Beyond Bondage And Liberation: Radiance Sutras Verse 112

During this session, we discuss Verse 112 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 every week, and all are welcome.

Transcript

Today we are reading from the Radiant Sutras.

This is a beautiful book written by Lauren Roche and it is an interpretation,

A translation of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra.

Today we're reading 112,

Which in some ways is the last verse of the official Yukti verses they call them.

But there are more so we're going to continue on.

They call them the insight verses and so we're going to continue with those.

So if this is you know one of your first Radiant Sutras,

The previous 111 verses all talked about all the different aspects of life.

The ups,

The downs,

Our perceptions,

Visions of divinity,

Oneness,

The struggles in life,

The bondage,

All that stuff.

And the beautiful thing about this book is you can dive in anywhere,

Read a sutra,

Or even if you go onto the playlist here called Radiant Sutras,

You could just pick a talk and just dive into it.

You don't have to do it sequentially.

It's interesting when you do it sequentially because they do build on each other but you don't have to.

You can just open it up like a hukam and you just read it and you just assume that this is what I meant to hear today.

And so today's verse is a little bit like a summary of the whole journey.

So if it seems a little bit pie in the sky or whatever it's just because it's sort of the end of a long journey.

But at the same time it may be exactly what you need to hear today because everybody's on a completely unique journey anyway.

So let's close our eyes,

Breathe deeply,

And as we breathe just let all your thoughts go.

All the things we're thinking about,

Whatever's going on in our life right now,

Just let them all go and settle in this infinite place in your heart.

Bhairava says,

Not for me bondage,

Not for me liberation.

I am beyond such nonsense.

The sun is not trapped when it shines in a river illuminating the lives of the fishes nor is the sun freed again when it reflects off a ripple back into the sky.

Bondage,

Freedom,

Notions arising from fear and separation.

Look upon the universe and see only me.

All right let's read it again.

So Bhairava,

If you're new,

The Vijnana Bhairava Tantra is a dialogue between Bhairava and Devi,

Shakti and Shiva,

The divine and the physical,

However you want to understand this.

So this is Bhairava talking.

Bhairava says,

Not for me bondage,

Not for me liberation.

I am beyond such nonsense.

The sun is not trapped when it shines in a river illuminating the lives of the fishes nor is the sun freed again when it reflects off a ripple back into the sky.

Bondage,

Freedom,

Notions arising from fear and separation.

Look upon the universe and see only me.

Where does that take you?

What emotions or thoughts flow through your mind when you hear that?

Freedom,

Oneness,

To be more positive.

I felt encompassed within and without with love regardless of anything else.

I am complete no matter what goes on outside of me.

Connection to divine consciousness.

Somehow makes living more simple to see only me.

Fear of non-attachment.

Vastness,

That we are not held by mental constructs.

Structures dissolve.

The embrace of uniqueness,

No bondage,

No freedom,

No need to break free.

Exactly.

I'm going to read to you another,

This is a direct translation of the sutra.

There is neither bondage nor liberation for me.

These scare cowards and are the reflections and projections of the intellect just as the sun is reflected in water.

So this is a fascinating concept,

That there is no such thing as freedom or bondage.

Because in many ways we see our lives this way.

You know that I am trapped in this situation.

I'm trapped in this relationship.

I'm trapped in this illness.

I'm trapped in this job.

I'm trapped in this financial situation,

Whatever.

And then there's other times that you know we feel free of these things and all that.

But it's kind of,

It's like it's the drama created by the mind.

And what I mean by that is that the mind creates the play,

The story.

It's like we are Bhairava.

We are God.

We are the divine.

And we come to earth to act in a play.

And we take on personas.

We take on characteristics.

We see other people in the play.

You know there are situations and circumstances and all these things.

And the point of being here,

Like the point of being here in maya is to embrace them.

The thing about Tantra is it's not about transcending this life.

Can you imagine going to see a play and the actors are up there like,

You guys know it's a play right?

Like it's not real.

I'm not really this person.

Like you know that right?

And them just being kind of lackadaisical about it because they're like,

My name's actually John.

Like I don't really love this person that I'm pretending to love here.

That's not the point.

The point isn't to be all aloof and weird about it.

The point is to live it with all your worth.

Right?

If I'm going be Katrina.

It's a weird side note.

I don't know about 10 years ago.

I went through a time that it was depression.

It was loneliness.

I was newly divorced.

My kids had moved away.

I just sold my train station.

If you've never seen my train station,

It was called East Street Station.

And I bought it and renovated it into a wellness center where I taught all my classes and did counseling and dance and yoga and retreats and yoga teacher trainings.

And it was my wonderful sacred place.

And I had sold that and I had moved to Toronto by myself.

And I just sort of felt lost.

Like I just,

Was I finished here on earth?

Was I done?

Was it time to shuffle off?

Head off to the next adventure?

And then one day,

I'm walking downtown Toronto.

And I'm walking under scaffolding and there's sunshine every so often and everything and it's loud.

And I thought to myself,

I'm not really done being Katrina.

I think there's more that Katrina hasn't actually experienced.

Like in this persona,

In this particular creation,

This particular unique DNA sequence that manifested into a physical being,

I'm not sure I've actually lived Katrina's full life yet.

I think I've lived aspects of it.

I've been in a few plays.

But I'm not sure that I've actually performed my magnum opus.

You know,

I'm not sure I've actually lived full Katrina.

And it really dawned on me that I didn't really want to shuffle off yet.

I think I want to continue with this assignment and really see what's possible.

And so then what happens is,

I dove deeper into this unique role of Katrina Boss.

You know,

It was almost like,

Okay,

What am I missing?

What are the other aspects of me that maybe I've set aside?

What are the other things that I've denied myself?

Or where am I still lying to myself?

Where am I still living in ways that maybe would please my parents,

Or the neighbors,

Or whatever dude I'm dating or whatever?

Like,

Where am I still not being Katrina?

So suddenly,

This incarnation became very exciting.

So in no way is Tantra about transcending Katrina and me walking around like,

I'm so above emotion.

I'm so above that.

Yeah,

I don't care about that.

You know,

This is all just an illusion,

Right?

It's all just Maya.

You know,

You know,

Let's just go to the beach.

No,

We're supposed to stress about,

You know,

How are we going to pay the rent?

I don't know.

Am I really on my path?

Is this the person for me?

Will I ever find love?

This is what we're supposed to do.

That's why we're here.

This is the point.

But Tantra,

On the one hand,

Is fully about diving into the part.

Play the part with your heart and soul.

Like,

Because that's the juju.

That's the excitement.

That's the fun.

That's everything.

And remember that you are divine.

And remember,

In the context of this teaching,

There is no bondage.

There is no freedom.

These are just constructs of the mind.

It doesn't matter.

We are both all the time.

And we may even be playing the role of someone who is in bondage.

Or we may be playing the role of someone who is free.

But it's all just made up.

So like,

Even right now,

If we really take this to a practical place,

And again,

To understand why this is even helpful.

Why is this bizarre esoteric teaching of any value to us?

So I'd love for you to think about a part of your life where you feel that you're in bondage.

And it could be anything.

Or just whatever comes to you first.

Something you suffer with,

Something you struggle with,

Something you think about a lot,

Something you just can't find a solution for.

And then we want to imagine,

What are the thoughts that I have that tell me that I'm in bondage in this situation?

So in the tantric perspective of understanding the creation of people,

For example,

You begin with Shiva-Shakti,

The oneness.

And then Shiva-Shakti separates,

Or there's the illusion of separation,

Where Shiva remains as pure consciousness and Shakti becomes us,

Manifest,

Trees,

Birds,

Humans,

Everything in maya.

But somehow,

These are actually the same thing.

They're just limited.

Like imagine Shakti is kind of a limited version of Shiva,

A limited version of the divine.

Because if I was fully divine,

I would know everything,

Be everywhere,

Be everything.

You know what I mean?

Like that's really boring.

It's much more interesting to have an assignment.

And so in order to have a unique assignment,

We have to create an ego.

Ego in Latin means I am.

So in order for each one of us to actually have an individual assignment,

We must have an ego.

It's very,

Very important.

And what makes up the ego within the tantric philosophy is our mind.

There's three aspects of our mind that make up our ego.

Manas,

Which is the aspect of our mind that interprets our senses.

You know,

Like if I suddenly feel cold,

My body feels something,

Sends a message to my brain,

My manas,

And says,

Ooh,

Cold,

Right?

Or that's hot,

Or that's tasty,

Or you know what I mean?

That's manas.

And then there is chitta.

And chitta is a repository of all the memories we've ever had.

Good,

Bad,

Ugly,

Doesn't matter.

The samskaras,

The patterns,

The karmic patterns,

They're all in chitta.

They're all the memories.

So this is why manas,

We like,

Smell something,

And it goes into chitta,

And it says,

Ooh,

I love that smell.

It reminds me of home.

So this is the interaction of manas and chitta.

And then we have buddhi,

Which is like Buddha with an I.

And buddhi is the intellect.

And the intellect is the part of our brain that says,

That's good.

That's bad.

That's favorable.

Ooh,

I want more of that.

That's good for me.

That's bad for me.

That's buddhi,

The discerning one.

And between manas,

Chitta,

And buddhi,

These all make up ahamkara,

Or the ego.

So you can imagine,

This is what actually makes each of us unique.

We all have this interesting experience that's all stored in chitta.

We all perceive the world different through buddhi.

And we probably even perceive our senses differently through manas.

But in the context of this teaching,

The question is,

Do I feel free?

Or do I feel like I'm in bondage?

Well,

This is where we have to look at chitta and buddhi,

Our memories and our intellect.

So if you imagine a situation that you're in right now,

What are the thoughts in chitta that are telling you this is bondage?

What are the memories?

What are the patterns you've experienced?

That could be,

You could be say,

Living out a relationship that's very similar to your parents.

Or you could be living in a relationship that's similar to a previous relationship.

Or maybe you're in a job that you have a lot of history that it's comfortable,

It's not comfortable,

Whatever,

But it's reflecting some aspect of a memory or a pattern or a karmic pattern.

And then you have a part of your brain that's saying,

This sucks.

I hate this.

This is terrible.

Or there's a part of our brain because we're thinking about bondage right now.

There's a part of our brain that's saying,

You have to stay.

It's the right thing to do.

You have to do this.

It's a huge part of bondage.

You should do this.

You shouldn't do that.

So when you really think of bondage,

Imagine if those thoughts changed.

What if you didn't have attachment to those memories?

What if you said to yourself the opposite?

And said,

I don't have to stay.

I shouldn't stay.

I'd like to make a different choice.

Is there still bondage?

And beyond that,

One of my favorite teachers,

Viktor Frankl,

Who wrote Man's Search for Meaning,

He was an Austrian Jewish psychologist.

And he was in Dachau and Auschwitz and a couple other of the death camps in the war.

And his primary interest was what gives a person meaning?

And to him,

The primary mover was that in every situation,

We have a choice as to how we respond.

And this is a man that lived in the concentration camps for four years.

So,

You know,

He's got some clout.

We'll listen to him.

So imagine in every situation,

We have choice.

We have choice as to how we perceive it.

So then on the flip side,

Let's imagine an aspect of your life and you're like,

I have freedom.

And to ask yourself,

What does that mean?

What does it even mean to have freedom?

So if you imagine some aspect of your life that you have full freedom,

What does that mean?

So in 2018,

I gave everything away.

Lots of you guys know this story.

I gave all my belongings away and I traveled the world.

And so here I am in a backpack.

I literally own nothing else.

And people would,

The number one thing people would say to me was,

Wow,

You must have felt such freedom.

And I remember thinking,

What are you talking about?

I had total freedom when I was at home.

I had a lovely little apartment.

I had a boyfriend.

I had a business.

I had a community.

I was independent.

I live in Canada.

I had all the freedom in the world.

And it was such a curious thing that we actually only think about freedom as it relates to bondage.

If we've been in bondage,

We suddenly feel freedom.

But if you just think about freedom all on its own,

It doesn't mean anything.

But it's interesting because to me,

This sutra,

The number one thing it tells us,

Which is I think the greatest realization for all of us,

Is that our brains create our reality.

That our reality is not our circumstances.

It's not how we physically feel or what we're doing or what people around us are saying or doing.

None of that is our reality.

Our reality is our inner interpretation of that.

Have you guys ever seen,

There's every so often on social media,

There's a thing that goes around and it says,

Do you realize that every single person in your life has an entirely different perspective of who you are?

They see you differently.

They perceive you differently.

And they would tell a different story about how you affect them or how they see you,

Whether they like you,

Dislike you,

Whatever.

Imagine the diverse,

Like here's just me,

And there's 65 people here.

Every single person will have an entirely different perception of me.

And none of them,

They may be completely different.

It's like all of us,

If all 65 of us are here and we are having some experience,

Let's say we all go to the beach,

We're going to have 65 different experiences.

There's no set circumstance.

It's one person,

You could say,

Oh,

But it's a nice day,

It's sunny,

It's this,

It's that.

So obviously,

At least you could say that everybody had a good time.

Everybody,

You know,

It's sunny,

It's beautiful.

But somebody there is grieving.

Somebody there cut their foot on a stone.

Somebody there saw someone over there with their lover and felt jealous.

Every single person had an entirely different experience of that beach visit.

I heard that explained as the art class effect.

We're all painting the same model,

But all of our paintings are different because each is from a different worldview.

Totally.

So now imagine we go back to our original question of bondage or freedom.

You could have a hundred people in your situation right now,

And would those hundred people all make the same choices you're making?

And this isn't about guilt or shame or anything like that.

It's just showing that a hundred people in our body,

Like if a hundred of you were living in my life right now,

You would probably make entirely different choices than I would.

It's so cool.

Does anyone have any questions about that?

About the bondage versus freedom thing?

Today's talk,

It's sort of a,

It's actually a very simple sutra,

But it's one of the most difficult ones.

Like imagine even today,

As we walk into the rest of our day,

Depending on where you are in the world,

Quarter to 11 in the morning here in old Canada or in Ontario,

And to imagine that today,

Is there bondage?

Is there freedom in what you want to do today?

And not only what you want to do,

Maybe you have work,

Maybe you have kids,

Maybe you are caring for parents,

Maybe you have all kinds of responsibilities.

But how we think about it is a hundred percent our experience.

We often all have our Achilles heel,

And my Achilles heel are migraines.

If I'm going to go down,

I go down with a migraine.

And I'll tell you,

If I have a migraine,

After it's gone,

I see everything through rose-colored glasses.

I literally wake up and I'm like,

You know what?

I don't have a migraine today.

So everything's amazing.

I'm struggling with hip hamstring injuries.

How do I change my perspective to release this idea of bondage?

So imagine,

So you've got,

It's a great example,

Imagine you've got hamstring injuries.

It's very painful.

Well,

What are all the different choices you have?

You could just lie in bed and wait for it to stop hurting.

You could say,

You know what?

Maybe this is an opportunity for some nice self-care.

That's me.

If I have an injury,

It's like the world is slowing you down.

How about you take care of you?

And maybe you go to your local health store and you say,

What can I do for this?

And they go,

Oh,

There's this great Arnica cream that you can put on it.

Or maybe you find out there's some really cool stretches and you go on YouTube and you're like,

Whoa,

This isn't,

I never saw this before.

How many potential avenues are there for healing a pulled hamstring?

There's just so many.

You might discover some amazing massage.

Who knows?

You know,

Where is this an opportunity?

One of my favorite mantras is what's right about this.

And if I've hurt myself like that,

Then the question becomes,

All right,

Then why has this come into my life?

And what do I need to do?

I'm in the bondage of heartbreak.

Bad neighbor and I weren't dating and he cheated.

I'm so happy to be here.

My therapist said I need this.

So that's why I'm here.

Maybe it's an opportunity.

How do you seek guidance for your life while being your role?

What a great question.

So my kids,

My kids were drama kids.

They were theater kids and they had an amazing teacher,

Amazing drama teacher.

And to get teenagers to act is tough,

Right?

To set aside their personas and actually dive into the role.

So imagine what an acting coach might say to you to try to really get into the role.

They might say something like,

But really put yourself in the role of this person.

What would they be feeling right now?

What would their motivation be?

How would they walk?

How would they speak?

What would their posture be like?

You know what I mean?

Like they would ask us to get deep into the heart of it.

And again,

I think about,

I can only speak from my own experience,

But this is literally what I need in life is an acting coach.

And not to,

Not to be false,

But actually to be real because I am an idealist.

So my whole life,

When I was very young,

Something came across the psychological wires,

You know,

In the world that said,

You can create your life.

You can become the person that you want to be.

And so this became my goal in life was like,

I'm going to just extract all the different things that I want to be in life.

I'm going to create this false persona of this,

Of all the,

Like almost this positive Frankenstein of all the things that I want to be in life.

And then I'm going to work to become that person.

I'm going to become ultimate Katrina or ultimate somebody.

But of course,

None of it was real.

None of it was true.

You know,

This is the whole journey of my,

That I,

When I had breast slumps and all that kind of thing that I actually had to break down and say,

None of those ideals are real.

Who am I actually?

Who is Katrina really?

What does,

What actually floats Katrina's boat?

That's a real question.

And of course,

What would you say?

How do you feel?

Not what do you think?

What do you feel?

What makes you happy?

What makes you excited?

What motivates you?

What,

What makes you sad?

What makes you thrilled?

And the wild thing is the closer we get to whatever that truth is,

The more enjoyable life is,

The more able we are to do all the things we want to do.

The more we finally,

We find community of people who want to do what we want to do.

We find support,

Support everywhere we go.

It's so neat.

Anti-acting.

Totally.

It's such a great question,

Laura.

There's the paradox that bondage can set you free.

Right,

Lady?

No bondage,

No freedom.

A part of me understands this.

A part of me resists.

Of course,

There is freedom and bondage literally as people in jails are working in sweatshops.

I'm watching my mind,

Feeling states of what feels free,

Jumping in a lake,

Driving to places unknown,

What feels like bondage,

Anything,

Everything obligatory.

Exactly.

So nobody can put me in bondage except for me.

This is where I love when you read the sages,

Right?

You read Nelson Mandela.

And I know these people sometimes feel like these far off,

Impossible people to emulate.

But it's that whole thing that nobody can take your freedom.

There's this great story in Viktor Frankl's book,

Man's Search for Meaning,

Where,

You know,

It was terror in the camps,

Right?

And one morning,

They were walking,

They were marching off to the work site.

And you know,

Their shoes are all broken and open,

And they're freezing cold.

And they're just,

You know,

It's a horrible,

Horrible,

Horrible situation.

And he's walking,

Viktor Frankl's walking along.

And all of a sudden,

The guy behind him taps him on the shoulder.

And he turns to look and he points up.

And there was this beautiful sunrise.

And this really obviously struck Viktor Frankl to think,

Wow,

You can still notice a sunrise.

Even in the most abject terror state,

You can still notice a sunrise.

You can still have friendship.

Freedom is getting to decide who we are and which lens we use to view the world.

Like the eight swords in Tarot,

The restrictions are self imposed.

And so is release from restriction.

Let's even imagine something as simple as traffic.

You're stuck in traffic.

You're supposed to be somewhere.

And it could be even something really important.

Like,

Let's say you're trying to get to a plane.

You're supposed to be at the airport.

This is really important.

And you're driving and you're stuck in traffic.

Decides what that experience is going to be.

Is it bondage?

Or is it freedom?

I would love for you guys to share what some possible scenarios.

You're stuck in traffic.

You're going to miss your plane.

What are some ways of seeing it?

Obviously,

The first one is,

Darn it.

I'm going to miss my plane.

Ah,

Honk honk.

Damn drivers.

Stupid construction.

If I'm listening to one of your recordings,

It's freedom.

That's awesome.

I remember listening to Wayne Dyer long,

Long time ago.

And it was actually that scenario.

You're in a car,

You're stuck in traffic.

There's somebody in front of you going so slowly,

And you're going to miss your flight.

And one day,

And he was really angry about it and everything.

And finally,

He just thought,

You know what,

That woman in front of me,

It was a woman,

It was a little old blue hair lady,

I think he called it.

And he just said,

She's exactly where she's supposed to be.

Because obviously,

I'm not supposed to be on that plane.

But again,

This is all our choice.

Such is life.

I'm glad I live in a world where there's more than one plane.

It's all up to us.

How we interpret stuck in traffic going to miss my plane.

There is no external circumstance here.

There is nothing that says,

No,

Me being furious is completely justified.

Me honking the horns and yelling at people and cursing and swearing and freaking out.

This is justified.

No,

It's a choice.

You're choosing to get angry,

You're choosing this.

You could just as easily choose 100 different options.

There's a message to receive from the delay.

I think too,

Of people having the freedom to drink all they want,

And then become enslaved in alcoholism.

This freedom to do whatever we truly want equal freedom.

Something will come into my life as a result of missing this plane.

Like it just,

There's so many options.

There's just so many.

So I'd like just to do a just a short meditation.

I just want us to close our eyes.

I'm just going to reread the sutra.

But let's just close our eyes and breathe deeply.

Expanding the belly as we inhale.

Contracting as we exhale.

Just releasing all of our thoughts,

All of our great discussion.

NAME BANDA NAMOKSHA MI PITASYA ETA VIPISHIKA PRITI BIMBAM IDAM BUDE JALESHU IVA VIVASVATHA BHAIRAVA says,

Not for me bondage.

Not for me liberation.

I am beyond such nonsense.

The sun is not trapped when it shines in a river,

Illuminating the lives of the fishes.

Nor is the sun freed again when it reflects off a ripple back into the sky.

Bondage,

Freedom,

Notions arising from fear and separation.

Look upon the universe and see only me.

So thank you so much for being here.

And I hope you have a wonderful day.