I Am One: Radiance Sutras Verse 86

During this session, we discuss Verse 86 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 we are reading from the Radiant Sutras.

The Radiant Sutras is an interpretation of an ancient tantric text called the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra.

And the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra is all about,

It's almost like this step-by-step journey to fully embracing our full divine selves and our physical lives.

And that we're not supposed to just choose only a divine life,

That I am never affected by emotions or the world,

Or that I never engage in whatever's going on in my community.

It means that we bring the divine into our life.

And today's sutra specifically talks about this.

And I'm actually really,

There's something about the sutras that we're studying right now,

The last few weeks,

That are really moving for me.

And this one is really beautiful.

So I think we're just going to dive into it,

Because it will explain even more about how these sutras work in our lives.

But they are sequential.

We can study this one on its own.

But if there's something about today's sutra that makes you say,

Oh,

I feel like I'm missing something,

Or I feel like I want to dive deeper into this,

I recommend going into the playlist.

I would go back to around verse 80,

Or verse 79.

I would just sort of take a little journey from about verse 79 forward.

Almost if you did like one a day,

And just listen to one talk,

Do the meditation,

And the next day,

Listen to the talk,

Do a meditation,

And allow yourself to sort of step through them,

Because they do build on each other.

I do recommend that,

Because there is a journey that we go on through the book,

But we can definitely still jump in today.

So I'm going to read the passage,

And today's passage is number 86,

On page 121,

If you have the book.

And I'm going to read it,

And then we're going to discuss it,

And then we'll see if we have time for meditation at the end.

Let's close our eyes.

Let's breathe deeply.

There is a knower who experiences everything.

There is a presence dancing everywhere.

There is a lover who embraces us all.

I am one with that light.

I am one with that power.

I am one with that love.

What comes up for you when you hear that?

An emotion,

A thought,

A resonance,

A pushback?

Is there a phrase in there that really rings true for you?

I am one with love.

This is me.

Connection.

Presence is light and or divine intelligence.

The power is shimmering.

I feel that is an appropriate remedy to how the U.

S.

Moves forward.

I am one with that light.

Remember.

It is a reminder that I do have access to these at any time.

Sometimes it feels far away.

Sometimes right here.

Exactly.

Light equals power equals love equals oneness.

So in Tantra,

The ultimate goal is the full merging of all of these things.

Of our divinity and our physical life.

Every one of us.

Every person here today is equally divine and equally physical.

And it has nothing to do with perceived success,

Age,

Experience.

Nothing.

Who we were raised by,

Our traumas,

Our joys.

Every single one of us is incarnate divinity.

So if you were to imagine every cell of our body is like starlight.

Appearing as a physical body.

Every one of us.

Imagine if this was easy to remember.

How would that change your experience of a happy time?

If something wonderful was happening,

It would feel even lighter,

Even more joyful.

We would be filled with so much gratitude that we got to experience this.

How would it change if we really fully embodied this knowledge,

This wisdom,

This wisdom that we are embodied starlight.

We are that epic.

How would that change our experience of difficult times?

Relationship struggles.

Times of fear and worry.

Then what would it feel like?

I would love to know what that feels like for you guys.

It would dissipate them.

If I could embody namaste during fight or flight it would be cool.

It would feel weightless.

And what's interesting is the issue doesn't go away.

But our experience of it changes.

More curiosity.

Exactly.

It's us that changes.

Even in a very difficult situation.

We don't need to be all sunshine and roses about life.

But how we experience it is different.

The hard times wouldn't be so hard with an awareness that divinity within is present.

And so suddenly we look at this difficult situation which could have been going on for decades.

It could be with our family of origin.

It could be with our partner.

It could be with a child.

And we look at it and we say,

Instead of being sort of swept away with the tide of emotion,

We suddenly go,

Huh,

Well this is an interesting experience to have.

I wonder why this is happening.

And again,

Not to escape or run away from what's going on,

But to actually stop and take a breath and say,

Why are we having this argument?

Why are we really having this argument?

Well,

Because you said this.

Yeah,

But why are we arguing about it?

Well,

Because you did this to me.

Right.

Why haven't we solved this yet?

And I don't mean you need to forget.

Why do we have this pattern?

And why are we repeating it?

What else is going on?

It just lets us remember that,

Hold on a minute.

This is interesting.

Let's really dive deep and sort this out.

Now imagine if we could look at life like that.

The divine within allows us a different perspective on every little thing.

It makes life,

It makes our physical life more interesting.

More interesting.

So a Tantric journey,

Like the divine,

Like the Radiant Sutras,

Helps us to slowly experience our divinity bit by bit.

Even if you have a moment,

A moment in meditation where you suddenly go,

Ah,

Ah,

You know,

And you kind of get that little chill through the body,

That little lovely vibration through the body.

That changes you.

Every moment,

Every time we have a taste of divinity,

It changes us.

You know,

They say that if you add sugar to milk,

The milk is sweeter.

The milk doesn't become sugar,

But it becomes sweeter.

It takes on the properties of the sugar.

The milk does.

So every time we mix a little bit of divine experience into who we are,

We take on the properties of the divine.

And so these properties of the divine,

We think of the divine being omnipresent,

Omnipotent,

Omniscient.

Omnipotent means all-powerful.

Omniscient means knowing everything.

Omnipresent,

Everywhere,

All the time,

Pervading all.

Those are sort of the qualities of the divine that are hard for us to imagine.

So if you imagine the qualities of transcendence,

Of the self,

Of the person,

What are they?

And you feel free to mention some if you think of some.

Transcendent,

Timelessness,

Stillness,

Love,

Kindness,

Freedom,

A feeling of being luminous,

A feeling of being boundless,

So if we imagine a time in our life that we felt timeless,

That is a quality of the divine.

And every time we experience timelessness,

We take on the qualities of the divine.

Every time we choose to be loving,

You know,

It's like you're in the middle of a difficult situation and it's easy to choose to fight back.

It's easy to make the other person wrong.

But something in you takes a deep breath and we choose love.

And again,

It doesn't change that we don't suddenly tolerate bad behavior or step down from what we believe.

But we don't need to attack the other person.

We recognize that this other person is also on a journey.

They're on a difficult one.

And the wounding that they have within is causing this extreme,

Maybe violence towards you.

That's choosing love,

Choosing compassion.

And every time we choose love,

We embody a little bit more of that divinity.

There's an interesting place where we choose to begin to integrate the divinity of life into our lives.

Sometimes we come to forks in the road where we can continue to kind of just be angry all the time.

And we can choose the path of the victim,

Which is the path of everyone else is wrong.

Everyone hurts me.

I am powerless in my life.

And that's okay.

That's also part of the journey.

Sometimes that's the path we need to take.

But the path of Tantra says,

You also can embody the qualities of the divine within that path,

Within every path.

And so we choose to walk the paths that other spiritual beings have walked.

You know,

This is in many ways,

The path of bhakti yoga,

Where you embody the lives and the spirit of other people.

It's the whole in Christianity,

It's the,

What would Jesus do?

Bracelets.

You know,

Or what would Saraswati do?

Or what would the Buddha do?

Or what would whatever do?

I struggle a lot with the relationship with my dad,

We clash a lot.

And it's so challenging not to rise to the things he says.

But I'm seeing things more clearly through my practice.

And again,

Yeah,

It's like such a great example.

Because the reality is,

There are certain people in the world,

It's like we clash with them from birth.

And we don't know why.

Personally,

I think it's past lives.

I think we have incredible history before this tiny life that we're living right now.

And I think when we have clashes with people,

They are deep.

And they're woven into the fabric of something.

The wheel of karma isn't about punishing you for past things.

The wheel of karma is simply an energetic pattern.

That if we are not aware,

We just blindly fall through over and over and over again,

We just keep falling into it over and over again.

And we can feel that in the relationships in our lives that we clash so heavily with.

Why are we unable to find our way out of this?

And so that's why many,

Many religions say,

You know,

The goal is freedom from that karmic loop,

To be able to say,

Wow.

And even if this other person is truly offensive,

It could be truly offensive,

It could not,

It might not just be that they're,

You know,

That they have a different political perspective than you or something like that,

That you're just on different sides of something.

Like maybe they really were hurt badly in their life.

And they are like a wounded dog just lashing out all the time.

That may be the reality.

So the question is,

I choose my response to that lashing out.

And there's 1000 different responses to it.

And so it's a very interesting thing to kind of say,

I would like to see the world through the eyes of the divine.

Like it's an interesting place to sit in ourselves and say,

Well,

First,

The question we truly have to ask ourself is,

Do I believe this is true?

Do I believe I am actually stardust incarnate?

Do I believe that I am a refraction of the divine?

Do I believe it?

It's a very important question.

And it's not an easy yes.

Right?

I know that the right answer might be yes.

But it's not.

Because if the truth is,

I don't believe that.

Now,

That's an interesting question.

And that is the beginning of an interesting path of inquiry.

Because then the question asks,

For me,

Is,

What is the draw to Tantra?

What is the draw to spiritual practice?

It's deeper than this,

Too,

Because in many ways,

We were taught that the spirit,

That God,

That the divine,

That the Lord,

However you understand this,

Is separate from you.

Right?

We were taught judgment and separation.

So the idea that we So the idea that we are incarnate God,

That's a little blasphemous,

Depending on what you were raised with.

I think truthfully,

One of the greatest things that really harmed us as humans were being told that we were born in sin,

That we were lowly beings.

This,

I believe,

Damaged our psyches in deep,

Deep ways.

And then suddenly,

Every time we do something that we might call wrong,

We believe that we deserve to be punished for that.

That we are sinners.

These are deep trainings,

That we are not worthy,

That it is only by the that it is only by the grace of God.

And don't get me wrong,

I'm a very prayerful person.

I was raised in a very deep Christian way,

And it's not that.

It's just to really look at,

What does that do to the person?

And so this training that I'm saying right now is very different than the Tantric path.

It's very different than the yogic path.

Because in there,

We are the divine.

There is nothing that isn't God.

There is nothing that isn't Brahman.

And that includes us.

It's not like all the world and all of nature is all pure divinity,

Except for the crap humans that landed on earth.

Why just the humans?

Like,

Why are we the only bad guys in all of earth?

Unless we were told we were,

For some other nefarious reason.

So the journey to Tantra is no small thing to say,

That's not true.

So that's why I say when I went to ask ourselves,

Do I believe this is true,

Is a really important question.

Let's do a little meditation.

You guys ready?

Wherever you are,

Sitting,

Lying down,

Walking,

Let's close our eyes together.

And breathe deeply.

Now I want us to imagine a finite world and an infinite world.

And I want us to see ourself in the finite world.

Picture yourself walking along the road.

And you are by definition finite.

And it's a good thing.

You are who you are.

Your body only goes so far.

Your mind has interests and thoughts and experiences and memories.

By definition,

We are limited because it allows us to have a unique experience.

It's wonderful.

But sometimes we get lost in that limitation and we forget that we are also that we are also divine.

So I would like you to listen to these words and choose one of them that rings deeply within you.

Timeless,

Boundless,

Loving,

Luminous,

Free.

Free.

Feel every cell of your body fill with that essence.

Just hold one of those words in your heart.

And feel your whole being fill.

Imagine yourself embodying that essence.

And then continue the visual of you walking down the street,

Fully embodying that essence.

Sarva-Nya-Sarva-Karta-Chavya-Pakha-Paramah-Ishvara-Sa-Eva-Aham-Shaiva-Dharma-Iti-Dardhyat-Bhavat-Shiva There is a knower who experiences everything.

There is a presence dancing everywhere.

There is a lover who embraces us all.

I am one with that light.

I am one with that power.

I am one with that love.

Let's take a deep breath in together.

Feeling yourself one with everything.

Then let's gently return to each other.

Thank you so much for being here and I hope you have a wonderful day.

Reviews

Lovely, as always. Loved your suggestion to start with sutra 79 and move forward sequentially. I have the book but don’t read regularly. I may now be spurred onward! 🙏💜✨

These sessions are so great. They are like guideposts reminding me of the richness of life in a spiritual context. Thank you so much for the beautiful way that you make these sutras accessible to us.