Divine Union of Spirit And Flesh: Radiance Sutras Verse 28

During this session, we discuss Verse 28 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

Today we are reading from the Radiant Sutras by Lauren Roche.

It's a beautiful book.

I highly recommend owning it.

I have nothing attached to it.

I'm not an affiliate for it.

Maybe I'm a spiritual affiliate for it or something.

But I just think it's a gorgeous book.

It's one of the most beautiful books of meditations and contemplations on Tantra.

And it's an interpretation slash translation of the Vijnana by Rava Tantra,

Which is an ancient Tantric text from the Kashmir Shaivism line of Tantra.

And so today we're going to read a passage and then we're going to discuss it and then we're going to do a meditation.

That's our plan for today.

The key here is when I'm reading it that we listen from another place.

One of the focuses in this particular sutra that we're going to read,

They talk about something called the Hridaya Chakra.

The Hridaya Chakra is in the same spot kind of as the Anahat,

As our fourth chakra,

But it's different than the Anahat.

Anahat is sort of part of our entire that chakra system that sort of defines our experience here.

They actually identify the Hridaya Chakra as being a little bit to the right of the midline near the heart chakra.

What this is,

Is the seat of our consciousness.

It's the part of us that is ineffable,

Indescribable.

It's sometimes equated with Atman,

The God within,

The God that we are here incarnate.

It's pure consciousness.

And so imagine every single one of us here has this pure consciousness inside of us.

Even though we have a personality that is filled with all the things we're meant to be doing here,

We're all meant to be very different and unique,

It's also filled with all kinds of things we've learned and struggled with,

And maybe a lot of things that we're struggling with right now.

Maybe there are issues that are circling us.

So the key for this little exercise or this experience is to just breathe deeply and feel into this Hridaya Chakra.

Feel into that part of you that even you can't explain.

And we're going to listen to the sutra from that place just for fun.

So for anyone who has the book,

We're reading verse 28 on page 63.

So let's just close our eyes.

Let's just breathe deeply,

Expanding the belly as we inhale,

Contracting as we exhale,

Feeling into that place beside our heart chakra,

About a finger width to the right of our center.

Breathe into the expansiveness that's there,

That we are.

This body is sustained by altars to the radiant nectar of life.

Around you,

An ocean of air ready to become your breath.

Above the head,

The glow of an invisible sun.

Within the spaciousness of the heart,

A pulsing throb of creation,

Where the breaths meet,

Fuse,

And transform into each other.

Whenever,

Wherever your mind wanders,

Whatever you wonder,

Return to the luminous.

Choose any altar.

Throw your attention again and again into one of these centers where spirit and flesh consummate their love.

Day by day,

Old whirlpools fade,

The endless circles.

You are living in the temple of essence.

Feeling does that invoke in you?

What words stay with you?

Your body is an altar,

Just breathe,

Return to the breath.

Ah,

Within,

We are honored,

Divine creatures,

The glow of the invisible sun above the head.

What's very interesting,

Because they talk about returning to the centers,

And the idea of returning to the light inside the chakras.

So if you imagine,

Let's take your second chakra.

So this is just below the navel.

We often think about it in terms of relationships,

Like how we relate to other people,

Romantic children,

Parents,

Friends.

But how this incarnate being interacts with you?

What is that interaction between us?

That's in the second chakra.

But because of the shadow world,

The world that we're living in,

Oftentimes those relationships are strained,

Because we have expectations,

We aren't taught to honor our truth.

So we end up having relations with others that aren't really us.

And yet we're housing them.

So our second chakra can become very confusing.

And so one of the translations of this talks about the importance of focusing in on each center.

But the key is that we don't want to focus on the mental tendencies or the patterns of that chakra.

So if you imagine your second chakra,

And you think of your mental tendencies around interacting with other people,

There might be a tendency of fear,

A tendency to control,

A tendency to withdraw,

A tendency to pretend.

Or we may have patterns that are repeating over and over and over again.

Always finding people in our lives who don't listen to us.

Always finding people in our lives who take us for granted.

And we don't listen to us.

Always finding people in our lives who take from us.

Always finding people in our lives that we can't trust.

We don't want to focus on that.

The key is if we look at the second chakra,

We focus on it in the light.

Think of what's possible interacting with other people.

Think of the joy.

I have this vision of holding on to someone's hands,

You know,

When you were children and then you would like run around in a circle.

Or maybe you go to the beach together.

Or maybe you make a great meal and enjoy a great conversation.

Or maybe you make love.

Or maybe you hold your grandchild.

Or maybe you pet your puppy,

Your dog.

There's a lot of expansive joy possible.

Like if you imagine if we just incarnated here,

But we couldn't actually interact with other people.

What a strange world that would be.

Like an empty life.

But we do get to interact with others.

So when we focus on the second chakra,

Imagine focusing on that.

The light of the second chakra.

The joy possible.

Completely separate from whatever tendencies we may have.

They're both there.

The tendencies may be stuff we have to work out and karmic patterns and samskaras and whatever we want to call them.

That's okay.

But there's also the light.

You know,

If we come into our third chakra,

Above the navel,

Our solar plexus,

This is who we are.

Again,

Very confused in a world that creates false ideals,

Strange ideas that have nothing to do with our individual paths.

That you're supposed to be this and you're supposed to look like that and you're supposed to act like that.

This is what you're supposed to do with your life.

So our third chakra tends to be really confused.

But what if instead we focused on it?

Like I picture it like a care bear,

Even though like the heart,

It's normally the heart that's coming out.

But let's imagine it from your third chakra.

Like who I really am.

And that energy is just flowing out of me.

This is who I am.

Look at me here on planet earth.

I have this bizarre assignment I've been given.

Well,

Let's go do it.

Imagine there were no inhibitions,

Just pure light.

And what's interesting is when we think about all of our chakras like that.

And so for example,

If you look at the first chakra,

The first chakra the first chakra as much as in a dysfunctional society,

We can be very focused on fear,

The fear of not having enough food,

Enough shelter,

Community,

That kind of thing.

But really the first chakra is abundance.

The first chakra is look at this epic world we've been born into.

Is the second chakra the seat of our relationships?

Totally.

That's how we interact with other.

We often confuse the heart center as being about love in relationships,

But it's not.

The second chakra is about relationships,

Especially romantic relationships.

But all all interactions,

Not really especially romantic relationships.

It's all relationships.

Third chakra,

Who am I?

Look who I am.

This is me.

Imagine just loving who we are.

Maybe we haven't exactly discovered who we are because we have other people's understandings of who we should be layered on top there.

But as we discover who we are,

That gets to shine.

We come into our heart center and we just love.

We just love the dog and we love delicious food and we love that person.

And again,

This love of this other person is not the same as second chakra.

The second chakra is us kind of interacting with that person.

Love is part of our divinity.

Love is not just,

I just love you so much.

It's not that.

It's I feel love when I'm around you.

I feel home when I'm around you.

I feel that way about my daughter.

I feel that way about my lover.

I feel that way about my sister.

I feel love.

It's not a conditional love.

Well,

I'm in a relationship now,

So it's like say I hang out with my ex-husband,

But I love my ex-husband.

I feel love for him.

I don't romantically love him anymore.

Not like that.

That's second chakra stuff.

But do I feel love for him?

Totally.

That's the fourth chakra.

In the fifth chakra,

To just simply share and speak from our truth,

To speak what comes to us.

From our sixth chakra,

To just trust our intuition,

To trust who we are and that the guidance that comes to us is important.

To trust our seventh chakra connection to the galaxy,

To infinity,

To God,

To consciousness.

And what's really beautiful is we get to rest in this gentle relationship with our own chakras.

You imagine what that feels like to just close your eyes and know that you can rest in any of these centers at all times.

They're right there for you all the time.

And this is a huge deal.

It's a huge deal to be able to have a sense of home in our own bodies,

Because otherwise we seek it out there.

We seek first chakra security from other people.

Well,

I need you to be here because I don't know if I'll be able to pay the rent.

And we have second chakra struggles,

But I need you in my life because this is really important to me.

I don't know how I can go on.

The third chakra,

I need you to validate who I am.

I need you to approve of me.

This is not a peaceful place.

To have all of those power centers outside of ourselves in the hearts of other people who change and ebb and flow.

So to have this beautiful connection inside,

That's a really big deal.

What's interesting about doing this focus is it feels very otherworldly.

If you focus on your heart chakra and you just focus on the pure light,

It's how kind of everything goes away.

All of our issues or our fears,

They just go away.

And it's something to learn to be comfortable in,

Feeling the lack of problems,

Feeling the lack of the mental tendencies to focus on what we don't have from the outside,

Or what we fear in the outside world.

And so one of the things that this particular sutra talks about is to return over and over and over again.

All day long as you go through your day,

Come back to the heart,

Come back to the hridaya chakra,

Come back over and over and over again.

Or come back to any chakra that resonates for you,

But come back to the light of it.

Maybe it's the first chakra and you need to believe in abundance.

And as soon as you start feeling like there's not enough and I'm not enough and I'll never have enough,

Then we have to go out and we have to look in a forest and see the abundance.

We have to go visit a friend's vegetable garden and realize that every garden is one step away from exploding with new vegetables.

And as we do that,

As we come back over and over and over again,

Eventually that feeling of peace within our own chakra will become easier.

It'll become more second nature.

I'm going to read another translation of it.

And this is very literal.

And they talk about something called dvada shanta.

Dvada shanta can mean a lot of things,

And it can mean the different chakras,

It can mean the distances between them,

It can mean many things.

But for our purpose,

Consider it the hridaya chakra,

This part of the heart chakra that is infinite,

Expansive,

Impossible to define.

So imagine,

When I say dvada shanta,

Just think heart chakra.

By bringing the mind forcibly to dvada shanta again and again,

However and whenever possible,

The fluctuations of the mind diminish day by day,

So that each moment becomes an extraordinary state.

This is a translation from the book Sri Vijnana Bhairava Tantra,

The Ascent of the Mind by Swami Satya Sagananda Saraswati.

By bringing the mind forcibly to dvada shanta again and again,

However and wherever possible,

The fluctuations of the mind diminish day by day,

So that each moment becomes an extraordinary state.

Can you imagine living in an extraordinary state all the time?

Imagine.

It's an important thing to ponder,

Like if I can't imagine that,

I need to consider why.

Maybe I just keep doing it until it becomes easy.

I'm going to read another little passage because they talk about the word tantra comes from two roots.

The one root is tanoti,

Which means expansion,

And trayati,

Which means liberation.

So the goal is a liberated mind,

An expansive mind.

It is an expanded mind which has broken away from the fetters or clutches of matter and entered the realm of spirit that experiences every moment as extraordinary.

Imagine.

So this is the key.

No matter what we're doing all day long,

Just maybe 12 times a day,

If you have a moment,

Come back in and feel the light inside.

Feel that expansiveness over and over and over again.

As soon as the mind goes somewhere else,

Come back to the light.

And this isn't like bypassing or anything like that.

It's almost like adding light and adding context to whatever we're going through.

It's a really big deal because what we're going through can be very overwhelming.

And we don't need to enter the realm of spirit and not be part of the world.

It's about bringing them together.

Wherever you are,

Maybe you are lying down on a bed or in a tub or on the floor,

Or maybe you're sitting up tall on a chair or cross-legged,

Or maybe you're at work and you're just secretly listening.

It's all good.

But I'm going to lead the meditation as if we're sitting upright.

So let's sit nice and tall.

Close our eyes.

And let's just come into the breath.

I love this one passage.

Around you,

An ocean of air ready to become your breath.

As we inhale this ocean of air all around us,

Exhaling,

Releasing,

Inhaling this moment,

And exhaling yesterday and the day before.

And let's visualize our chakras as a string of white lights beginning in the root chakra,

Between your legs,

A bright light where we connect with the earth with abundance,

With our physical experience here,

Food,

Community,

Nature,

All that there is to offer.

And then just below the navel,

Another light orb to think of the blessings of getting to interact with other people and feel that pulsing beautiful energy.

And then moving up to the solar plexus,

Feeling a white orb of energy expanding and contracting with the breath.

Who you are,

Maybe think to your childhood of the things that you love,

Not just who you are in work,

But who are you really?

What do you love to do?

What brings light inside of you?

What did you love to do when you were eight years old?

And feel the joy that rises and let that joy flow through your whole body.

And then moving up to the heart chakra,

Our ability to love.

You know,

Some people say that it's not the joy in being loved.

It's the joy in getting to love others.

That's the fourth chakra,

To actually be able to just love.

And that is unbounded.

Then another orb at our throat chakra to really feel this orb,

This beautiful white light in our expression of self.

Maybe it's verbally,

Maybe it's physically,

Maybe it's through art,

Maybe it's through writing.

How do we express ourselves here on the planet?

Think of all the different ways that we could express ourselves,

The expansiveness of it.

Another orb in our third eye,

Our connection to the divine.

All of us have this connection to the divine and feeling it pulsing and open and clear,

Listening,

Allowing.

Then this beautiful crown chakra.

And even if you want to go a little above the crown chakra to something they call the 10th gate,

This beautiful connection,

This invisible sun right above our crown,

Divine being,

Us.

We are a divine being.

And as you're breathing,

As you're breathing,

If your mind is wandering,

Come back to the heart center and find the spot,

Finger width to the right of your heart center.

Not your heart,

But if I was to say to you,

Who are you?

And you pointed at yourself,

That's your heart center.

And go a little bit to the right.

Focus all of your energy there.

As you focus there,

Also feel all the energy of all the chakras going along in life,

Experiencing this world with all of the dramas and the hopes and the potential and the challenges.

And all of these beautiful chakras are processing and entertaining and trying to understand.

But keep our focus just to the right in the Hridaya chakra and feel the pure essence there.

It's a different quality of light.

It's a different quality of energy that we can't explain.

But that is who we truly are.

And there's a joy in feeling that.

That is our true home.

And if your mind has already wandered,

Come back to the Hridaya chakra.

Come back to this point.

Anywhere your mind goes,

Just keep coming back,

Breathing deeply and feeling that pure expansiveness.

This body is sustained by altars to the radiant nectar of life.

Around you,

An ocean of air ready to become your breath.

Above the head,

The glow of an invisible sun.

Within the spaciousness of the heart,

A pulsing throb of creation where the breaths meet,

Fuse and transform into each other.

Whenever,

Wherever your mind wanders,

Whatever you wonder,

Return to the luminous.

Choose any altar.

Throw your attention again and again into one of these centers where spirit and flesh consummate their love.

Day by day,

Old whirlpools fade the endless circles.

You are living in the temple of essence.

Allow your breath to become a little deeper,

Feeling these whirling energies of the chakras spinning as you breathe,

Spinning out infinitely in all directions.

And all together,

Let's take a deep breath in,

Exhale,

And if you'd like,

Let's gently come back together.

So thank you so much for being here.

I hope you have a wonderful day.

Reviews

Beautiful 🪷”The Joy to getting to Love” I am grateful for tantra has helped me so much, thank you for this beautiful shared 😇🙏🌕🌀✨