While the Shakti’s working to purify existing samskaras, our job is to live consciously in ways that support the process. That’s where the teachings come in. That’s where the ego work comes in. They’re just as important as awakened Shakti Itself.”

Shri Shankaracharya, The Gospel of Consciousness, “The Kundalini Process”, p85

Over many years as both a disciple and a guru, Shri Shankaracharya took note of what worked for those pursuing the spiritual path. Despite the enormous amount of Grace available in the shaktipat tradition, some people progressed while others did not. The Shakti was not biased or more available to certain individuals, so how was it that some seemed to advance so much farther than others?

These questions fueled the development of what Shri Shankaracharya came to call Integral Advaita and his Living Consciously teachings.

Many of the saints and practitioners that Shri Shankaracharya came to know over the years adhered to a more renunciate view, but this approach presented difficulties. When a sadhaka (spiritual practitioner) seeks to just reject or transcend the world, that sadhaka may experience the transcendent, but that realization then gets filtered through problematic aspects of the sadhaka’s personality, which were never addressed due to their transcendentalist approach. Or often the ego is simply fueled by identifying with any spiritual progress that is made. This transcendentalist approach also tends to create a bifurcation in the sadhaka’s life between the time spent in sadhana (spiritual practice) and the time spent in the world. For a renunciate that spends nearly all their time in practice, this is not such an issue. But for practitioners in the Western world, this meant that much of their time was lost and their spiritual energy wasted in worldly activities.

“The path of surrender and living consciously is just as important as awakened Spiritual Energy. Otherwise, the awakened Energy can become just another tool for the ego so that one can pursue their own self- centered desires.”

Shri Shankaracharya, The Gospel of Consciousness, “Divine Ignorance”, p250

It became apparent that great benefit could be found in a view that appreciates this world as an emanation of the Divine, rather than an obscuration or something to be left behind. And within that appreciation of the world, a fuller expression of the Divine can come about through the refinement of the ego and personality of the practitioner. Shri Shankaracharya then developed a series of precepts, or ways to approach this idea of living consciously. These precepts not only reshape and refine the ego, but they help turn our everyday life into another opportunity for spiritual practice. And the teachings themselves are unusual in that they do not offer a terminal goal to achieve. Quite often a practice consists of steps 1, 2, 3, and so on, so a practitioner can eventually say, “I have done it. I have completed the practice.” But the precepts of this tradition offer an approach to life that can be perpetually refined, from the first day of practice to even after realization of Unity, in the process undercutting attempts by the ego to lay claim to any achievement.

The combination of the grace of shaktipat with these teachings then becomes a powerful combination. The combination also opens doors to everyday householders that were once thought to require renunciation of the world. The Shakti works from within to remove obstacles and fuel spiritual progress in ways that would likely not be possible otherwise, while the teachings guide the sadhaka in an approach to life that supports the work of the Shakti rather than obstructs it. These precepts form the foundation of the teachings presented here at Parashakti Bhavan.

“My feeling is that one’s consciousness can turn back on its own essential nature, thus transcending identification with all personality traits; however, that doesn’t necessarily mean that those traits still aren’t there. One can be experiencing transpersonal bliss, or transpersonal awareness, which obviously at some level affects the way that they perceive things; however, at the same time, troubling tendencies can still exist at the personality level. The problem is that those tendencies are extremely relevant in one’s expression. That’s why I’m trying to present a teaching that addresses living consciously as an integral part of the spiritual path: not only to foster attainment, but also the nature of one’s expression after attainment as well.”

Shri Shankaracharya, The Gospel of Consciousness, “The Enlightened Experience”, p 206-7