Emptied Of Engagement: Radiance Sutras Verse 97

During this session, we discuss Verse 97 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 translation of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra. And today we're reading number 97. And I mention that because this is a series of 112 verses. And it's a journey from kind of our regular world, Our regular world of wondering what life's all about. And it's like, You know, I'm 55 years old, But in some ways it's like I've just been born, You know, Like I'm kind of like, What is this life about? What is this world about? And what are these societies about? And so it doesn't even matter how many decades we've been here. We seem to be quite new, Which is cool. Like it's not a negative thing. It's just that's cool. So this is where the Radiant Sutras begins is sort of this, How do I make sense of this world? Which is why it is a very beautiful journey to sort of begin at the beginning and sort of step our consciousness through these beautiful steps of life, Of expansion, Of realization. So by the time we're here in verse 97, We are playing in a very ethereal place, A very subtle realm. We're not so much playing in the physical. And I say this not because you can't start in number 97. If this is your first time hearing the Radiant Sutras, It's still great. It is still something that we can meditate on and allow it to shift our consciousness. The reason I'm mentioning this is that I just want to create that context that at this stage of the game, We almost want to allow our consciousness to shift into that subtle space. Kind of the difference between, Let's say you're on vacation and you head to a very busy beach and there's a million things going on. There's kids and dogs and people surfing and windsurfers and there's people over there playing music and there's people over there serving ice cream and it's almost like this circus thing, Right? The experience of life in amidst a circus kind of place, Which could be a busy street. It could be a busy conference. It could be a dance class that's very high energy. It could be anything. Experiencing Tantra in that space takes a certain skill set. It's sort of that diving into the experience, Right? Allowing your whole being to just suck up. That's the only word I have in my head. Like to really just sort of embrace all the movement and color and sound and everything and love the party. Like love the stimulation, The sensory inputs of life. It's sort of like really loving the fact that I can see color. I can hear sound. I can feel all these wonderful things. I can taste all these wonderful things. And this is us diving into the things of life. The manifest reality of being alive. If we cannot do that for some reason, We will not enjoy that chaos. We will find it too much. It's overstimulating. I can't do it, You know, And it's not a judgment. There's lots of us are kind of shell-shocked by all kinds of things in life. So maybe the journey, If you find that overwhelming, Your spiritual journey may be to slowly be able to find a safe place within so that you can expand your senses again in a healing way to actually be able to embrace all that life is. But that's one end of the tantric spectrum, Fully diving into life. On the other end of the tantric spectrum is being able to experience the subtleties of life. Those very quiet moments. You know, This morning when I took Storm out, My son's dog, It was so quiet. It was warm, Even though everything's covered in four feet of snow. It was zero degrees, Which is very, Very warm for this time of year. And the air was so quiet. And as I walked, I almost wanted to walk quietly to allow the silence to permeate my body. I wanted, I can't explain it, Right? As soon as we get into the subtlety, I can't explain it. There's something else present. And this is another end of the tantric experience. Can we be still enough to experience the powerful, Pleasurable, Wonderful subtleties of life? And that requires another skill set, Requires another set of abilities that we can cultivate for sure. But that, And again, This is the tantric journey, Is cultivating the ability to experience the subtleties of life and to experience the richness of being alive. This is what makes tantra such a unique spiritual path. Because it's not about fully withdrawing from the world and it's not a hedonistic path of completely losing yourself in the world either. It is the amazing balance that when you can hold both, There's an amazing experience there to have. So, This is why I wanted to express this because our reading today lives in the subtle end of tantra as we come to the closing of our Radiant Sutras journey. So, Whether you have the book or not, We're reading number 97 on page 132. So let's all close our eyes. Let's just breathe deeply. And just notice your breath moving through your body. The subtle movement of breath. Feel it coming in your nostrils or in your mouth, However you're breathing. And feel it release out of your body. Feel this subtlety entering your lungs and almost instantaneously the oxygen, The prana being delivered through your whole system through an incredibly subtle infrastructure system. In many ways, Our bodies are so subtle even though outwardly we can do such big things. All right, Here we go. Engage your gaze with something, Anything. Adore its form and essence. Give it your all. Now tiptoe away into another realm as if not wanting to wake your lover. Emptied of engagement, Enter the temple of unknowing. Dissolve in wonder. Where does anything come from? What comes to you when you hear that? What do you feel? What words float through your mind? It's a funny one, Eh? Where does anything come from? The joy of wonder, Of curiosity. When entering the temple, Clear your mind, Be open. Dissolve in wonder. Mystery. Dissolve in wonder. I'm going to read you the direct translation of that. Because that is, The Radiant Sutras is a poetic, Inspired version of the Vijnana by Rava Tantra. But here is the direct translation of the Sanskrit. O Goddess, Momentarily casting the gaze on some object, And slowly withdrawing it with the knowledge and impression of that object, One becomes the abode of the void. Peel off the layers. Dissolve in wonder, So peaceful and exciting at the same time. How quickly the mundane appearance of reality shifts when contemplating this. Tiptoe away from perception, Interpretation. God, Nature, Beauty, All gifts if we look at it that way. Blessings all around. Right? Can you feel how everyone's descriptions are like describing something indescribable? Like everyone has said something that is pointing to something between the worlds. Reminds me of being mindful of the space between the breaths. Mmhmm. So this is a very interesting sutra. Because what it's called, It's called this act of having your eyes open and gazing at something and then allowing your eyes to stay fixed on something external to you but then releasing attention from that thing outside of you and letting your mind kind of wander, It kind of disappears inside of you even though your eyes are fixed on something external. They call this Bhairava Mudra and it's a very specific technique of experiencing the world but more importantly it's about releasing our attachment to the world around us yet being present to it all at the same time. And what's interesting about it is we all have this ability. We do it all the time. Like you know when you're kind of looking at somebody and then all of a sudden they're like, What? And you're like, Oh sorry. Your eyes got fixed on them but then you actually went inside and you were kind of daydreaming or you were sort of looking at something and your eyes are wide open but your mind is somewhere else. Has everybody here had that experience? I have it all the time. It's a natural ability because we've done it unconsciously and the truth is all spiritual practices we actually have an ability to do it intrinsically. What's interesting is using this natural ability to expand ourselves as humans, In joy, Spiritually. Somebody said to me something about being on a spiritual path and it really made me ask myself what do we even mean when we say oh I'm on a spiritual journey. I think I actually saw a video on YouTube and I just saw the title, I didn't actually watch the video and the title was someone was asking Eckhart Tolle whether alcohol belonged on a spiritual journey or something and all I kept thinking is what are we defining a spiritual journey as? Because it's so easy just to say it but what does it mean? What does it mean to have a spiritual journey? And for me it means remembering my eternal self while I am in this life not leaving this body to go and disappear in meditation but to actually fully embrace my eternal wondrous connected self while I'm doing the dishes and eating food and watching a movie and making love and walking the dog that to me is a spiritual journey. So now imagine this imagine this particular sutra imagine you're walking down the street and you're looking around and you see trees the sky, Cars, People dogs and you allow your eyes to kind of float from one thing to the other but then as your eyes sort of gaze around you you allow your attention to come within to the one who's looking so now all of a sudden you have two experiences happening you have this eternal self inside of you walking down the street your physical eyes are connecting with the physical world around you and now you're suddenly living in two worlds you have full awareness of this inner expansive space and your physical eyes are seeing the outside world what would it feel like to live like this all the time to have the ability to hold that infinite inner world while we observe the external world see what's interesting is the language of the original Sanskrit I'm going to read a different translation here is they consider that infinite part of us, They call it the void but of course the void is infinity the eternal nothingness, The eternal potentiality of the universe so here's another translation oh goddess, If one after casting one's gaze at some object withdraws it and slowly eliminates the knowledge of that object along with the thought and impression of it he abides in the void so if you can gaze upon an object and then withdraw your actual mind from that object releasing the thoughts about the object, Anything about it it's almost like your eyes become so full with the vision in front of you, It occupies your three dimensional mind that interprets the world around you and that gives you the freedom as Lauren Roche says, To tiptoe away from that awareness so as not to awaken a lover and rest in the eternity inside so here's what's interesting about this practice, Because this is a practice you can do this every day if you want just pick something, Gaze upon it withdraw your attention from it and allow your mind to roll around in the void daydream, So here's the interesting thing there's kind of three things we can do with this attention, Because this is a skill set like very often, One of our challenges and one of the reasons we suffer in life is because we believe that we are victims of this incarnation, Not of the people around us not of our parents, Not of society but we are victims of our own mind and that we cannot get away from the thoughts that torture us and we can't get away from our attachments to those things and those people and whatever this teaching says you are in total control of your consciousness you are a powerful being every single one of us is a powerful being and we can cultivate that inner power and I don't mean the inner power like power over I mean power like a power source like our connection to God, Our connection to source we can cultivate that but we get really attached to the world around us in very difficult ways that cause us to suffer a lot and the more we spin on the surface of all of that the more disconnected we feel from that source so now all of a sudden we have this practice so we sit Angie says I do this looking at the sea outside my window, I end up super relaxed and kind of soft inside, Body bliss the gaze keeps your mind busy so we can turn inward to our sacred space the stillness so with the first part of this is to look at something and actually know that you are choosing to look at this you are choosing to put your attention in the outside world somewhere so you allow your eyes to fully embrace this thing and do it for as long as you need and then keeping your eyes fixed on that object slowly release your attention to the object so now suddenly we have a new awareness there is my eyes looking at the thing but then there is my attention, Where is my attention? And you can allow your attention to rest in this quiet so now we've realized that wow, I can withdraw from the world and I can just rest in this dreaminess inside, And if we really want to go crazy we can close our eyes and meditate and completely withdraw from the world and just go inside and just roll around in that void but what's interesting is one of the teachings of this is that the goal isn't to become super dreamy and disconnected from the world and if you have a meditation practice that causes you to become super airy and disconnected and just not really part of the world and it feels very blissful and all that, But you're quite spacey, Then you need to do some exercise and you need to do something fun, And you need to go and engage in the world do things you love to do because we aren't here to be spaced out either the key, From a tantric perspective, Is to be fully engaged in the world, And fully conscious and fully aware of our infinite self that's really the goal of this reading does anyone have any questions about that before we do a little meditation? We can do the Buddhist practice of non-attachment contemplation and meditation helps so much, Totally alright well wherever you are, Let's close our eyes actually no let's not close our eyes find something in your surroundings to look at it doesn't matter what it is, It doesn't have to be beautiful it doesn't have to be interesting it could be a door, It could be a picture, It could be a chair make it a thing though, Not a person and allow yourself to deeply look at this thing look at all the aspects of it the front, The back, The bottom the color, The lack of color allow your eyes to unblinkingly stare at this thing and keeping your eyes on the object allow your attention to disconnect from the sight of this object allow it to withdraw into you allow your breath to become deeper as your attention falls back into nothingness everythingness, The void consciousness feel these two realities happening at the same time now let's close our eyes and in your mind's eye imagine walking down the street any street, Doesn't matter, Could be a fictional street and allow your eyes to take in everything all around you effortlessly just as if you were walking down the street just looking around maybe it's like how you look around when you're in a new town and you're actually seeing everything and then as you're walking an inner happiness moves through you your eyes continue to take in the colors, The sights but you are now aware of the essence of the being who is watching the essence of your soul connected to eternity who is watching this beautiful world we live in kvacit vastuni vinyasya shanay trishtim nivartayat tat dhyanam chitta sahatam devishunya alaya bhavet engage your gaze with something anything adore its form and presence give it your all now tiptoe away into another realm as if not wanting to wake your lover emptied of engagement enter the temple of unknowing dissolve in wonder where does anything come from let's take a deep breath in together exhale let's come back into the group it's funny I just had this vision of all of us sitting in a room on the floor and we're just opening our eyes coming out of this meditation gazing at each other being fully aware of the miracle of all of these people here with us today and our eternal self inside both existing at the same time thank you so much for being here and I hope you have a wonderful day

Reviews

This verse expresses in words and metaphors what I often experience as a nature photographer and plein-air painter. Watching, looking at something intently, usually something that catches my eyes. Where does that come from? And then noticing the void inside of me, breathing deep, not really seeing what I saw in the first place. I love that I get to experience that as part of my human journey - the spiritual path we are all walking.