Luminous Centers of The Body: Radiance Sutras Verse 27
by Katrina Bos
During this session, we discuss Verse 27 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're talking about the Radiant Sutras and we are reading a verse,
Verse 27,
On page 62 and you don't need to have the book but if you ever want to have a beautiful tantric book filled with wonderful meditations that you can just read,
You know,
Wake up in the morning and read it and ponder it all day,
I highly recommend this book.
It's so beautiful and the beautiful thing about it is whether we're here or you're doing it on your own,
There's no wrong or right way to interpret the sutras.
The idea is that you read it and whatever it stirs in you is right.
So even today as I'm going to read a sutra but my invitation to you is to really allow it to stir you that we don't want to have to try to find the right interpretation because every single one of us is so unique and the idea of any ancient text,
Any sacred text,
Is that it's meant to access our divine self and we are all such interesting permutations and combinations of that divine energy.
It's going to come out in each of us really differently.
So that's what we're going to do.
We're going to read a sutra,
Have a little bit of a discussion and then we're going to go a little bit deeper into some interpretations of it and then we'll do a meditation at the end.
Let's just close our eyes,
Relax your shoulders,
Tuck your chin in a little,
Let your spine be straight,
Let's just breathe deeply.
Put attention into the luminous connections between the centers of the body where the mind loves to dissolve.
Base of the spine and top of the head,
Genitals and heart,
Heart and throat,
Throat and forehead,
Forehead and the crown of the skull.
Enter that glowing net of light with a focus born of awe and even your bones will know enlightenment.
Where does that bring you?
Thoughts go through your mind or what emotions rise,
The chakras,
The meridians,
Bliss,
Love,
Oneness,
Connection,
Ah.
It's like a reiki treatment connecting the chakras,
Blending the various energies.
Surrender,
Focus on where the energies meet and that's where my mind will melt.
Yes,
It's so cool tuning into the spin of the energy centers.
Love,
Sensuality,
Intelligence,
Seeing and knowing all are within us.
It's just to turn on the light.
Each place is dependent on the other and the illumination and the melting,
A sacred pathway.
It's a reminder to go inside.
It's really beautiful.
I love,
You know,
When we think of the chakras and we think of them as this light,
We often think of them as we just focus on the light.
But what about the space in between them?
It's like we focus on the point but they're all connected.
What about the connecting points?
Sensual soup with a loved one merging.
I love that metaphor.
Miles Davis was all about the silence and what was between the notes.
So if you even imagine,
You know,
We've talked a lot about the chakras.
We have a lot of talks here on Insight Timer about the chakras in the light.
So even if we talk about,
We're going to talk about the chakras in the light and I'm going to say in the dark or maybe how they show up in the shadow world.
Because one of the main points of this meditation,
Of this sutra,
Is that we actually want to feel the energy flowing up through the body until it comes to the heart center.
The Hridyaya,
They call it.
But it's basically the seat of consciousness.
It's like Anahat,
It's just a little different.
But so the seat of consciousness,
Let's imagine the God consciousness lives in our heart chakra.
We've often talked about how there is an upper triangle of sort of the more divine chakras.
Then there's the lower triangle of the very physical chakras.
So the first chakra is our connection into the world,
Community,
Nature,
Which of course brings up questions of security,
Food,
Shelter,
That kind of thing.
The second chakra is all about relationships.
Relationships.
And so with that comes emotional responses to other people or even the world around us.
And the third chakra is who am I?
What is my definition of self here on the planet?
Why are each one of us so different?
That's the third chakra.
So if in many ways,
If you were to make a triangle there in those first three chakras,
This is our incarnation on the earth.
The upper triangle is a bit more elusive.
The upper chakra here,
The crown chakra,
This is our connection to the divine.
Third eye,
Our intuition,
How we read that.
Our throat chakra,
How we share that.
But that's a little different.
So imagine in those first chakras,
This is our real life.
In many ways,
This is the energy of life.
And it's not always easy.
Sometimes the programs that we've adapted over our life in the first chakra bring us a lot of worry and fear.
Will I have enough money?
Will I have community?
Will I be okay?
What's the future going to hold?
Is the world going to be okay?
What's going on?
So there's a lot of fear in that first chakra.
But of course,
If we have fear in the first chakra,
We have long disconnected from our divine self.
And then this isn't a blaming thing.
That's not what I mean.
But when we really are able to observe ourselves,
That when we have concerns of the first chakra,
We have long forgotten the connection to the crown.
We've long forgotten that we are literally infinite beings in the galaxy.
Money is make believe.
We live in a world where you plant a seed and food grows.
We actually live in a place of abundance.
No matter what the news tells us,
And no matter what we're told,
Or what our family thinks,
Or society tells us,
Earth is a phenomenal place to be incarnate.
But this is part of the journey of the human.
Let's say if we talk about it within the Hindu idea,
That Shiva-Shakti is one.
And Shiva stays here in the crown chakra.
And Shakti descends to create life.
So there's a separation between consciousness,
The Shiva,
And our life and our world.
So when we get very wrapped up in first chakra questions,
And this is not a blame thing.
Many of us have had really difficult lives.
So of course we question our survival.
We've been wondering whether or not there'd be food on the table,
Or whether someone was going to beat us,
Or whether or not we would ever feel love,
Whether we'd ever feel like we fit in anywhere.
And when that's what we experience from a week old onward,
That's the only reality we know.
So this isn't like a blame thing.
It's a reality thing.
So when we're in that space in the first chakra that we're feeling so disconnected from the world,
We are disconnected from our own consciousness.
Not our awareness,
But our consciousness,
Our divine self.
We may get glimpse of it,
No matter what,
Even if we're completely lost in the world.
Every so often,
You might get a glimpse of something.
I was chatting with William on the weekend,
And he was saying how they used to have a porch that kind of overlooked a ravine.
And there was some kind of tree,
A flowering bush,
Because right now in Canada,
Oh the lilacs are out,
The cherry trees are in blossom.
Like taking a walk down the street right now is this amazing,
Blissful,
Aromatic experience.
Like it's literally,
My daughter and I were walking last night with Storm,
And we're walking along and all of a sudden we both just stop,
Because we're underneath some great flowering tree,
And we've just been overwhelmed by the smell.
It's just so beautiful.
So that's what we got talking about.
And he said,
You know,
When he was a teenager,
He used to sit out in that porch when everything was in such beautiful bloom,
And he would play his guitar.
That is a glimpse.
That is a remembrance of our blissful nature.
No matter what else was going on in the world,
To sit there,
Play your guitar,
Smelling lilacs or cherry blossoms or roses,
It's so ble-beautiful.
So we do have these glimpses where almost our consciousness,
Our divine consciousness,
Merges with the physical world.
And then,
You know,
Something happens and we go back into the purely physical.
Or if we come into our second chakra,
This is our interaction with other people.
That's a big deal.
Like that's no small thing.
I mean,
Most people have real issues with that,
Including me.
It's not like people are immune to this.
You know,
I'm not saying including me,
Like,
Whatever.
I'm just saying,
This is normal.
We have challenging personalities in our life,
And our journey is to interact with them.
And then in our third chakra,
This is who we are.
And this is a real challenge,
Because we've been taught that we're supposed to be what?
Some ideal version of a human?
Some person who can do math equally well as art and music?
Some person who makes six-figure income and is also passionately happy in their life and relationships?
Otherwise,
You've somehow failed.
I mean,
We have a lot of curious training that says we're supposed to be a certain way.
How do we move up the chakras?
Well,
We move up the chakras as we fully integrate it.
So that's actually,
It's a great question,
Because that's actually what this reading,
This sutra,
Is all about.
Very often,
We remove our consciousness from our bodies.
We escape out of survival.
That's the best way to survive,
Is to not feel it,
To not be present.
But this is a huge,
This is the spiritual journey,
Is to go deep into that first chakra and find abundance.
The first chakra also holds the memories,
The ancestral lineage,
Sins of the forefathers,
Whatever.
Whatever that is that we're carrying forward from our mothers,
Fathers,
Grandparents,
Ancestors.
There's a lot in there.
And oftentimes,
They are first chakra questions.
Questions of survival,
Questions of prestige,
Because prestige is just a first chakra question.
Who am I in the community?
Am I important?
Or am I the one that cleans up the dung under the horse?
This has been a part of our consciousness for a couple millennia now.
Who am I in the world?
It's very important.
One of my sisters and I were talking about this this weekend,
And she was saying how curious it is how human beings spend so much time primping themselves.
Imagine if the animal kingdom,
If animals spent all this time trying to change how they looked.
You know,
They do grooming and stuff like that,
But it's mostly to get rid of bugs and,
You know,
It's pretty important stuff.
But imagine if we weren't so focused on where do I sit on the ladder of importance in the community?
These are huge first chakra questions.
So the journey becomes healing that and bringing that all together and understanding it and integrating it so that we can actually walk around and feel the abundance of the world.
But that's a journey.
It isn't just a,
Oh,
That's a great idea.
Okay,
Got it.
Like,
No,
There's like real stuff in there.
And then the second chakra,
To actually be able to interact with other people in our wholeness,
To really be able to feel that completely,
Even if you don't like it,
Even if you interact with someone in its family,
Mostly its family,
That is really difficult.
But can you still stay whole and fully interact with them?
Maybe it's a case of being honest where you've never been honest before.
Maybe the interaction is walking away.
But regardless,
We interact in our wholeness.
We walk away because that's our truth,
Not because we're avoiding it.
It's like,
Whatever this conversation is,
You and I aren't supposed to be having it.
This isn't really a conversation.
It's a journey.
And so,
I think that's the first chakra.
And then the second chakra is,
You and I aren't supposed to be having it.
This isn't really of any value.
Then we come into our third chakra,
And we really love who we are.
We really love exactly how we were made,
Who we are as people.
Imagine that there was no should.
I heard a podcast with Seth Godin,
And he considered should to be a word that means to put aside shame.
That anytime we use the word should,
That's what we're doing.
We're actually shaming ourselves if we don't do it.
Imagine there's no shoulds.
What does your third chakra feel like?
What does your sense of self feel like?
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Then to bring our divine consciousness into that and to stop and breathe and pray for guidance.
And similarly to come into our third chakra and say,
I may not even know who I am.
I have no idea who I am.
All right.
Well,
Then let's go on the journey.
Let's go on the exploration.
It's very cool.
I'm going to read you a translation from this book called the Vijnana Bhairava or Divine Consciousness by Jai Deva Singh.
But then I'm going to read you a commentary from this book,
Which is called the Sri Vijnana Bhairava Tantra,
The Ascent.
So here's a more literal translation of this.
When the body of the yogi is penetrated by consciousness in all parts and his mind,
Which has become firm by one pointedness is dissolved in the dvareshantha situated in the body.
Then the yogi whose intellect has become firm experiences the characteristic of reality.
That's why we're so thankful for Lauren Roche creating a different interpretation.
It's a little thick.
But here's an interesting commentary on it.
As the energy which ascends from the base of the spine becomes more rarefied,
It pierces through the subtle energy centers one by one until it enters the dvareshantha of hridaya,
Which is the heart center.
This is the point of the first union where the individual energy and consciousness become one after their long separation.
After this point,
The consciousness and energy ascend together in one steady stream of awareness in a state of intoxicated bliss,
Which manifests and spreads throughout the body.
This final ascent leads to the mega merger with the supreme awareness at sahasraha,
The thousand petaled lotus at the crown of the head,
Which is the abode of Shiva.
But what's interesting about this is the paragraph before that,
He actually talks about how this dissolution takes place only when two important requisites are met.
The aspirant must develop steady awareness by means of regular and established practice.
This in turn leads to the experience of the tatva or essence from which one has evolved.
But what I love about that is in order to experience this energy flowing up through our chakras,
We have to practice being present in our bodies.
We have to practice being present in our life.
Whatever it is that's going on,
We have to stay in the arena and make choice.
I'm not saying stay in the arena,
Stay in a bad relationship,
Stay in a bad job.
We only do that when we leave the arena,
When we escape.
That's how we stay in a life that isn't ours.
But in every single moment of our life,
We have to have a regular practice of staying conscious,
To not escape no matter what.
The huge deal,
A huge practice of staying in our bodies.
And so then the other interesting thing about the chakras,
For example,
And the space between them.
So imagine in your own being,
Imagine your first chakra.
It's just an energy center at the base of your spine or beneath the base of your spine,
Say around the area of your perineum,
The space between your sexual organs and your anus.
And if you tune in with that area,
And you imagine the space between that one and your second chakra,
How you interact with other people,
How are these two things connected?
Do you believe the world is safe?
Yes or no?
How does that affect how you interact with other people?
Do you believe that the world is truly abundant?
Yes or no?
How does that affect how we interact with other people?
Imagine the connection between your second chakra and your third chakra.
So if I'm kind of afraid of other people,
Let's say if we think of our second chakra,
If other people kind of freak me out,
Or I don't like them,
How does that affect who I think I am?
Or vice versa?
If I think about my third chakra,
About who I am,
What I believe my mission is,
What are the gifts and challenges that I was given that are perfect for my journey here?
If I'm clear about that,
How does that affect my second chakra relationships?
When I'm unclear about it,
How does it affect my second chakra relationships?
It's really interesting to imagine the connections between the chakras,
Because that's like the energy of life.
That's the interplay in between those divine points.
So let's do a meditation.
So let's do a meditation.
Let's sit nice and tall.
Close our eyes,
Or wherever you are.
Maybe you're lying in a tub.
Maybe you're lying in bed.
Or maybe you're sitting upright.
Let's breathe deeply and bring our consciousness into our breath.
As we inhale,
Expanding the belly,
The ribs.
As we exhale,
Releasing.
Again,
Releasing the shoulders down,
Letting the chin come in a little bit.
Really coming into the breath.
And then imagine the energy in your first chakra,
This connection to the earth,
Connection to your life,
Your community,
Your family.
And just observe it.
If emotions rise,
That's cool.
But just really feel whatever it really is.
And then go to the crown chakra on top of your head,
This connection to the galaxy.
Breathe into that.
How does that feel?
Does it feel restricted?
Let's go back to the first chakra and imagine feeling abundance.
Imagine your favorite place.
Maybe it's the woods,
Sitting by an ocean.
Maybe it's the desert.
Maybe it's sailing the sea.
But feel the abundance of nature.
Feel the endless wind,
The depth of the ocean,
All the plants of the forest,
The trees,
The leaves,
Every spring,
The blossoms.
And breathe into that expansive space.
And now let's return to the crown chakra and feel that expansive space in the universe.
And feel how similar they are,
Staying in the crown chakra.
Imagine feeling the root chakra contracted.
Sometimes how we feel around family,
Money,
Society.
What does your crown chakra feel like now?
It's interesting that they're connected.
We come down to our second chakra.
Feel the two sexual organs in your body.
Maybe the ovaries or the testes.
And feel the duality there.
Your two kidneys.
Feel them communicating with each other.
The masculine and feminine within.
Feel it in relationships with others.
Is it easy?
Is it flowing?
But then let's imagine it flowing.
Feel it easily going back and forth,
Interacting in honesty and love and kindness.
Feeling that second chakra merging with the first chakra of this world of abundance.
And within that abundance are other people and animals.
Maybe you love interacting with animals,
Horses and dogs and kittens.
But just feel this beautiful flow in the first and second chakras.
And then flowing up into the third chakra,
Our solar plexus.
And think of what you love to do.
What are some of the favorite things that you've always loved,
Even back as a child?
Or maybe new things that you've discovered that you love to do and that are easy for you.
Like you've always known how to do it.
And feel your third chakra pulsing out into the body.
This love of what you love.
And then feeling that being that loves doing what they love.
Finding other people who love to do those things too.
Or maybe they love to witness you doing it.
Or maybe you just love being around these people.
Allowing your third chakra and your second chakra to flow together.
The joy of being who we are.
The joy of being with kindred spirits,
With friends.
Living in this amazing world,
This beautiful earth.
So abundant and wonderful.
And flowing into the heart chakra,
Our seat of consciousness,
Our divine self.
And imagine yourself sitting in that heart center,
The place where if I was to say to you,
Who are you?
You would point at that place.
And imagine your consciousness looking out at the world from this heart space.
Knowing that you are pure love,
Walking down the street,
Observing the world through this beautiful heart center.
Flowing up through the throat,
Sharing,
Speaking,
Laughing,
Singing,
Humming,
Flowing up into the third eye.
The knowing that you have right now,
This consciousness in our heart center.
It knows the truth.
And it knows how to guide us in our life.
And then flowing up into the crown chakra.
And knowing that this is where we came from.
This is who we really are.
And feeling all of these chakras flowing into each other effortlessly.
Our beautiful intuition in our sixth,
Guiding our interactions in the second,
Our connection to the divine in the crown,
Guiding our choices in our third chakra,
Who we are,
Infinity of the crown chakra,
Nourishing our first chakra,
Helping us manifest anything we desire here on earth.
And just breathe deeply,
Without any thoughts,
Feeling these beautiful energies merging within your body.
Sarvata Svah Shariyasya Dvadasa Anti Mano Layet Drida Budhe Dridi Budham Tatpa Lakshyam Pravartate.
Put attention into the luminous connections between the centers of the body,
Where the mind loves to dissolve the base of the spine and the top of the head,
The genitals and heart,
Your heart and throat,
Throat and forehead,
Forehead and the crown of the skull.
Enter that glowing net of light with focus born of awe,
And even your bones will know enlightenment.
Put attention into the luminous connections between the centers of the body,
Where the mind loves to dissolve the base of the spine and top of the head,
Genitals and heart,
Heart and throat,
Throat and forehead,
Forehead and crown of the skull.
Crown of the skull.
Enter that glowing net of light with a focus born of awe,
And even your bones will know enlightenment.
Thank you so much for being here.
I hope you have a wonderful day.
4.9 (11)
Recent Reviews
Michie<3
July 27, 2023
♾️☮️☯️♡°•☆°•Lovely offering..As always Thank you so kindly Katrina❣️♡°•☆°• ✨️🙏🏼°•♡~★°•
Kim
June 9, 2023
Wonderful talk and beautiful meditation ❤️ I just love this!