Gazing Outside & Within: Radiance Sutras Verse 90

During this session, we discuss Verse 90 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

We're reading from the Radiant Sutras,

Which is a beautiful book by Lauren Roche.

It's a translation or an interpretation of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra,

An ancient tantric text.

And what's beautiful about it is,

For all intents and purposes,

We're always new when we begin one of these sutras,

Because we're always different than the last time,

You know,

We looked at it.

And the way this works is every sutra is an individual journey.

Some of them stand alone,

Some of them sort of build on each other.

But for all intents and purposes,

Each one can be taken on its own.

And we can apply it exactly where we are right now and see what kind of revelation we have.

And I really mean revelation,

To really understand that every single one of us is divine.

And one of the foundations of Tantra is getting rid of the idea that there is the guru,

Who has this epic perspective and connection to God.

And then there are the lowly people,

Who if things will be interpreted for them,

You know,

That kind of idea,

Because we've been taught that for many,

Many,

Many centuries,

Many millennia.

And so it's a very interesting thing to imagine that all 76 people here right now have full capacity for revelation,

To actually have something revealed to you that is expansive,

And that shifts your mind right in this moment.

Every one of us.

And what's really cool is we're going to read this sutra.

And we're going to have a discussion about it.

And we're going to do a meditation.

But every one of us is going to have a radically different experience.

And that experience is our revelation.

One person might listen to it and think,

Whoa,

Now I understand this part of my life.

Someone else might think,

I've had this experience before.

I remember.

I wonder why I can't hold on to it.

Another person might think,

I'd like to move towards that kind of experience.

But everybody's having,

Like,

It's almost like a realization,

A breadcrumb appears,

Something,

But it is perfectly unique to every person here.

And this is really significant.

Because otherwise,

We easily get caught in the,

I don't know if I'm getting this right.

I don't know if I'm taking the right thing from this.

I don't know if,

You know,

I'm not,

I'm not getting it from it,

What everyone else is getting,

Maybe I'm wrong.

And to really allow your soul to kind of hear what it hears and trust in that message.

It's so important.

Because the tantric path,

True spiritual paths are absolutely unique.

And when we allow ourselves to be unique,

It's almost like there's nothing clouding our judgment.

You know,

It's almost like true revelation is allowed.

And this is really significant for this particular sutra,

What I'm talking about.

So you guys ready?

Today we are reading from number 90.

And whether you have the book or not,

Let's just close our eyes.

And let's breathe deeply.

Expanding the belly as we inhale,

Contracting as we exhale.

And letting go of our thoughts from a few minutes ago.

Even letting go of our ego,

Who we are.

Letting go of our mind,

Our thoughts,

Our intellect.

And allowing ourselves to kind of float between the spaces.

Radiant One,

Please listen to me.

The essence of all teachings is right here.

Open your eyes.

With a soft and steady gaze,

Look out upon creation.

Receive waves of light as they enter your eyes,

Singing of infinity.

The light touching the back of your eyes is immortal.

Born in the primal sun.

Be present to this enlightenment.

This is an ancient knowing,

A sanctuary that is everywhere.

Galaxies are flowers on this altar.

How does that make you feel?

Like are there thoughts or emotions,

Or particular words or phrases that roll through your mind?

Expansive.

Like Jimi Hendrix.

That's beautiful.

Complete.

Familiar.

Enlightened.

Infinite.

The light that hits the back of your eyes is immortal.

Please read it one more time.

Radiant One.

And to know that he's saying Radiant One,

He's talking to us.

Radiant One,

Please listen to me.

The essence of all teachings is right here.

Open your eyes.

With a soft and steady gaze,

Look out upon creation.

Receive waves of light as they enter your eyes,

Singing of infinity.

The light touching the back of your eyes is immortal.

Born in the primal sun.

Be present to this enlightenment.

This is the ancient knowing,

A sanctuary that is everywhere.

Galaxies are flowers on this altar.

Vulnerable and delicate as a human.

I'm going to read to you a direct translation.

So Lauren always gives us a beautiful poetic interpretation because it allows us to receive it.

Be present.

Answers are within.

Yes.

Connected.

Whole.

Complete.

All available.

The infinite divine is everywhere.

Open your eyes and heart to receive it.

Magnificent interconnection.

Light is immortal.

Isn't that interesting to imagine that for a moment?

Light is immortal.

The infinite divine is everywhere.

You know,

They say that this place we live in,

This duality they call maya,

This place of duality,

This ability to experience each other,

To experience mountains,

To have this experience with other.

But when you really get down to what we are actually made of,

All the pieces,

We're essentially made of light.

We're made of vibration.

And it's funny,

We can call it sound,

We can call it light.

But whether it's sound or it's light,

It's still just vibration.

And so it's interesting to imagine that when we look out upon the world,

We're simply seeing light in its many,

Many forms.

Light taking the form of matter or of earth,

Water,

Fire,

Air.

It's all light.

It's all whatever that vibratory energy is.

So it's interesting to imagine as you sit.

So this sutra asks us to have our eyes open,

Looking out at the world.

And the actual sutra says to look with fixed gaze out at the world.

So this is a meditation that we'll talk more about.

The idea here is that you gaze out upon the world while you're looking within.

So you do it at the same time.

So even like right now,

Where you're sitting,

Imagine looking forward and looking within at the same time.

Now,

It's really,

Really important to understand that what you realize by doing this particular meditation,

This particular sutra,

Is not comprehensible by the brain.

When you sit and you look forward and you look within,

You cannot comprehend this with your mind.

But the body knows,

The consciousness knows,

Your essence knows something.

When it looks out and it looks in,

It's like something levels.

Can anybody try to describe that?

When you do that,

When you imagine yourself looking out,

Imagine yourself,

Maybe you have a favorite lookout point wherever you are.

Like for me,

We live close to a lake and there's great park benches beside the lake.

And if I sit and I gaze out upon the lake,

I can look at the lake and I can have all kinds of thoughts.

I can sit on the bench and look within and have all kinds of thoughts.

But if I look out at the lake and I look in at the same time,

All thoughts cease.

It's expansive.

The brain says,

Overwhelm,

But I can allow the body to be free,

Hard,

But possible.

Exactly.

Something in the body changes.

Like inertia of perspective,

Both ends of an infinite circle.

That's how I felt.

I did not comprehend,

But I can hear a brook talking.

What a breath of relief.

Isn't it curious?

Oh,

Wow.

One of the teachers on IT was just talking about that.

It was like an awareness and nothingness at the same time.

The first word in Sanskrit,

And I'll read this here in Sanskrit later,

But the first word of the Sanskrit is sampradayam.

Sampradayam.

And what sampradayam is,

This is how mystical traditions are transmitted from teacher.

And I'm going to say from teacher to teacher,

Not from teacher to student.

It's interesting,

Or from teacher to other.

But there are traditions that you can understand intellectually.

You can learn the rules,

You can learn the ritual,

You can learn who serves who,

And who is the consort to who,

And all that kind of thing.

But there are aspects of a spiritual tradition that cannot be memorized.

It's not intellectual.

And this transmission,

It can come from a teacher,

But it can come anywhere.

It can come from you walking down the street and looking up at a tree,

And just the way the light shines through the tree,

You realize something.

A transmission has happened.

It can be watching children playing.

It can be anything.

So this sampradayam doesn't have to come from a teacher.

It can come from life,

Which is a lot of what this sutra is all about.

That as you walk through life,

Keep your eyes open.

Notice the world.

There's different stages of this.

You can practice.

You can sit in practice.

So for example,

The tantric practice,

The meditative practice for this one is chatukam.

And chatukam is often known as candle gazing,

Where you will hold a candle right here between the eyes,

You know,

Maybe like arm's length away from you.

And you will gaze at this candle.

You'll sit in the dark or some semi-dark area and gaze at the candle until the candle,

You can almost feel it here in your third eye,

And then you close your eyes and you visualize it.

You see it right here and as soon as it starts to fade,

You open your eyes and you gaze at it again.

And you continue to do this,

The single pointed gazing.

So this is how we practice this.

And then the next level would be actually sitting with your eyes open,

Which is the teaching of this sutra.

Eyes open,

Gaze out at the world single pointedly,

Like you're not doing this,

You are with a very light gaze,

Gazing out at the world while looking within.

And you practice this single pointed gaze out at the world and within,

So that you can experience the transmission.

It's more than words.

It's more than what I'm saying.

This particular sutra is very subtle.

You know,

There's lots of sutras that we study,

That we can kind of beat around and talk about and stuff.

But this one,

We have to allow ourselves to be subtle.

And how do we do that?

We have to quiet the mind,

The intellect,

The ego.

We have to let go of all that.

And when I say ego,

What I mean is the collection of thoughts that are always flowing through our mind that tell us who we are.

This is what I like.

This is who I'm mad at.

This is what I want to do.

This is what I think.

This is what I do.

La la la la la.

These are the thoughts,

You know,

That are always going through our minds.

These thoughts define us as to who we are.

They are our ego,

Which is why it's so difficult to stop our thoughts.

Because in order to do it,

We have to let go of who we are.

So imagine that for a moment.

You let go of who you are,

Just for a moment.

You let go of your intellect that tells you if something is right or wrong.

Let go of your mind.

And then you single pointedly gaze out at something.

It could be a tree,

Could be at nothing.

And you look within at the same time.

There's something there.

There's something that our intellect cannot comprehend.

And yet it sort of fills our body,

It fills our cells.

For me,

It's like a black hole effect.

The more I can allow the external world to pull together into one single presence,

The deeper the gravity I feel pulling inward.

Oh,

That's interesting.

That brought tears.

Let go and let love have its way.

I used to go to a Zen meditation class.

Part of the practice was sitting staring at the wall.

I found it very boring.

If we had been told to look within at the same time,

It would have been a much more interesting practice.

What is it you mean when you say look within at the same time?

What does that look like to you?

I can see the tree outside.

But what am I to be seeing within?

The mystics often talk about,

You know,

We look at a tree.

But to realize that who is looking?

Who is looking at the tree?

So it's almost like you're looking at the tree.

And you're also looking at who's looking at the same time.

I think when you look within it,

It's an intuitive essence of ourselves.

I'm going to read the direct translation.

So this is the direct one.

And for anyone who's joining later,

I will reread the original sutra shortly.

All right,

So here is the original.

Here's the direct translation.

Oh,

Goddess,

Listen,

I am going to tell you this mystic tradition in its entirety.

If the eyes are fixed without blinking on the reality within,

Isolation,

Kaivalya,

Will occur immediately.

I always giggle when I read the direct translation.

So first of all,

They're talking about this sampradayam.

Oh,

Goddess,

Listen,

I am going to tell you this mystic tradition in its entirety.

This is very hard to imagine.

To imagine sitting where you are right now in your life,

Even though you may believe that you have faults,

That there are things wrong with you,

That I'm not,

I'm not enlightened enough,

Or I need to do this or whatever,

Whatever it is where we believe at this point in our life.

To imagine that an entire tradition could download into your system in any moment.

That's hard to fathom.

The feeling I have inside of me,

Even though that's what's happening,

It's almost like my ego fights it.

For me,

What this kind of thing feels like,

Is like being lying in a warm tub.

And the warm water is enveloping my whole body.

And it's beyond my mind to explain,

Like I could say,

Ah,

Yes,

The warmth is making me feel warm.

And it's like being returned to the womb and my brain can make up stuff.

But if my brain relaxes,

The truth is,

Every cell of my body is floating.

And so it's an interesting thing to imagine that at any moment,

You could have great realization.

And the thing is,

We live our lives with our brain.

That is where we live.

And so this kind of teaching or this kind of experience requires a certain suspension of regular life patterns to experience it.

Because then what happens is,

Every time you have this experience,

It slowly becomes a part of your foundation.

So you may still go to work and do the thing.

And you may even have a grudge against somebody or be frustrated with something or not know something.

You know,

You may still have all kinds of things.

But bit by bit,

It's like these kinds of experiences change the ground you're walking on.

There's just a few more beautifully scented flowers along the road.

And then very slowly,

Our life starts to shift.

It's like the matrix.

It's like seeing,

Feeling the life force or energy that exists within each living soul.

Complete connection to the whole self.

Exactly.

So in the second part of this other translation,

If the eyes are fixed without blinking on the reality within,

Isolation or Kaivalya will occur immediately.

Kaivalya is a state of being.

They call it Turiya.

It's like this awareness of a fourth dimension or a fourth consciousness.

It's kind of like you're going through life and you're doing stuff,

You're physically doing stuff,

And then maybe you observe yourself doing stuff.

And then there's another part of you that actually is a witness mind to all of it.

It's a witness mind to the thoughts,

It's what you're doing to everything.

And then you sit in meditation.

And you experience another consciousness altogether.

This curious,

It's not just a witness mind,

It's almost like a bliss state that's kind of beyond the witness mind,

Beyond all of the things.

This is Kaivalya.

And it comes out of a word called Kavala,

Which actually means only one.

And this is this kind of isolation they're talking about.

This feeling because you're not really a part of the world in that state.

It's sort of you're not in the world,

You're the whole world.

There's no language for it.

The Hindus call it Moksha.

Buddhists call it Nirvana.

So it's quite a promise to be able to say that when we can sit with our eyes open,

Gazing within,

Unblinkingly,

And gaze without and gaze outward,

We'll have this wonderful feeling.

Let's do a meditation.

Guys ready?

And you can be sitting upright.

You can be lying down.

You can be pretending that you're at work.

You can be in the tub.

In case one of you is in the tub.

Wink wink,

Nudge nudge.

But wherever you are,

Let's close our eyes.

And breathe deeply.

And I want you to imagine you're walking down a country road.

The sun is shining.

Birds are singing.

Everything smells right.

And as you look around,

Look at the trees.

Look at the leaves.

Allow the colors into your eyes.

Allow them to fire up your optic nerve,

Sharing these wonderful colors and patterns with your mind.

Follow the sound of a bird song to find the bird in the tree.

And as you look up into the trees,

Glimpse the sky,

Beautiful blue sky.

Maybe there's a cloud here and there.

And up ahead,

There is a bench.

And as you approach the bench,

Kind of look around at your surroundings and allow that Taoist inner smile.

And then sit down on the bench.

Make yourself really comfortable.

And with eyes open,

Gaze at the trees in front of you.

Feel your breath.

Feel your belly expanding as you inhale.

Contracting as you exhale.

Allow your eyes to be still.

Allow your gaze to be soft.

And as you take in what is in front of you,

Allow your awareness to also be inside.

Breathe deeply.

Look within while you look ahead.

Stabda Matrayo.

Radiant One,

Please listen to me.

The essence of all teachings is right here.

Open your eyes.

With a soft and steady gaze,

Look out upon creation.

Receive waves of light as they enter your eyes,

Singing of infinity.

The light touching the back of your eyes is immortal,

Born in the primal sun.

Be present to this enlightenment.

This is the ancient knowing,

A sanctuary that is everywhere.

Galaxies are flowers on this altar.

And let's take a deep breath in together.

As we exhale,

Let's come back together.

Thank you so much for being here.

I hope you have a wonderful day.