Permeated By Divine Awareness: Radiance Sutras Verse 40

During this session, we discuss Verse 40 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 doing a reading from the Radiant Sutras,

Beautiful book by Lauren Roche.

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

A beautiful ancient tantric text,

Which really helps us to expand our life experience.

That's really the point.

We say things like we want to expand our consciousness and we want to integrate the divine into the human experience.

Like we say things like that,

Which is all tantric,

But what does that really mean?

What does it really mean to expand our consciousness?

It's almost like if you imagine what are you normally aware of?

What are we normally noticing?

We notice,

Okay,

My to-do list and here's what has to happen or the distractions in my life or the things that I want,

The things that I desire.

And there's sort of like these individual things that we're aware of,

Just like there used to be a yellow pages advertisement.

So I don't know if this is in the rest of the world,

But in North America,

There used to be the white pages that had everyone's phone number in it.

Then there was the yellow pages of all,

It was a business directory of phone numbers.

I don't even know if these things exist anymore.

And there was a great commercial about when you're looking for something and this person's walking down the street and everything's black and white,

But he's really looking to buy a new Walkman.

That's the advertisement I remember.

And all the person saw were other people's Walkmans.

So all the Walkmans were in yellow.

Everything else was black and white,

But he'd see that person's Walkman and that person's Walkman and that person's Walkman.

It's like when you wanna buy a new car.

You notice every single car out there.

You notice how many Hyundais there are and how many Fords there are and how many Asuras there are or whatever.

And then as soon as you buy your car,

You don't see them anymore.

So this is our consciousness.

This is the awareness of the world around us.

And that can start to feel very limited,

Especially if we're in pain or we're struggling with anything.

Suddenly our consciousness becomes 100% focused on that one thing,

That one topic,

And our world becomes very small.

Our world is defined by our consciousness.

Our world is defined by what we're aware of,

What we're paying attention to.

So Tantra says,

How do we expand that consciousness?

Because sometimes we don't even know that our consciousness is limited because we're simply living the life that our parents lived or our society lived or our church lived or our country.

This is what you do.

This is what you focus on.

You focus on your lawn or you focus on getting in shape.

You focus on this.

And we think we're actually living a very expanded life because we're really busy.

But Tantra's like,

There's so much more.

And when we can expand beyond those physical things,

We start to feel happy inside.

We start to feel like we belong here on earth,

That we're not just in the grind.

We don't have those existential crises where we're wondering,

What am I even doing here?

Yeah,

Sure,

I did this,

I did that,

I did this,

But what am I doing here really,

Especially on a low day?

But when we can expand the consciousness beyond what we've been taught,

It's like all the secrets are hiding in plain sight.

All the things that our soul deeply wants to experience here on planet earth,

It's all right in front of us,

But it's hiding.

And so that's really the point of Tantra.

And that's the point of us reading these sutras,

That each sutra,

Each verse,

Gives us something different to focus on in the world,

A different dharana,

If you're familiar with the eight limbs of yoga,

A different concentration point.

And when we do that,

Something intrinsically inside of us expands.

It's not even something you can describe.

Something just shifts inside of you,

And you're different.

And you speak a little bit differently,

And you speak a little bit differently,

And you walk down the street differently.

All these things,

It's just beautiful,

But it's not something,

You can't even describe it to anyone.

So this is why I'm gonna read this sutra.

And the idea is to listen to it from that soul place,

Not from our personality,

Or from our stressed out place,

Or our to-do list that we have today,

Or whatever,

But to kind of go inside,

Find that soul place inside,

And listen from there.

And then we'll have a discussion about how this stirs our soul.

Then we'll talk about what it means,

Or what it could mean,

Some interpretations of it,

By other yogis and tantrics.

And then we'll do a meditation.

For anyone who would like to know,

We are doing verse 40 today.

So let's close our eyes,

And breathe deeply,

Expanding the belly as you inhale,

Contracting as you exhale,

Really connecting with your first chakra,

The perineum,

Place between your sexual organs and anus,

Place where you're sitting.

And as you inhale,

Feel energy flowing up from the earth into your lungs.

And then on your next breath,

Imagine breath coming in through your crown chakra as well,

Top of your head.

And then feel both of those breaths from the root and from the crown,

Drawing into your body,

Into the heart center,

Inside your chest,

Feeling that energy swirling in your heart.

And then relax,

Any focus on the breath,

And just feel this quiet center inside of you.

Delight in this entire universe as permeated with divine awareness and every part of your body,

Your feet,

Your face,

Your shoulders,

Made out of divine awareness.

The body of the planet beneath you,

Out beyond the farthest horizons,

The stars and the reaches of space,

All are arising from God consciousness.

Know this and dissolve into peace.

What feelings does that bring up for you?

Or what words are rolling through your mind?

Dissolve.

Know this and dissolve into peace.

Joy coming back to self,

Dissolving.

Love,

Detach and experience ecstasy,

Connected to all.

The universe is love,

Resting in peace.

We are the embodiment of awareness,

Oneness.

Dissolving has within it the word loving,

Breathing and being divine consciousness,

Divine awareness.

Small yet infinite,

Serenity and deep appreciation.

Dissolving and dismantling could look the same,

Dismantling could look the same but are different.

Dissolve,

Stop worrying,

Stop solving.

Ha ha ha.

Gandhi's thought,

There is no path to peace,

Peace is the path.

Mm-hmm.

We're gonna come back to that in a moment.

That's a great point.

I'm gonna read you another interpretation.

So this is a translation from the book,

Sri Vijnanabharava Tantra,

The Ascent.

So this is a direct translation.

One should concentrate with an unwavering mind on all existence,

The body and even the universe simultaneously as nothing but consciousness.

Then the supreme consciousness arises.

And this is very interesting.

So there's a teaching in a lot of spiritual teachings like Vedanta,

But Maharishi,

There's many,

Many teachings when they say and they'll say,

The world is unreal.

This is maya,

Illusion.

The only thing that exists is consciousness.

The only thing that exists is energy.

And this is very confusing.

This is a confusing idea.

It's hard.

You can understand this idea because it helps us to release maybe our attachments to our suffering or our goals or all the things that sort of take us off of our path.

So it's a very important teaching if our problem is attachment.

And this is really important to understand that all spiritual teachings are medicine for something,

But they're not necessarily a universal truth.

So this idea that there is no reality,

There is nothing,

All things are one,

Blah,

Blah,

Blah,

This can be a very confusing teaching and it can lead us to a place where we don't care about anything.

We don't care about relationships.

We don't care about life.

We don't even care that we're alive.

It's all an illusion anyway,

So who cares?

So it's not necessarily a teaching for all people in all times.

And it's not actually,

It's not a tantric teaching at all because a tantric teaching is that everything is very real because that's why we're here.

Why would we have incarnated to just explore illusion?

And so tantra says,

No,

It's okay to know that all things are oneness,

All things are consciousness,

But what we're doing here is real.

The experiences we're having are real.

Otherwise,

What's the point?

They don't really go there,

That's just me.

So what this teaching,

What this sloka,

They call it,

This sutra is teaching us is first they're saying,

Okay,

On a subatomic level,

We are just electrons.

We are just charged energy.

We can call them electrons,

Protons,

Neutrons.

We can do all this,

We can analyze it,

But bottom line,

We are energy.

We are charged particles and that magnetic charge causes us to bond together to create life.

Everything in the universe is made of charged particles.

This planet in the furthest galaxy is made of charged particles just like my skin is,

Just like your leg is.

What makes up your leg is the same energy that makes up the sun.

So when we can really go there,

So there's sort of two parts,

There's maybe three parts of this meditation.

The first part is like go there.

Go into that place and really understand it.

Now,

The interesting part of Gandhi's quote that Bill gave us,

That there is no path to peace,

Peace is the path.

This is the first part of this.

With an unwavering mind,

With an unwavering mind,

Imagine that you are made up of the same energy,

The same consciousness as every part of the universe.

And what they're saying here is you can't do this meditation with a half mind.

You can't just,

Well,

Okay,

I'm still gonna be really stressed out about all these things and I'm still gonna remember that I had all these issues and I had all this trauma and I have problems at work and I don't know how I'm gonna pay my rent.

You can't do that and then sit down and try to do this meditation.

You actually have to sit down and say,

There.

In this moment,

I am one with the universe,

Period.

Full stop.

And every one of us can do it.

Every one of us can go to that place that this is it.

Because if we don't do that,

We won't actually experience the meditation.

This isn't a should,

This is a requirement,

Which is why a lot of tantric practices,

They'll say that these are advanced practices.

You have to be able to bring yourself to a place where you can actually let it all go,

Even if only long enough to do the meditation,

If only long enough to take the medicine.

We all will return to our incarnation.

We will all return to the challenges that are ahead of us and the goals that we are working towards and we'll all return to that in a moment.

But we have to be able to let it all go.

And in the essence of letting it all go,

We actually realize that it isn't actually real.

Like this is our mind,

You know,

Somebody said the sign of true genius is being able to hold two opposing ideas in your mind at the same time and not go insane.

So can we hold in our mind the idea that all of the stuff that's happened to us in our life that we believe holds us back,

That we believe are stumbling blocks on our path,

Can I believe that none of that is actually real?

And can I believe that it matters at the same time?

This is Tantra.

Can you fully embody your divine perfect self and fully embody your very human existence designed with purpose,

With all the bits in it,

Happy or sad?

So that's the first part of this is to be able to actually imagine yourself the same as the universe,

That the cells within me are made up of atoms,

Which are made up of charged particles,

Just like the trees and the earth and the air and the sun and the moon and the galaxies,

As far out as we can see.

So then what happens when we experience this,

When we experience that universal oneness?

We start to feel like the substrata,

We start to feel what's underneath all of it.

And again,

This isn't anything we can say in words,

And we'll play with this in our meditation later,

But you start to feel something in common between you and the universe.

And of course,

To do that,

Nothing exists.

My bed doesn't exist,

My car doesn't exist in this space because we're tuning in to almost a different dimension of reality.

And so then here's the interesting part.

In the Tantric vision,

In many,

Many Tantric schools,

They say that life is a play between the energies of Shiva and Shakti.

So Shiva,

And to get completely out of any male-female ideas here,

These are universal energies of masculine and feminine,

Has nothing to do with the fact that Shiva is portrayed as a male and Shakti is portrayed as a female.

Like,

Completely release that idea out of your mind.

So Shiva and Shakti are one.

And in order for us to experience life,

In order for us to experience duality,

Which is a joy,

Which is the point of us being alive,

Shiva and Shakti,

In the oneness,

Separated into two,

Separated into duality.

Shiva remains full consciousness.

Shakti is consciousness manifest.

Shakti is the created from that consciousness.

We are Shakti.

Our physical bodies are Shakti.

The earth and the moon and the galaxies are Shakti.

This is consciousness manifest.

So everything in the world is consciousness.

So on some level,

It's just energy.

But we chose to manifest,

We chose to become corporeal,

We chose to become physical.

And within that physicality,

We are pure consciousness.

That's this meditation.

How can we be full of the divine energy of these protons and atoms like the trees and plants,

And also have a diseased body at the same time?

The answer is beyond that question.

I will give you an answer,

Like in the physical world.

This is why,

In order to do the meditation,

We have to actually step beyond even the idea of disease.

The idea of disease is a human idea.

The world has a cycle of life,

Birth,

Change,

Death,

Rebirth.

Plants do it,

Animals do it.

It's normal.

Stars do it.

They live,

They die.

Our bodies are sometimes sick because it's in a process.

Maybe it's in a process of healing,

Maybe it's in a process of dying,

Maybe it's in a process of rebirth.

We interpret it as disease.

That's a human creation.

And it's really important.

That's why we can't actually do this meditation if we play within human constructs.

But it's an important question.

So let's close our eyes for a moment.

So let's close our eyes for a moment.

And let's become very comfortable.

Maybe you're sitting upright.

Maybe you're on a chair.

You can lie down as long as you can breathe freely.

Let's close our eyes.

I want you to become aware of the chakras inside of you.

So chakras are seen as whirling wheels of energy.

Really what they are is imagine your body filled with streams of energy,

Rivers of energy flowing down your arms,

Down your legs,

Through your face,

Through your skin.

Rivers of energy,

Prana.

This is what animates us.

This is our life force.

This is what makes our skin heal from a cut.

This is what brings the prana into our blood.

It's all of these energy meridians,

Nadis flowing through our bodies.

There are places in the body where these energy flows merge and gather.

These are the chakras.

And there are chakras through our whole body.

So imagine the main seven chakras that we think about.

There are energy flows swirling at your root,

The perineum,

The place between your sex organs and your navel.

Energy meridians flowing from your legs,

From your belly,

Down into this space.

Then there are more energy flows to just below your navel,

Swirling like a wheel,

Spinning like a top.

Then there's more energy flowing just above your navel into the third chakra.

In Tibetan Buddhism,

They see a chakra at the navel center,

Right at your belly button.

Feel that energy flowing through your navel and then up to your heart center in the center of your chest.

Visualize all of this beautiful energy,

All of these rivers flowing into this one spot and mixing and energizing each other.

Feel energy channels flowing up to the neck area,

The throat,

All of this beautiful divine white light,

Charged particles flowing through there,

Animating your body,

Your thyroid,

Your voice.

Imagine these energy flows flowing up into your third eye,

Connecting you with consciousness and intuition.

And then imagine these rivers of energy flowing all the way to your crown chakra and out into the universe.

Imagine these rivers of energy flowing through your body,

Through the chakras,

Weaving through the chakras,

Out through the crown chakra,

Out through the crown chakra,

Out into the universe.

And that these rivers of energy exist through the whole of reality,

The galaxies,

The sun,

The moon,

The planets,

The air in between.

All of the planets are also made of these rivers of energy,

Particles flowing,

Interacting,

Changing,

Creating.

Imagine yourself sitting in the center of it all,

Feeling the galaxy flowing out from you,

All around you.

And you are made of the same stuff.

Picture yourself made of stars and space.

Feel yourself one with everything.

And then feel a longing inside to live.

A longing to experience.

Feel the shakti energy inside of you,

The desire to be alive.

And then slowly feel that shakti energy manifesting everywhere,

Manifesting as planets,

Manifesting as earth,

Manifesting as deer and bears.

Manifesting as trees and oceans.

And manifesting as humans.

Manifesting as you.

And with the full consciousness of the whole universe,

See yourself walking through this manifestation,

This beautiful manifestation of shakti.

Vision yourself walking down the street and seeing whatever it is you see,

All as manifest consciousness.

Breathe deeply into this reality.

Sarvam deham chitmayam hi jagavate paribhavayat yugapad nirvikalpena manasa paramah udaya.

Delight in this entire universe as permeated with divine awareness.

And every area of your body,

Your feet,

Your face,

Your shoulders,

Made out of divine awareness.

The body of the planet beneath you,

Out beyond the farthest horizons,

The stars and the reaches of space,

All are arising from God consciousness.

Know this and dissolve into peace.

Let's just breathe this for a moment together.

And returning to our chakras,

Returning to this beautiful energy flowing within us,

Feeling that energy manifesting as our physical body.

Allow your hands to flow over this body,

Over your arms,

Over your legs,

Over your face.

On the ground around you,

The chair you might be sitting on,

The bed you may be laying on,

Feel this physical manifestation of light.

And let's take a deep breath in together.

Exhale,

And let's open our eyes.

So thank you so much for being here.

And I hope you have a wonderful day.

Reviews

A truly wonderful talk and meditation. Would love it if the meditation was a separate recording too. Thank you so much 💖

Excellent! I like all of it, but especially how life is a dance between duality and non-duality

The human experience of polarity described in one verse and explained beautifully by you (thank you Katrina) and experienced in a meditation practice. Shiva-Shakti Yin-Yang Masculine-Feminine Union-Separation. Know this, and dissolve into peace!