Today we are doing a reading from the Radiant Sutras,
This beautiful book by Lauren Roche.
Today we're doing verse 26 on page 61.
So I'll read the verse and then we'll have a conversation about it,
Looking at what it means and looking at some other translations.
And then we will do a meditation and then I will read it again in Sanskrit and in English.
So one of the foundations of Tantra is that we are both divine,
Eternal,
Infinite,
Whatever these impossible words to understand mean,
And we are physical.
We really are this personality,
We were born to these parents,
We were born to this world,
This society.
So we really are living this physical world.
And one of the things that makes Tantra very different than many practices is that it's actually about merging the divine and the physical.
It's almost like,
You know,
As we walk down the street and we smell the roses or we see a puppy,
Or if it's raining or whatever is happening,
We have this eternal presence inside while we're experiencing it.
And we're not distant from it,
We're not like aloofly observing it.
We're actually still fully experiencing everything,
But we have this deep consciousness inside of us that we are actually visitors here,
Like we really are divine beings,
Enjoying,
Experiencing,
Suffering,
Whatever it is we're doing.
And that creates a really different inner peace,
No matter what's going on,
And a much greater enjoyment and bliss.
So when we listen to the Sutra today,
The idea is to listen with that eternal self,
To just close our eyes and connect with that part of us that maybe we don't have a chance to really connect with a lot,
And feel that wonderful oneness that's within all of us.
Let's just sit comfortably,
Lie comfortably if you are tucked into bed in Australia or Japan or wherever you are in the world,
And let's just breathe deeply.
Just allow your breath to calm down the nervous system.
It's our thoughts that keep us locked in the physical only.
Nothing wrong with the physical,
But the thoughts create boxes and limitations.
So we want to breathe deeply and just calm those systems.
The one who is at play everywhere says,
There is a space in the heart where everything meets.
Come here if you want to find me.
Mind,
Senses,
Soul,
Eternity,
All are here.
Are you here?
Enter the bowl of vastness that is the heart.
Listen to the song that is always resonating.
Give yourself to it with total abandon.
Quiet ecstasy is here,
And a steady,
Regal sense of resting in a perfect spot.
You,
Who are the embodiment of blessing,
Once you know the way,
The nature of attention will call you to return.
Again and again,
Answer that call and be saturated with knowing,
I belong here.
I am at home.
What resonates with you there?
What feelings rise or what words float through your mind?
Awareness.
Once you know the way is truth,
I smile with the knowing,
Letting go.
Heart chakra,
Surrender.
Permission to release.
Let go and play.
No matter what happens around me,
I always have my place of serenity inside.
Joy in everything you do.
We are our own safe place inside of us.
So,
It's really interesting because the heart center that they're speaking of,
It's not our physical heart.
They're talking about this area above the diaphragm.
That's not even just a point where we imagine maybe the heart chakra is here.
Imagine it's bigger.
Imagine it's the whole area inside your chest above your diaphragm.
And this heart center,
I want to just read this,
It says,
In the center of this etheric heart resides chit.
You would spell that C-I-T.
The consciousness that is always a subject and never an object.
This center is the essential self of man.
And microcosmically,
The center of all manifestation.
So this center,
This heart area,
It is the center of our consciousness.
And what's really interesting is when they say that it is only ever a subject,
Not an object.
So when you think of grammar,
That I kicked the ball,
I is the subject,
The ball is an object.
I love you.
I am the subject.
You are the object.
Imagine that this heart center is always subject.
It's not that my heart is broken.
My heart sees the world.
Everything from here,
Imagine every time we think about our heart center,
It is a subject.
It is I.
That's very mind-blowing to me.
That really turns a lot of things on its head.
In the Hindu belief system,
There is Brahman,
Which is all oneness,
God,
Consciousness that is all around us manifest.
Brahman is here in the heart area.
This is our personalized divinity.
This is divinity experiencing the world through us.
And the divinity is us.
It's not like an external consciousness living within our body,
Going for a ride.
It is our own divine self experiencing the world in this heart center.
They talk about a word called Samputta.
Samputta means a hemispheric bowl.
It means the sound between two hemispheres,
Two bowls.
What's really interesting about that is that one of the phrases in there,
They talk about the sound.
Enter the bowl of vastness that is the heart.
Listen to the song that is always resonating.
We've done some previous sutra study about this.
This chakra is called Anahat,
Which means unstruck chord.
What that means is most times when we make sound,
We're striking a chord.
We're plucking a string.
When I'm speaking,
I'm resonating my vocal cords.
I'm making sound.
The sound that is in Anahat is the sound of the universe before you pluck the string,
Before you beat the drum,
That there is always sound.
And when we understand that sound is vibration,
There is always vibration.
There is always energy.
And we can imagine it any way we want.
We think about it in terms of sound.
But again,
Imagine it's just vibration.
Here on this earth,
We are created in a way or we manifest in a way that we experience the vibrations of this world,
Of this creation,
Through our five senses and perhaps more senses,
But we'll keep it simple.
When there's a vibration out there,
We can hear it.
The vibration comes into our ear,
And that vibration resonates with our brain,
And we go,
Ah,
Dog barking.
Ah,
The fridge is humming.
Maybe the light vibrations come into my eyes,
And that vibration is then interpreted,
That ah,
Computer,
Ah,
Friend.
Or the vibrations,
The food goes in,
And that energy goes down,
And we taste it.
Or we feel the vibrations on our skin.
Because when you really realize that this is just energy,
The skin that we feel is energy.
And so when I run my hand along the top of my hand,
I am stroking atoms.
I am stroking charged particles.
And as I stroke it,
The energy is vibrating into my nervous system,
And my nerves are then vibrating,
And that's interpreting to my brain,
Ah-ha,
I am feeling fingers on my hand.
But the vibration is already there.
And so that's what we're listening to.
And if you imagine sitting quietly,
And we'll do this in our meditation,
And we feel this beautiful heart center,
And again,
Feel it whatever size feels right for you.
We often just picture the chakra like almost the size of the width of the spine.
But imagine it's greater,
Like allow your intuition to create it at the size that it is for you.
And imagine within that anahat,
It's like the portal to hear what they call the primordial sound.
And the point of this sutra is that when we focus on that primordial sound in the heart chakra,
We will experience bliss.
I want to read another translation of it to you.
This is a literal translation of the sutra.
O embodiment of good fortune,
One who contemplates with closed eyes and one-pointed concentration on the mantra in the middle of the lotus in the heart space achieves the highest spiritual realization.
O embodiment of good fortune,
One who contemplates with closed eyes and one-pointed concentration on the mantra in the middle of the lotus in the heart space achieves the highest spiritual realization.
I think of deep listening.
Another interesting example of this,
And this word samputta,
Which apparently they talk about this in terms of intimacy,
That if you imagine,
Even if you are with another person,
And imagine you are like this bowl.
So you are this bowl,
Like a singing bowl,
And they are a singing bowl.
But imagine the bowls are facing each other,
Like the open ends are facing each other,
And you start to make the bowls sing.
That vibration starts to resonate between the bowls,
And there is a palpable energy between you.
And so they talk about this within us,
Because tantra,
As much as we can apply it to intimacy and relationships,
It is always within us.
We can't experience it with someone else if we can't experience it within ourselves and the universe.
So if you imagine Shiva and Shakti.
Shiva is the masculine energy consciousness.
Shakti is the feminine incarnate manifestation physical.
So every one of us here,
Regardless of gender,
Are manifest Shakti,
Because we are the manifest feminine.
And they would talk about how if you imagine them as a whole,
Shiva-Shakti,
Masculine-feminine oneness,
That the way the story goes is they wanted to experience this world.
So Shakti and Shiva separated,
And Shakti descended into form,
And Shiva stayed in consciousness above.
So Shiva kind of lives at the crown chakra and above,
And everything else is the manifestation of Shakti.
So the dance,
The tantric dance,
Is the dance of Shiva and Shakti within ourselves,
The dance between our consciousness,
Our awareness,
And our physical manifestation.
And there is a tension,
There is an energy between those things as we walk through our lives.
And of course you can obviously feel it if you're doing something pleasurable,
Or if you're making love,
Or you're cooking,
Or you're painting,
Or something.
You can feel this beautiful inspiration coming in and releasing,
And inspiration coming in and releasing.
And you kind of ride this beautiful bliss state,
This beautiful vibration between the incoming and the creation.
But we can do it all the time ourselves.
So even in meditation,
That we feel this consciousness,
This energy,
This Shiva energy,
Always flowing through us,
Always nourishing us,
Always enlivening us,
Enlivening us.
It's very,
Very beautiful.
And many of you guys mentioned this.
How do we experience this?
How do we experience this vibration?
How do you experience this energy in this heart chakra?
How do you do that?
Well,
It's through joy.
It's weird that joy has been relegated to something light and,
Well,
It is light,
But something unimportant.
Like,
Oh,
Well,
You can't just follow joy,
Otherwise,
You know,
No one's going to pay the bills,
You know.
But joy is one of the highest states of consciousness.
Like to really live your life from a state of joy,
That's a whole other world.
You know,
Last week we did a talk all about living life as art.
That's what that is.
That's like every day I sit down and I'm like,
What would bring me joy today?
And sure,
Maybe we have to work an eight-hour day or a ten-hour day or something like that,
But what would bring me joy within that?
And to constantly be striving for this joy space and not bypassing or anything like that,
But just actually what would genuinely make me happy?
And you can literally feel the heart space wake up.
Like I'm going to do this,
And the heart space opens.
It's such a curious thing that the spiritual paths have become about discipline,
Must do this,
Must do that,
When really the fast track to really experiencing this is just doing things that bring us joy.
Check out the Shakti Coloring Book by Ekabumi Charles Alec.
I'm like,
Oh,
That sounds amazing.
Like listening with our entire un-selves,
Not-self.
So let's do a meditation.
So wherever you are,
Find a comfortable seated position,
Unless it's midnight where you are and you want to lay down.
All right.
You guys ready?
Lying in bed,
Sitting up,
Lying on the floor,
Whatever you'd like.
It's all good.
But one thing I will say for the meditation,
Make sure you're really comfortable.
If you're sitting on the floor cross-legged,
Make sure you have enough pillows so that you're not feeling your body.
Or if you're sitting on a chair,
Really make it comfortable,
Not comfortable like you're resting,
But comfortable that you are here.
The actual meaning of the word asana is comfortable seat.
That's actually what it means.
When we are alive here on earth,
We should always have a comfortable seat.
Because imagine even if right now we're going to meditate and we have an idea in our head that I want to be able to sit cross-legged because that's how yogis do it,
But your knees are hurting and your back is hurting.
You can't meditate.
And now imagine this in life because everything we do when we practice yoga or meditation exactly mirrors our life.
That's why it's so powerful because we can do the yoga,
We can do the meditation in a closed container without externals,
And we get to watch ourselves.
We get to watch our consciousness.
So if we're sitting to meditate and we're actually intentionally sitting in an uncomfortable position because we think this is better or more enlightened or something,
We're doing that all day long.
We are actually taking uncomfortable asana all day long.
We're putting ourselves in positions that are uncomfortable.
We're doing things we don't want to really be doing.
So the practice of asana is to find a comfortable seat no matter what you're doing.
That's what it really means in life.
So whatever we're doing right now,
Find a really comfortable position.
So let's sit nice and tall or lie down comfortably.
And let's just focus on our breath,
Expanding the belly as we inhale,
Contracting as we exhale,
And expanding the belly and the ribs as you inhale,
Contracting as you exhale,
And then expanding the belly,
The ribs,
The upper chest as you inhale,
Contracting as you exhale.
Now as you breathe,
Feel this expansion with the inhale and contraction,
But focus on this beautiful heart space.
The diaphragm is beneath it.
The ribs surround it.
The collarbone is on top.
As you inhale,
Imagine that you are expanding and contracting the energy around this heart space.
Let all your focus be in that heart space.
If any other thoughts come in,
Let them go by and come back to that heart space.
Maybe even feel that heart space blur out into the ribs,
Into the body.
With your breath,
Focusing on your breath and the heart space,
Find the center of the heart space.
Intuitively know where it is and allow yourself to focus on it like a dot in the center of a yantra or a mandala.
Allow your inner eye to gaze at that dot right in the center.
Allow that dot to gently expand into a portal.
Beyond and through the portal is our infinite world,
All the potential of the universe,
Love,
Joy.
Allow yourself to release anything that feels like a shackle or something holding you back.
Continuing to feel that heart expanding with every inhale and gently pulsing with the exhale.
Allow yourself to lose yourself in that space.
Hridayah kashay nilina aksha padma samputta madhyagah ananya chitta subhag param sao bhagyam apnayat.
The one who is at play everywhere says,
There is a space in the heart where everything meets.
Come here if you want to find me.
Mind,
Senses,
Soul,
Eternity,
All are here.
Are you here?
Enter the bowl of vastness that is the heart.
Listen to the song that is always resonating.
Give yourself to it with total abandon.
Quiet ecstasy is here and a steady,
Regal sense of resting in a perfect spot.
You who are the embodiment of blessing,
Once you know the way,
The nature of attention will call you to return.
Again and again,
Answer that call and be saturated with knowing,
I belong here.
I am at home.
Hridayah kashay nilina aksha padma samputta madhyagah ananya chitta subhagyam param sao bhagyam apnayat.
There is a space in the heart where everything meets.
Come here if you want to find me.
Mind,
Senses,
Soul,
Eternity,
All are here.
Are you here?
Enter the bowl of vastness that is the heart.
Listen to the song that is always resonating.
Give yourself to it with total abandon.
Quiet ecstasy is here and a steady,
Regal sense of resting in a perfect spot.
You who are the embodiment of blessing,
Once you know the way,
The nature of attention will call you to return.
Again and again,
Answer that call and be saturated with knowing,
I belong here.
I am at home.
What rolls through your mind,
The potential we have inside of us?
I also love that it says,
Again and again,
Answer that call.
That if we get lost and we forget,
We just come back again,
Over and over again.
The heart,
The well of everything in everyone,
Trying to fill that bowl with joy,
The things that call me,
And activates those bliss vibrations.
Well,
Thank you guys so much for being here.
I will see you soon.
So wonderful.
