A Living Body of Vastness: Radiance Sutras Verse 22

During this session, we discuss Verse 22 of the Yukti Verses from the 'Radiance Sutras, a translation of the Vijanana Bhairava Tantra by Lorin Loche. A meditation follows our discussion. These sessions are recorded on a weekly basis and all are welcome.

Transcript

So today we are reading from the Radiant Sutras.

This is a beautiful translation of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra by Lauren Roche.

This really super cool guy in California who created this wonderful poetic understanding of it so that we can really hear the message of the sutras.

I use a couple of other books.

This one is called the Sri Vijnana Bhairava Tantra,

The Ascent.

And it's very interesting.

It's very different.

It's very literal.

And I'll read you the translation in there too.

And this one also is another one I use,

Called the Vijnana Bhairava or Divine Consciousness by Jaideva Singh.

And it also is again,

They're sort of in degrees of density or difficulty.

The Radiant Sutras is the lightest.

It's easier for our Western minds to understand.

And then the Sri Vijnana,

This goes into a bit more detail into the actual application of tantra.

And then this one,

The Vijnana Bhairava is quite dense,

But there's always some a little interesting gem in each one.

So today we're reading Sutra 22 on page 57.

And you don't have to have the book if you do have the book,

Awesome.

But even if you do have the book,

I highly recommend just allowing your soul to listen and just seeing what else we know.

All right.

So I'm going to read this out loud.

I'm going to read it twice.

So let's just close our eyes,

Breathe deeply.

And let's let our heart listen to the Sutra.

Behind the spine is infinity.

Below the perineum,

Invisible pulsating roots open downward into space.

The heart is wide as a spiral galaxy.

Steadily consider back root heart and know the living body of vastness that you are.

What words repeat in your mind or what feelings rise when you hear that?

Back root heart,

Vastness that you are.

Spinning infinity,

Living vastness.

I am connected to infinity and to this earth,

Infinite possibilities.

And my heart is my guide.

Multidimensional reality,

The living body of vastness.

The heart is wide as a spiral galaxy.

I am my own universe.

So beautiful.

Our spine is the route to infinity.

Now go without concern into the world.

Thank you.

I think of the sitting Buddha and Kuan Yin and also Ku or back in Hawaiian.

And it also means strength.

I also think of the spinal fluid and consciousness.

That will integrate into our discussion today.

Thank you.

I am more than I feel.

Vastness of the living body.

Vastness of the layers of our auras.

I'm going to read a literal translation of this.

By steady contemplation on the void of the back,

The shishumna,

The void of the root,

And the void of the heart simultaneously,

There arises the state of nirvikalpa,

Which is free from thought constructs.

I'm just going to say that again.

By steady contemplation on the void of the back,

The void of the root,

And the void of the heart simultaneously,

There arises the state of nirvikalpa,

Which is free from thought constructs.

So it's really interesting.

I want to talk about a few things.

One,

In last week's talk,

We talked about the void in the back and the void in the root.

So the perineum that they talk about in the Radiant Sutras,

That's the space between your sexual organs and your anus.

So this is the seat of the root chakra.

And that's where they're talking about the root.

What's really interesting is in this book,

The Vijnana Bhairava,

The Divine Consciousness,

They don't talk about the back.

He says,

In him who firmly contemplates over the void above,

The void at the base,

And the void in the heart,

There arises at the same time,

Because of him being free of all vikalpas,

Which are thought constructs,

The state of Shiva,

Who is above all vikalpas.

That was really interesting to me that in that translation,

They talked about the void above,

Not the back.

And that's really strange,

Because in the actual Sanskrit,

It's pristha shunyam.

And pristha means back.

For all intents and purposes,

Like no matter how much research I did,

It always means the back,

Sometimes even the literal back.

But it can even mean the back of a chair,

Like it always means the back.

And it's interesting,

BD,

When you said that in Hawaiian,

It means strength,

And cerebral fluid and consciousness when you think of that.

And I really sat with that for a while.

And I thought,

Isn't it interesting when you think of the back of the chakras?

Because very often when you study the chakras,

You there's the front and the back.

And the front is how we give out to the world.

And through the back of the chakras is how we receive.

So for example,

In the heart chakra,

We give love outward from the front,

But we receive love from the back,

From the universe,

From consciousness from God.

And it's the same with all the chakras.

In the third chakra,

It's about who we are.

So we share that out through the front,

But we receive that strength and that insight from the back.

So what they say here is to focus on the void in the back.

Now the void here is shunya.

So shunya is not nothingness.

This is this curious confusion that we have in the Western mind,

Because we focus on the manifest,

We focus on what is.

And if I was to say nothingness,

We assume it's nothing,

That it's the lack of something.

But the void isn't lacking anything.

The void is everything.

The void is infinity.

The void is all potential.

The fact that something manifests once in a while,

It comes out of the void,

But the void is always there.

So if you imagine this void in the back,

It almost feels like it could be above the head as well.

It's the energy that's coming into us.

It's the void that we're a part of.

But it's a blissful thing,

You know,

That we navigate the void.

So I love ecstatic dance.

And one woman I used to study under,

Her name is Toni Bergens,

And she developed Journey Dance,

And I highly recommend it.

It's so beautiful.

And we became friends,

Like I studied with her quite a bit.

And one of the exercises she would do is,

So you'd be dancing,

Right?

And you're ecstatic dancing,

And you're in a room full of people,

And everyone's dancing.

And she would say,

Okay,

Now open your eyes and dance into the spaces in between everybody.

And that's what we would do.

So you would be dancing,

And then you'd see a space,

And you'd dive into that space and dance there.

And then you dive into another space,

And then dive into another space.

And the movement in the room became so interesting.

You just kept kind of moving into the spaces.

Can you imagine if we navigated our lives like that?

How often do we navigate from thing to thing,

From thought to thought,

From opportunity to opportunity?

But what about what's in between?

Like even we might have a to-do list today.

We might have a schedule of things that we're going to do.

But what if we dove into the in-between spaces and allowed them to nourish us?

You know,

So even right now,

To contemplate the back,

Your back,

And feel a void there of openness,

Of vastness,

Of infinity tingling all along the back of your spine.

And then to imagine your root chakra,

The perineum,

Where you're sitting right now.

And very often we think of the ground as being solid,

But really the earth is energy.

Every single solid thing we see is energy vibrating,

Being held close together by magnetism,

Appearing solid.

So even below us,

Below our root chakra,

We are sitting on vibrating energy,

Whether it's a chair,

Whether it's the floor,

Whether it's the earth.

So there is a vastness,

A void below us as well.

And then if you imagine the heart,

They often say,

You know,

It's interesting we talk about the upper and lower triangles of the chakras.

The upper triangle being the crown chakra,

The crown chakra at the top,

And then the third eye,

The sixth chakra,

And then the fifth chakra,

Our voice,

As we share what we hear.

And this is the upper triangle.

The lower triangle,

The first chakra is the base,

How we connect into the community or nature.

Second chakra,

How we interact with each other.

Third chakra,

Who we are.

So that's our incarnation on earth in the lower chakra.

Our upper chakras are our divine self.

And in the center is the heart chakra.

And in Sanskrit,

It's anahat,

Unstruck chord,

The void,

The sound of the universe,

The sound of the void,

The sound of where we come from.

So when we can embrace the void in our heart chakra,

And I think someone said it in the chat,

Spirals,

Spiraling energy,

The galaxy that we are inside of us,

All in the heart chakra.

This is what allows us to bring that divine inspiration from the upper triangle into the lower triangle,

And then bring our experience in the lower triangle up and allow this to flow.

But it all comes from this openness in the heart chakra.

It's just pure love,

Pure kindness.

We don't actually have our heart broken.

We have blocks in the second chakra out of fear and disappointment.

We have confusion in the third.

We can feel lost in the first,

But our heart chakra is divine.

We always have love in there.

We can feel it,

But we have to receive it from the back.

We just share it with others out at the front.

It's very interesting to think about the void in the back,

The void in the root,

The void in the heart,

And we're going to do a meditation where we'll look at that.

But the last thing I want to look at is one of the words that they use here is Nirva Kalpa.

Nirva Kalpa,

This is the goal.

What it means is to,

One translation is to be free of thought forms.

But it's really interesting.

If you break down the word,

Nir,

N-I-R,

Nir means without or beyond.

Vi,

V-I means apart from.

And Kalpa means order,

Beyond or apart from order.

So one of the translations using that was the processes of the mind that are wordless with no thought form or discursive thought.

So now imagine this in our mind.

We're aware of all the thought forms.

These are the things that really keep us focused.

And these are the things that allow argument in our mind.

These are the things that allow doubt in our mind.

So instead,

Imagine the wordless spaces in our mind,

The emptiness,

The void.

And this is the goal.

Because if we can focus on the void in the back,

At the root,

And in the heart,

We can feel the emptiness in our mind also.

In Advaita Vedanta,

Which is another beautiful philosophy,

This is what they say.

Nirvikalpa means the intellect no longer has opposing thoughts regarding the nature of I.

I'll say that again.

Nirvikalpa means the intellect no longer has opposing thoughts or doubts regarding the nature of I.

So this is a permanent understanding of one's nature.

So you imagine sitting still,

Feeling the essence of who you are,

But we find it in the spaces in between the thoughts,

The void in our heart,

The void at our back,

At our root.

This is the essence of who we really are.

Everything else is just a thought form,

A creation.

Form comes out of essence,

But the essence is in the void.

Well,

Let's sit.

Let's meditate.

And what we're going to do is we're going to meditate.

I'll lead you through it,

And then I'm going to read the passage in Sanskrit,

And then in English.

The back of the heart is where we pull in love.

It's interesting too,

Christine,

The idea of pulling in love.

It's true.

And the other part is imagining being a receiver of love,

That there's always love at our back flowing into us.

You know,

It's like there's a Ramakrishna saying,

Quote,

That goes,

The winds of God are always blowing.

We just have to raise our sails.

It's like that.

There's always love flowing in.

We just have to open up.

We just have to open the back of our heart.

And that's a big deal.

That's a really beautiful meditation to release whatever is blocking that.

All right,

Let's close our eyes.

Let's close our eyes.

Let's breathe deeply.

And let's visualize everyone here in a circle,

All sitting in a circle to do this meditation together.

And if you're hurting right now,

Then scoot into the center of the circle.

Visualize everyone here sitting around you,

And you sit in the center.

And you can lie down.

You can do the meditation with us.

You can do anything you want in your mind's eye.

But allow yourself to be in the center of the circle.

So let's sit nice and tall and breathe deeply,

Relaxing your shoulders down the back,

Feeling your root connected with the earth.

Press your sit bones down,

Let your spine rise tall,

Crown of the head to the ceiling.

Let your hands rest in your lap.

Interlace your fingers and let your thumb tips touch together.

And let's just breathe deeply,

Expanding the belly as we inhale,

Contracting as we exhale.

Feel the belly expand as you inhale and contract.

On the next inhale,

Feel the belly expand and the ribs expand,

Releasing as you exhale.

On your next inhale,

Feel the belly expand,

The ribs expand and the upper chest expand and releasing.

And allow all of your breaths to be this three part breath,

Belly,

Ribs,

Chest.

And allow your attention to go anywhere in your body that feels uncomfortable or painful or has any sensation at all of warmth or coolness.

Allow all of your attention to go there.

Breathe into the discomfort.

Be aware of where it is in your body.

And allow your attention to flow somewhere else in your body that might feel uncomfortable.

Breathing deeply and allow yourself to feel like a tree with a thick trunk with roots flowing down into the earth and feel the stillness of the earth.

Feel the energy of the earth flowing up into your body and then visualize the atoms that make up the earth beneath you.

The roots of the tree,

The soil particles and see each atom as a galaxy of space and stars orbiting energy and feel this beautiful void,

Vastness,

Infinity below you.

Feel it vibrating at your root.

Feel it filling your body and then feel a beautiful cushion of emptiness behind your back,

Almost like a plush,

Comfy couch or a chair that we can float in.

Feel it holding us and feeding us.

Feel it nourishing every chakra and then bring your attention to your heart.

Feel this beautiful heart center,

A spiraling galaxy of emptiness,

Of love.

Now let's focus on all three together.

The void beneath us,

The void at our back and the void in our heart.

Breathe deeply while you focus on these three voids.

Feel your body rest in your breath.

Rijshunyam bhavayet stheram yuga pat nirvakalpa tvat nirvakalpa udhyatatta Behind the spine is infinity.

Below the perineum invisible pulsating roots open downward into space.

The heart is wide as a spiral galaxy.

Steadily consider back,

Root,

Heart and know the living body of vastness that you are.

And in our circle in our mind,

Let's gently move towards the center,

Holding hands,

Arms around each other,

Around the people in the center.

Let's just breathe deeply,

Feel this beautiful infinity that we are floating in and nourished by.

Let's take a deep breath in together and exhale.

Another deep breath in together and exhale.

One last time,

Deep breath in and exhale.

And let's gently open our eyes.

Well thank you guys so much for joining me today and we'll see you soon.

Reviews

Beautiful and healing ❤️‍🩹 Today I will feel space and steadiness in my breath and body.

My heart wide open,& yet connected within❣️
Thank you so kindly for your teachings, offerings, love, & guidance❣️♾️☮️☯️⚛️⚘️☄️🖤🥀💫Namaste 🙏🏼✨️✨️✨️much love

I love these discussions, so many gems - the spaces & voids I feel so many possibilities & much nurturing love in these spaces, when I get out of my own way.. 🌸
I can see a large group of ppl dancing into the spaces that you mentioned, I’d love to experience that- one big living moving entity it feels like it would be 💃

What a beautiful verse! Vastness, void, beneath, behind and within. Ecstatic danse with infinity. Twirling heart. Extensive roots. Going between the thoughts, where there is no argument. Cultivating a relationship with self without opposing thoughts. Something I can transpose into my relationship with my son, my business partner, my employees, my friends, my lovers and perhaps a future romantic partner. I love how it always comes back to the same truth. Through meditation, yoga, ecstatic danse, a nature walk, focusing on breathe, sound, sensation. Thank you Katrina for sharing this ancient poetry about what is, what has always been.