Pathways To The Inner World: Radiance Sutras Verse 94

During this session, we discuss Verse 94 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 beautiful book written by Lauren Roche.

This is a translation or an interpretation of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra.

Vijnana means wisdom.

Bhairava is the essence of life.

In some ways we might call it God,

Universal consciousness,

You know something like that.

But getting away from like a label for what Bhairava is,

It's like the essence of life.

It's like when something is exciting to us,

That energy,

That essence that goes that floods our whole body.

Also when we're suddenly scared by something and something floods our whole body with fear.

What is that something?

It's actually unknowable,

Unnameable.

This is Bhairava.

It is the essence of life.

It is what makes us feel human and here on earth.

And in many ways our culture has lost our connection to Bhairava.

We've come to a place where we believe that comfort is the ultimate goal.

And in many ways comfort has nothing to do with feeling the essence of life.

Tantra at its foundation is the connection of the divine and the physical life.

And what that means is it isn't this pursuit of God or this pursuit of holiness or this pursuit of a sattvic existence,

This all pure and wonderful.

And this is a very common thing in yogic philosophy where the body is the root,

Literally the root of all evil.

It's the root of our desires that take us off path.

It's the gross body,

It's the matter that is so distracting from our spiritual path.

But tantra says we're meant to be here.

We're meant to be incarnate.

We're meant to be in this physical form filled with desires and struggles and pain and happiness and pleasure and everything.

That's why we're here.

We were just meant to come here and have some spiritual effortless light experience.

It would have been designed differently.

But we were brought here with the ability to experience the full range of emotions from sadness and struggle to elation and joy.

And there's a thrill in that.

Someone here as an example,

I won't use your name because this is a recording,

Who mentioned taking their mom or their ma'am into care.

And another woman mentioned when her dad has dementia,

Things like that.

These are very sad times.

They're not meant to be just blown over and all,

It's no big deal.

It's like,

No,

These are hard times and they're filled with a million emotions.

And that's how it's meant to be.

We're meant to have all of these emotions.

And the crazy thing is I've had a lot of death in my family and in my experience.

Within those times when we allow ourselves to fully feel them and go right into it,

In between the very difficult times are sometimes the most blissful,

Joyful times.

These tiny little things that happen,

Someone who comes to visit,

These little moments of joy that happen inside of the struggle.

It's like raising children.

Raising children is very difficult.

And one might say,

Wow,

Who wants to do that?

What a difficult thing.

Or I just want to numb myself to it or whatever.

But inside the challenge are also incredible bright lights,

Just amazing moments.

And we can say that about anything,

Any experience.

But this is Bhairava,

Experiencing life,

Experiencing the essence of life.

Today,

Mem was quite upset,

But then I managed to get her up off her bed with the plan to go to the lounge,

But she broke in so loudly at the doorway and then doubled over laughing at herself.

And it all seemed like it might be okay for a few minutes again.

I mean,

This is real stuff.

These are the real things of life.

And these are the things that hilariously we will remember the rest of our lives.

This is the stuff.

And so the point of Tantra is allowing ourselves to get to a place where we are open enough to experience everything.

All of the things,

All of the joys and all of the struggles,

Life punctuated by life.

Exactly,

Jen.

It's a great challenge.

And what's interesting about the challenge is the challenge is also built into the system.

It's built into the program.

So for example,

In the Tantric perspective,

The way the universe is organized is there is oneness.

Perhaps we call it Shiva Shakti,

Not Shiva and Shakti,

Shiva Shakti as oneness.

And then in order for us to experience life,

Shiva Shakti disconnect into their independent or their Shiva and Shakti,

Masculine and feminine,

Light and darkness,

Consciousness and body,

All that kind of thing.

And then that allows us to actually experience being alive.

And so Shiva remains consciousness,

And all of us become embodied Shiva,

Which we call Shakti,

Every one of us.

But in order for us to actually have an individual experience,

Every single person here is having a perfectly unique experience of this world.

Every person here is having a unique experience of this talk.

No one here is having the same experience.

No one here is having the same thoughts,

Memories,

Distractions,

Nothing.

Everybody here is unique.

How is this possible?

When every one of us is made of divine consciousness,

How can each one of us have such a unique experience?

So there are three main aspects of the mind.

Manas,

Which is the part of our mind that interprets everything that comes into our senses.

So that's the mind that says,

You know,

Something comes into our eyes,

And we go,

Oh,

That's red,

And oh,

That's bright.

Something comes into our ears and says,

Oh,

That's so pretty,

Or whatever.

This is Manas.

And then we have Chitta.

Chitta is the repository of all of our memories,

This life and maybe even before.

And then there is Budi,

Which is our intellect that says,

This is right,

This is wrong,

This is for me,

This is not for me,

All those kinds of things.

So you can imagine that these three things are always sort of bouncing off of each other.

Something comes into our brain,

And we smell it.

And it reflects over to Chitta,

Which says,

Oh,

I don't like that.

I remember this smell,

It freaks me out.

And now I've been triggered.

And then our Budi says,

This is bad,

This is bad,

You know,

And this is or vice versa.

You know,

Maybe you see something and you,

And you go,

Oh,

I remember this.

And then your whole body floods with joy,

Because Chitta has memory of good things.

And Budi says,

This is a good thing.

Yes,

Let's,

Let's ponder this.

These three aspects of mind,

Really create what they call ahamkara,

Which is our ego,

Which is what makes us each individual,

Which is what is causing every person listening to this to have a completely different experience.

Because even the sound of my voice will come into your Manas and have a particular effect.

And what I'm saying may reflect in Chitta,

Or your your Budi is saying,

I don't know,

I'm not sure I'm pushing back on this,

Or Oh,

Yes,

I'm taking this in.

This is what defines each one of us as being unique.

So on the one hand,

We're actually designed to have these very unique experiences.

And to have opinions about things to have opinions about everything that goes on.

And we will develop opinions like I don't want to experience pain.

I only want to experience pleasure.

And we may design our life in ways to avoid all things that are hard.

We may avoid conflict and therefore not say things that we should say.

We may do all kinds of things so that we don't feel things that are difficult.

Or vice versa.

We may believe on some unconscious level that we deserve pain.

And as soon as anything good happens,

We will discount it and go after the hard way all the time.

Tantra says,

You do have these abilities,

We do have all these wonderful mental faculties.

And it's important for us to have a unique experience.

But we are also divine.

And this is actually what our reading is about today.

Today,

We are reading number 94.

So I invite everyone to close our eyes.

Let's just forget everything we've just been talking about.

And just breathe deeply.

Relax your shoulders wherever you are.

If you're in your car,

Then just relax.

And don't close your eyes.

But everybody else,

Let's relax.

Here we go.

Light moves on its pathways through space,

Enters the eyes,

And you absorb the luminous.

Each sense is a current of divinity sparkling with mystery.

Light,

Motion,

Space,

Vision,

Awareness,

All are composed of omnipresence.

The senses connecting you to the outer world are paths of communion with the inner world.

Every sight,

Sound,

Smell,

Taste,

Touch,

A greeting from the beloved.

What feelings rise in you when you hear that?

Or what thoughts or what phrases jump out at you?

So playful.

A greeting from the beloved.

That all we've been given is a gift,

Whether we think it to be good or bad.

All our greetings from the beloved.

It really is the smallest common things in life that are the most important.

Everywhere you look is God.

Each sense is a current of divinity.

Every aspect of the physical is a greeting from the beloved,

Even that which is not favorable.

To be alive is a gift.

So this particular sutra is all about,

They call it a meditation on Purnatva.

And this is the feeling of fullness.

The feeling of being nourished and complete.

It's like imagining that the whole world is composed of five elements.

Earth,

Air,

Wind,

Fire,

Ether,

Water.

So imagine that everything around us is made of these elements.

And those elements are enlivened by universal consciousness.

So we are all surrounded by the fullness of the divine.

Everywhere around us.

And we too are made of that.

We too are made of this divine consciousness.

Simply animated earth,

Air,

Wind,

Fire,

Water,

Ether.

So now we have these senses.

Sight,

Smell,

Touch,

Hearing,

Taste.

When I look at something,

My divine consciousness is going out to that thing.

Like right now I'm looking at a computer.

And it's going out to that thing.

And that thing I am looking at is also divine consciousness incarnate.

And suddenly that thing and I are the same.

There's no difference.

This is very interesting.

So now you imagine sitting where you are.

And just what do you hear?

What do you hear all around you?

Imagine that every single thing you hear is divine.

Consciousness incarnate.

And all of that energy is flowing into your mind.

Imagine what you can taste right now in your mouth.

There are maybe it's leftovers from breakfast or,

You know,

Who knows,

Something.

It's a sensation that goes into our mind,

Connecting us with the outside world.

So imagine walking through life and everything we see and everything we hear and everything we feel is perpetually filling us with the fullness of life.

Now here's the thing.

There's two challenges with this.

When I was thinking about this,

I was thinking,

Wow,

How overwhelming does that sound?

A lot of people in the world,

That the idea of allowing all the sights and smells and sounds and feelings of the world into them,

That would be too much.

That would make us want to dive into our homes and open up a jigsaw puzzle.

So why is it overwhelming?

And don't get me wrong,

Walking in a downtown city full of neon lights and crazy sounds is meant to be overwhelming.

That's a different thing.

But just in general life,

Going to the grocery store in a more natural environment.

And I don't mean nature.

I mean a more natural human environment,

A gathering,

Going for a walk,

Whatever.

So why would this be overwhelming?

Why does it become too much?

This is where we have to look at these four aspects of our mind.

We have to look at manas,

The part of our brain that is taking in and interpreting the world through our senses.

Has it been overstimulated at some point?

Citta,

Holding all of our memories,

Is that overloaded?

Are there memories in there that need to be looked at?

Sorted?

Placed in context?

Or what about buddhi?

Buddhi is the intellect.

Buddhi is the aspect of ourselves that says this is good,

This is bad,

This is right,

This is wrong.

Is your buddhi heavily developed to the point that any time any sensory information comes into our brain,

It's so busy judging it,

It's not able to just experience it.

This is why the path of tantra is so much about meditation or healing.

Because we want these beautiful parts of our brain,

Of our mind,

To flow effortlessly into each other.

We want to have a healthy buddhi,

Healthy intellect,

That can discern for us our path.

Is this on our path?

Is this not on our path?

But we don't need it filled with the judgments of whatever we were taught.

And as soon as we see something,

We have this knee-jerk reaction.

That's not actually intellect.

That's not actually discernment.

Discernment,

And it creates separation,

And it doesn't allow us to just experience what's going on around us.

My spiritual teacher years ago,

He used to talk about how when we first start doing energy work,

Let's say someone learns Reiki,

That we're taught to put a bubble around us.

And that's really important.

Because when we normally,

When we start studying something like energy medicine,

It's because we're struggling with something.

Something has happened.

We're seeking healing of some flavor.

We're seeking a different way of understanding the world.

And what we're really saying is our buddhi,

Our citta,

Our manas,

Are not flowing together well.

Maybe the memories of citta have caused us,

You know,

We have incredible PTSD from who knows,

Our childhood,

Relationships,

Past lives,

Something.

And our buddhi is in high alert all the time telling us,

This is wrong,

This is right,

This is wrong,

This is right,

This is wrong,

This is right.

And as our mind becomes so hyperactive,

We can't even experience the world around us.

So then to then become more sensitive to energy,

We have to bubble up.

And it's important that he said the long-term goal of a spiritual practice is to become like a flow-through teabag where your inner world is so healthy and so connected and so clear that it doesn't matter what comes in.

Your mind,

Your body,

Your soul,

Your chakras will simply process it,

Release what isn't necessary,

And it will continue through.

And we don't have to be like that right now,

But that is the goal.

And this particular sutra really helps us understand why that's the goal.

Because when our inner mind is healthy,

Connected,

Balanced,

Mature,

Then we get to walk through life experiencing the fullness of life.

Every single thing we see,

Touch,

Hear,

Taste,

Smell,

Feel is a reminder of the divinity that we are.

It's the reminder that,

Yes,

My name is Katrina Boss,

And I'm 55 years old,

And I'm a woman that lives in Canada,

And here are all the other statistics about me.

That is this,

The definition or the labels that I place on this particular incarnation.

And it is a trip.

It's a fun incarnation of Shakti I'm experiencing.

Challenging at times,

Blissful at times,

All the things.

But I am also divinity.

And we forget that.

And it's hard to remember sometimes.

And so this particular sutra says,

All we need to do to remember is breathe deeply and look out at the world.

Look at the world.

Everything around you is incarnate universal consciousness.

Everything you see.

And the divine consciousness in you connects with the divine consciousness out there.

Everything.

And we all know this.

We know this so deeply.

All we have to do is close our eyes and play a piece of music that we love.

Close your eyes,

You turn off the lights,

You get comfortable,

And you play that piece of music.

And your whole body resonates.

Why does that feel so good?

Like,

Really,

Why does it feel so good?

It's like we're experiencing the essence of life by Rava.

We're experiencing our own divinity through the music.

It resonates with us.

It makes the hair stand up on our body.

It makes us feel full.

So the lesson in this sutra is to understand the difference between using our senses through our mental bodies,

Our minds,

Manas,

Buddhi,

Citta,

Ahamkara,

Our ego,

All that.

If we look at the world through our ego,

Through the mind this way,

Our mind is very active.

And we almost experience the separation of,

Oh,

Well,

That couch is over there,

And that tree is over there,

And it's raining on my head.

You know,

It's not necessarily contributing to our fullness of life.

And another part of this teaching in this sutra is you don't have to,

Like,

You don't have to kill the senses.

You don't have to release them altogether and get rid of them.

You simply transcend them.

And you feel the divine in you.

And then use your senses.

You feel that divine self.

And now look at the tree.

Now listen to the music.

Now taste the food.

Now receive that touch.

It's entirely different.

And this is an interesting practice,

To almost feel yourself shift between experiencing the senses through the egoic mind,

Which isn't bad.

It's a good thing.

It's by design.

It's just limited by design.

Or we experience the world through that universal self that is inside of us.

And then we are reminded by all the universal self that is around us through our senses.

So let's do a meditation.

Are you guys ready?

Let's close our eyes,

Wherever you are.

Sitting upright.

Pretending to work.

Lying down.

And let's breathe deeply.

Expanding the belly as we inhale,

Contracting.

As we exhale.

And in your mind's eye,

I want you to imagine yourself walking down a road.

And in this moment,

You're very connected with your life,

Your thoughts,

Your struggles,

The things you want in life.

Everything to do with who you are,

Your ego.

And I want you to just look around at what you see around you,

While you're having all of these thoughts.

No judgment.

Just observe this human being that you are,

Filled with all the thoughts of life.

In Sanskrit,

They're called Vikalpas.

All the thought forms flowing through your mind.

And in your mind's eye,

Look at the trees,

The road,

The birds,

The buildings,

The flowers,

While you have all these thoughts in your mind.

And then,

I would love to,

For you to walk ahead and see a beautiful patch of grass.

The sun seems to be shining just on that patch of grass.

And you walk over to the patch of grass and you lie down.

And you spread your arms open and you spread your legs wide like a starfish.

And you breathe deeply.

You watch your belly rise as you inhale and fall as you exhale.

You allow all thoughts to float through your mind and then out into the world around you.

And you keep breathing,

Slowly emptying of the thoughts.

And bit by bit,

You start to become aware of the feeling of the earth beneath you.

You feel the grass,

The earth under your shoulders,

Under your buttocks,

Under your feet.

You start to become aware of the smell of the air that you're breathing.

What does it smell like?

You start to become aware of the sounds all around you.

What can you hear?

And you open your eyes and you look at the sky.

Maybe it's blue sky,

Maybe there's clouds,

Maybe a bird flies overhead.

But you open your eyes wide and you allow it all in.

You feel the wind on your skin,

On your face.

Just allowing all of these sensations to flow through you.

Allow them to nourish you,

Nourish your body.

But more importantly,

Allow it all to nourish your spirit.

Because this beauty is you.

This divine feeling is your essence.

Light moves on its pathways through space,

Enters the eyes,

And you absorb the luminous.

Each sense is a current of divinity,

Sparkling with mystery.

Light,

Motion,

Space.

Vision,

Awareness.

All are composed of omnipresence.

The senses connecting you to the outer world are paths of communion with the inner world.

Every sight,

Sound,

Smell,

Taste,

Touch.

A greeting from the beloved.

Let's just breathe that in for a few moments.

And in your mind's eye,

Gently sit up from that lying position and gaze around the world.

Then in your mind's eye,

Gently come to standing.

And then bring this beautiful awareness into your life as you walk back.

And together,

Let's take a deep breath in.

And exhale.

And let's return.

So thank you so much for being here.

And I hope you have a wonderful day.