#87. Are You A Bodhisattva? | Vigyan Bhairav Tantra

Bodhisattva is someone for who the inner meeting of 'Bodh' (realization) and 'Sattva' (Truth) has happened. Each one of us carries this potentiality, no special human being is only destined for it.

To apply for joining our meditation community, please write me an email introducing yourself, your interest in the community and what can you give back to the community.

Join me in a 30 min meditation session every day at 7 AM CET on my website.

Transcript

Namaste sannyasa family and everyone.

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

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

Let us begin the session by a question from a meditator of our sannyasa family.

The first question,

Are you a bodhisattva?

Am I a bodhisattva?

Is the question.

It happened once in China.

One emperor,

Thousands of years ago,

One emperor,

He gave his prime minister a death penalty.

He was irritated by something that the minister said and he gave him a death penalty.

It can happen in China.

If you see if a person like even Jack Ma today says something,

For a few months he disappears.

And this is today.

And I am talking about thousands of years ago.

This emperor gave his prime minister a death penalty.

On the day of this penalty,

The emperor came to visit to see this entire death ceremony.

He saw that the prime minister was standing with this death robe next to him in any minute the penalty would be executed and the prime minister will be dead.

And he saw that the prime minister started crying.

He started weeping,

Tears came out of his eyes just as he saw the king,

The emperor.

The emperor was really shocked to see.

He said to the prime minister,

You were my greatest warrior before.

You could not cry for death.

This I cannot believe that you are crying for death.

So that cannot be the reason why you are crying.

Tell me why you are crying.

Is there something that I can fulfill for you?

Any wish that is left which is making you cry?

Death cannot be the reason why you are crying.

You were my greatest warrior.

Prime minister said,

Yes,

I am not crying for my death.

Death may come today,

Death may come tomorrow,

It does not matter.

I am not crying for death.

I am crying for the horse,

The horse that you came here upon.

That horse,

I am crying for that horse.

The emperor was a little confused,

Surprised to hear the answer.

He said,

The horse?

You are crying for the horse?

Why are you crying for the horse?

Tell me.

The prime minister,

He replied,

He said,

The horse that you used to come here,

Your new horse,

This is a very special kind of horse.

This horse is one of those special kinds that can fly.

And if I am dying,

I will keep this ancient secret with me and I will die with that secret how to teach that horse to fly once again.

I have to teach that horse,

That ancient secret that I have with me how to fly and then this horse can fly.

So I am crying because this secret will be dead and your horse will never be able to fly.

The king,

He was puzzled,

He was taken aback but also very excited of the idea that his horse,

His new special horse can fly.

He immediately changed his mind.

He said,

Look,

I give you one year.

You teach this horse to fly your ancient secret.

If you can do that,

If this horse starts flying,

I will take away your death penalty.

I will give you half of my kingdom and you can live as a free,

Respectful man for the rest of your life.

But if you are unable to do that,

Your death will be even a more torturous death after one year.

The prime minister agreed to that.

He said,

Yes,

Okay,

I will teach your horse to fly.

I will teach this ancient secret to the horse.

And he was released.

He went back home.

The same afternoon he took the horse with him.

He went back home.

He saw his wife was crying.

The moment she saw the prime minister,

She was immediately,

She was relieved but also shocked and surprised.

And the prime minister told her the whole story,

To which she said,

Do you really know that ancient secret?

Does the horse can really fly?

He said to his wife,

He said,

Let me tell you another secret.

In this one year,

Who knows if the king may die?

Who knows if the horse may die?

Who knows if the horse actually learns to fly?

To your question,

Am I Bodhisattva?

Who knows?

I know myself.

I know this ancient secret that the horse can fly.

Who knows am I Bodhisattva or not?

But see if you go by the definitions,

If you go by the interpretations of a Bodhisattva,

If you come across these interpretations in the traditions,

All Bodhisattvas are trying for the horse to also fly.

They say Bodhisattvas,

No enlightenment,

No nirvana,

But they have delayed their nirvana.

They have delayed their enlightenment in compassion for the suffering of the world.

They're all also attempting for the horse to fly.

Who knows if I am Bodhisattva?

Who knows if the horse would fly?

Who knows what all Bodhisattvas are trying to do?

And there are many more interpretations of Bodhisattvas.

I don't want to take the burden of those interpretations of the responsibility of all those interpretations of the Bodhisattva.

I know myself.

I know that ancient secret of the horse to fly.

And if you see this word Bodhisattva,

In Sanskrit,

Every word is so deeply containing its meaning that you don't need any interpretations,

You don't need any religion,

Anyone else to tell you what the word really means.

The word is,

The essence of it is contained in the word.

Sanskrit is such a beautiful language.

Bodhisattva.

Try to understand what is a Bodhisattva.

Bodhisattva.

Two words.

Bod and sattva.

Bodhisattva is the sattva,

The essence,

The truth.

This essence,

This truth that is there in all of us.

The sattva.

And the second word,

Bodh,

The realization.

The knowing,

The knowing that is beyond the mind,

The knowing that is beyond the perception,

The knowing that is beyond all interpretations.

Bodh,

The realization.

This arises out of the knowing.

It is not knowledge,

It is knowing.

So when you put these two words together,

Bodhisattva,

The knowing or the realization of the truth,

Of the essence.

This much has happened in my life.

The knowing of this sattva,

The knowing of this essence,

The realization of this essence.

See that this knowing is not of the mind.

This knowing,

There is a difference between bodh and jnana.

These are also two words used interchangeably many times.

Bodh is knowing the realization.

Jnana is the knowledge.

As you are going through traditions,

As you are going through religions,

As you are going through all these spiritual wisdom,

You will come across a lot of jnana.

You will come across a lot of knowledge.

This knowledge is interpretation.

But bodh is something that is far deeper,

That is something far belonging to your depths.

It has no jnana in it.

It has only bodh,

The realization in it.

It may surface to the mind and become the jnana and that jnana is further,

It is further imparted as teachings to the rest,

As a compassion for the sufferings that everyone is going through.

But it starts with bodh.

It starts with realization.

See that this attempt here in these sessions is to not give you any jnana,

To not give you any teaching,

But rather to bring you to bodha.

Because sattva you always have in you.

All of us have sattva in us.

All of us have the truth in our depths.

What is needed is the meeting of bodha,

Of realization and the truth.

That meeting has to happen in you as well.

That meeting has happened in all bodhisattvas.

The meeting is a possibility in all of us.

There is no special person that is destined to be a bodhisattva.

As you see there is a list in the buddhist religion,

In the tradition where there are calculations done,

There are predictions done,

Who is going to be the next bodhisattva,

Who is going to be the next this or that and a list is created.

Conclusions are made about locations,

About characteristics of that person becoming a bodhisattva.

To you I say,

All of us,

Each one of us carries that potentiality of being a bodhisattva.

Because this bodhisattva is just the meeting of bodh and sattva.

The realization,

This knowing,

This deep knowing of the truth,

Of the essence,

That is there in you.

If the truth was not there in you,

Then it would be a different story.

But truth does not belong to the divine only.

The truth also belongs to the human.

This you must understand and keep this in your depths,

In your contemplations,

That you have the truth in you.

What needs to happen is this meeting of the knowing,

Which is not of the mind,

Which is not of the interpretations,

Which is not of the senses,

Which is not of the perception,

But something far more deeper.

This knowledge,

Jnana,

This is finite,

But this knowing is infinite.

This jnana,

This knowledge about everything,

The teachings are all on the surface,

Are all of the mind,

Maybe some of them of the heart.

But this bodha,

This realization is infinite,

Is so deep that there is no end to it.

And as you go into this realization,

As you go deep in your depths,

In silence,

Because this bodha only happens in silence.

Jnana may happen in action,

Jnana may happen in the outside,

But bodha only happens in inaction,

In absolute stillness,

In absolute silence.

As you go deep in your silence,

In this infinite depths,

In the abyss,

Which has no boundary,

Which has no bottom,

As you sink deep in your silence,

You come to a point where the truth and the silence meet,

Where the consciousness and the energy meets.

And that meeting is bodhisattva,

Which is a potentiality in all of us.

This is the attempt of all these sessions to take you to those depths of silence where you can meet the truth,

Where once again the truth and the silence are together.

Once again the consciousness and the energies meet,

And there is no duality left in you.

There is not even bodhisattva as two words left in you,

And only something,

Something that is one,

It arises in you,

Which is neither bodh nor sattva nor bodhisattva,

Something that is even far beyond that bodhisattva.

But this journey we all have to take through these sessions,

Through our own silence.

Let us hear what Bhairava has to say in helping us to go through these depths,

To touch these depths of silence so that we can realize the truth ourselves.

Bhairava in Vidyānbhairavtantra says,

Standing above a deep hole or well and looking steadily downward into the abyss,

The mind becomes entirely free of vikalpa and dissolution immediately manifests.

Let me repeat,

Standing above a deep hole or well and looking steadily downward into the abyss,

The mind becomes entirely free of vikalpa and dissolution immediately manifests.

Here Bhairava is encouraging you to be in this bodha,

To be in this realization,

To sink deep in your silence.

Just the way when you look at a well,

When you look at a well from the top,

You cannot see the depth and as you look at the well,

He says standing above a deep hole or a well,

Looking steadily,

Your awareness is in function,

Not your mind,

Not your thoughts.

As you look into the well,

As you look into the depths,

You suddenly are out of the mind because there is nothing to perceive in that depth,

In that emptiness.

There is no perception,

There is no sense,

Only your awareness that flows along this whole depth and takes you to where the truth flows.

So what to do in meditation?

How to practice this as a technique?

As you sit in silence,

Remind yourself of the depths that you have.

You are so infinitely deep and you are always living on the surface.

The mind is just on the surface and you have such infinite depths in you.

Remind yourself of those depths that will help you to leave the surface and sink deep in your silence.

Beyond the perception,

Let go of all the perceptions,

Whatever you are seeing,

Hearing,

Smelling,

Touching,

Anything that is coming from the sense perceptions,

Anything that is coming from your imagination,

Anything that is coming from your mind,

For a few moments let that surface be at the surface and you sink deep in your silence,

In your awareness to the depths which are infinite,

Not stopping anywhere,

Not waiting for the truth to arise.

Let yourself sink in those depths of silence with awareness.

For the next minutes,

Let us practice these infinite depths of silence within us.

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

Allowing your body to rest.

Your body alert yet relaxed,

Allowing your awareness to turn inwards and move towards new depths.

Preview Cell.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Your energies pointing at your depths.

The infinite depth mu.

.

.

.

The depth of your silence.

Move with awareness.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

No thought.

No interpretation.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

Reviews

The new definition of Bodhisattva gave me more power to go and dig deeper. Gratitude 🙏🏼

Thank you! Excellent!

Thank you for this further enlightenment along this fascinating journey you are taking your meditators upon.