#37. No Reflections, No Self | Vigyan Bhairav Tantra

Your self is a creation of reflections from the outside, your own ideas and assumptions based on those reflections. If there would be no reflections, you would never have the idea of self. Take this time to reflect.

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Transcript

Namaste Sanyasa family and everyone.

A very warm welcome to all of you in this daily live meditation session with me,

Dhyansay.

We are meditating on 112 meditation techniques of Vigyan Bhairav Tantra.

Imagine if there were no reflections in the whole world.

If there were no reflections,

No mirrors,

Nothing in the world would reflect.

No mirrors,

No reflections.

How would you know your face?

How would you recognize your face?

In a world where there is no mirror,

In a world where there is no reflection whatsoever,

How would you recognize your face?

What you call every day when you look into the mirror,

You call as my face.

How would you recognize?

In that world,

Slowly,

By and by,

If you live for some days,

Some months,

Some years,

That idea,

That reflection will disappear.

Maybe the memory of what you call as your face.

It may also last for a while,

But there will be a time that it will disappear.

What you call as your face,

What you recognize as your face,

It will all disappear at some point of time in a world which has absolutely no reflections,

No mirrors.

And in this world,

There will be even no memory.

You may develop some ideas of your face.

If it is needed,

You may develop some assumptions of how your face may look like.

Is it a pretty face?

Or is it an ugly face?

Is it a round face?

Or any other kind of description that you may want to give to your face.

But that will be an assumption.

That will be a belief.

That will be your own idea.

If you need that idea,

You will have that idea.

But it might be that you may not even need that idea.

How would that world look like where you will have no face?

Where this sense of,

This recognition of this is me,

Completely is disappearing.

Psychologists say that children between 15 to 24 months is the first time in their age when they look at the mirror,

For the very first time they recognize their face.

And they do a small experiment,

A rouge experiment,

Where they put a red dot at the nose of the child.

And the child is looking at the mirror,

And if the child recognizes the red dot that it is on the child's face,

That's where the psychologists conclude that the recognition,

This sense,

This identification of this is my face,

Has arisen in the child.

With that recognition of this is my face comes a lot of things,

Good and bad.

Good that it helps you to navigate,

To operate in life as an individual.

But it also creates a limitation which throughout your life you're struggling with.

Throughout your life,

Deep down,

You're living with that assumption that this is me and everything else is not me.

The same phenomena which we are now describing,

Which we are now trying to imagine about the face,

Is about our self.

The face becomes the entire self.

By and by in our life,

We recognize more and more in the reflections of the world,

Not anywhere else.

In all the mirrors that we see in other people,

In the acts,

In all the reflections of the world,

A self is created.

Not just a face,

But a self is created.

If there were no reflections,

There would be no self.

Meditate over it,

Think about it,

Whether what you call as yourself.

Is there some definition to it?

Is this something solid?

Or is this just an assumption?

Just an assumption based on reflections that you carry,

That you get from the outside.

The whole world makes you believe that you are this self.

And this solidifies in you,

And the whole life you carry this idea of self,

This idea of name,

Of descriptions,

Of this what you call as self.

It is coming from all the outside.

It is coming from other people,

Their perception,

From whatever this world is reflecting back on you.

Ask yourself,

What truth does this carry?

Is this not only a utilitarian way to go about things in life,

But deep down there is no reality to that?

Ask yourself that all what you are living is a set of ideas,

It is a set of beliefs about yourself,

About the world,

And underneath that belief,

Underneath those ideas,

There is something more fundamental that has no face,

That has no shape,

That has no description,

That has no self.

Ask yourself in these moments,

In this opening,

In this entrance,

Who are you?

Are you just this belief,

Just this reflection,

Set of these reflections that are accumulating and giving you something that you can hold on to?

Or are you something more and bigger than that?

Let us listen to the technique that Bhairava gives in Vigyan Bhairavtantra for today.

Practice this in our meditation,

Practice this in the next moments of our silence.

Bhairava says,

Eyes closed,

Feel the shape of yourself and let it expand.

Very simple,

Short technique,

Sutra.

Let me repeat,

Eyes closed,

Feel the shape of yourself and let it expand.

So here,

What you are going to do is you are going to close your eyes to the whole world.

First of all,

You will close all these reflections that are coming from the outside that are continuing to give you this sense of self,

That are creating this picture,

This solidity,

This sense of self.

So first of all,

You will cut that off by closing your eyes to the whole world for a few moments.

You will let go of this entire world,

What this world has given to you,

The name,

The descriptions,

The identifications,

Any sort of reflection that has created a label in you,

You will let that settle.

For a moment,

You will let that aside,

Eyes closed.

Closed,

Not just the physical eyes,

Eyes closed to the entire world.

Then,

The second,

Feel the shape of yourself.

Now,

The technique is taking us from reflections that come from the outside to the reflections and the ideas and the beliefs,

The remnants that we have within us,

That we have given to ourselves.

And we will explore the idea of ourselves by feeling the shape of ourselves,

Not the shape of our physical body.

But if our self had a shape,

You can start with the body by just feeling what is the shape of your body,

Not visualizing the body as you see in the mirror,

Not visualizing,

Not replicating that image that you see in the mirror,

But in all your honesty,

In all your truth,

Without the reflections of the outside,

How does the shape of your body feel within?

Then,

From the physical,

You can move into the subtle,

How is the shape of yourself?

You may feel that this,

What you call a shape of yourself,

Is a dynamic thing.

Sometimes it expands,

Sometimes it contracts,

Somewhere it is very thin,

Somewhere it is very thick,

Somewhere the feeling is warm,

Somewhere there is no feeling at all.

Explore that,

Without any reflections from the outside,

What is the shape of yourself?

If there were no mirrors,

If no one had seen ever this shape in the mirror,

If you had never seen a picture of yourself or a reflection of yourself in the mirror,

How do you imagine,

What is your feeling of yourself?

So go into that and comes a moment when this starts expanding on its own.

Then,

Allow it to expand.

Let it expand as much as it goes,

As much as it goes into this expansion.

Allow this sense of self,

This sense of who you are,

Expand.

Do not limit it,

Do not contract it.

If this expansion does not happen,

Just simply sit in silence,

Rejoice in the silence,

In the awareness.

If this expansion happens,

Also don't get excited,

Simply stay,

Observe this phenomena of this expansion of self,

And see how far this expansion of who you are happens.

It goes all the way to the infinity,

From where you are to all the way to the infinity.

Allow that process to happen.

Let us go into this practice,

Let us go into this expansion,

This liberation of energies,

And this expansion of consciousness of what you call as yourself in the next minutes.

Please close your eyes and take a posture that is comfortable for you.

With your head,

Neck,

And back,

Straight,

Aligned,

Yet relaxed,

Your shoulders down,

Your breath flowing in and out naturally,

With every breath,

Your body relaxing,

Settling into the posture,

Your mind coming down,

And your awareness inwards.

These minutes of meditation,

You have no name,

No descriptions.

No reflections from the outside.

No Settle.

Settle.

Settle.

Settle.

Settle into this.

That you never saw your face in the mirror.

Settle.

Everything that is a reflection from the outside,

Allow that to be put aside for the next minutes.

Settle.

Settle.

Settle.

Settle.

Eyes completely closed to all reflections.

Awareness more and more inwards.

Settle.

Settle.

Settle.

Feel the shape of yourself.

Settle.

Settle.

Awareness in the shape of yourself.

Settle.

Settle.

Settle.

Settle.

Settle.

Settle.

Settle.

No reflections from outside.

Feeling the shape of yourself.

Settle.

And allowing this shape to expand in all directions.

Your awareness expands along the shape of yourself expanding.

The shape of yourself expanding.

Settle.

Settle.

Settle.

And let go of all visualization,

All effort.

Simply stay in this expanded awareness in silence.

No reflections.

No ideas.

No self.

Simply expand awareness in silence.

Settle.

Settle.

Settle.

Settle.

Settle.

And very gently and slowly,

You may open your eyes and maintain this taste of awareness and silence as all these reflections come back.

Giving and creating this idea of a limited self in you.

As you move into the world with that limited individual self,

Remember this taste of expanded awareness,

Of this no self of silence.

If you wish to live more in the truth of how you are,

Of who you are,

Of the truth of yourself,

The truth of this expanded awareness with others,

We have created a community of meditators to share this expanded awareness,

To share love,

Connection that we have with others.

If you wish to be a part of this community,

Please write me an email with your introduction,

With your calling for the community and what can you give back to the community.

Thank you very much.

Namaste.

Reviews

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Wonderful. So powerful. I became very emotional - in a positive way. Thank you.