Savour the Expansion: Radiance Sutras Verse 49

During this session, we discuss Verse 49 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 beautiful translation of the Vijnana by Rava Tantra,

And how today is going to go is I'm going to read a passage and we're going to listen to it with our soul.

It's funny,

You know,

I remember people would ask me,

What if I'm dating someone and they're not interested in Tantra,

What do I do?

And I always ask them,

What do you call Tantra,

Or what do they think Tantra is?

Because to me,

Tantra is about experiencing life from a soul's place.

It's about experiencing life peppered with the divine sparkle within.

And it's true that not everyone's interested in that.

You know,

Lots of people,

Like if you're dating or something like that,

They really just might be looking for a good time,

Or they're just bored,

Or they're just lonely,

And they just really want someone.

But in their own experience of life,

They're not looking for that deeper experience.

So to me,

It's really interesting if you have friends or a partner,

Someone who actually seeks that soul's experience.

And that's what to me Tantra is.

And so that's what this whole book is about.

It's about reading the sutras from that soul place.

It's almost like going out into the world,

Which is a lot of what today's reading is about.

And not just experiencing the surface of it,

But experiencing it from the inside.

You know,

Even like today,

As I was saying,

You know,

William got into a car accident on his way back to Stratford.

And on the surface,

You know,

He had a car accident,

Everyone's okay.

But when you really think of all that excitement and all those emotions inside,

It's like,

What a powerful experience.

And when you really think about where did that power come from?

Where do all these emotions come from?

Where,

You know,

Where are all these feelings that animate this body and animate my mind?

What is that?

Where does that come from?

To me,

That's living from a soul place,

Living from a place of intrigue.

Like yeah,

On the surface,

You know,

Mad that my car got hurt and maybe a little bit traumatized and a little whatever.

But deep down,

There's some heart pumping,

Something interesting going on.

So that's what we're doing here.

We're reading from the soul place,

We're listening from the soul place.

So for anyone who has the book,

We're reading number 49.

So let's all close our eyes and breathe deeply.

Let's connect with that soul place inside of you.

And there's no right or wrong place where that is.

Tasting dark chocolate,

A ripe apricot,

A luscious elixir.

Savor the expanding joy in your body.

Nature is offering herself to you.

How astonishing to realize the world can taste so good.

When sipping some ambrosia,

Raise your glass,

Close your eyes,

Toast the universe.

The sun and moon and earth dance together to bring you this delight.

Perceive the nectar on your tongue as a kiss of the divine.

What rolls through your mind or what did you feel or experience there made my mouth water.

The kiss of the divine,

Celebrating life is what we're here for,

Delightful,

Kind of appropriate with the holiday season so focused around delicious food.

Being present to each and every gift we receive and experience.

Yes,

Close your eyes,

Toast the universe.

How amazing if we toasted the universe every day.

I'm going to read you a direct translation.

This is out of this book,

Vijnana Bhairava,

Divine Consciousness by Jaideva Singh.

When one experiences the expansion of joy,

Of savor arising from the pleasure of eating and drinking,

One should meditate on the perfect condition of this joy.

Then there will be supreme delight.

I actually really like what else Jaideva Singh here says.

He says,

If the yogi meditates on the perfect condition of the joy that arises even from the satisfaction of physical needs,

He will feel that the source of this joy is also the divine spanda.

Being absorbed in it,

He will experience supreme spiritual bliss.

The divine spanda is like the vibration of life.

If we can fully experience the joy of eating even the tiniest bit of delicious something and we can become absorbed into it,

We will be on the same vibration of the divine vibration.

Even if it's just chocolate or an apple or whatever it is that makes your mouth water,

That's the divine vibration,

Which is super cool.

This is another direct translation.

If one concentrates on eating and drinking and the happiness obtained by that joy of taste from such contemplation of enjoyment arises the state of fullness,

Which then becomes supreme joy or bliss.

That's so interesting to me that it becomes the sense of fullness.

Can you imagine?

You have one sip of something delicious,

One sip.

You become absorbed in it and your whole being becomes full.

As soon as we feel full,

We're like one with the universe.

We're all things.

Taste life,

Even if the fruits are sometimes bitter,

There's richness in every moment.

Exactly.

Reminds me of what I experience when eating fruit fresh off the vine in our garden.

Its magic fills every cell of my body.

Joy begets joy.

Just slow awareness and appreciation.

There's another interesting,

Another aspect that we can look at here.

So there's something called the tan matras.

What they are is they're actually how we perceive the five elements of life.

So if you imagine the five elements that we're made up of,

That the world is made up of,

That the universe is made up of,

It's made up of earth,

Water,

Air,

Fire,

And ether.

Everything is made up of these five elements.

The chocolate is made up of these.

The wine is made up of these.

Each of those elements have to be perceived by our bodies in order to experience the world.

This is really interesting because what they say is that we experience air through touch.

So if you imagine touching someone or touching your hand,

We actually experience air through touch.

It's like there's air in between or you can feel the air on your face.

So when you experience touch,

What's actually happening is you're experiencing the quality of air in the world.

When you taste,

Even what you taste in your mouth right now,

You're actually tasting whatever it is through the element of water.

You can't taste something without water.

So when we taste something,

We're actually experiencing the water element.

So even right now,

Just tasting inside your mouth,

You are swimming in the water element.

And how you taste is how you experience it.

We experience fire through our eyes,

Through sight.

And when you think of that,

Every single thing you look at is based on the reflection of light from the sun.

So we actually experience the fire of the sun through the reflections of everything in the world that we perceive through our eyes.

When we hear,

We are experiencing ether.

These are the sound waves floating through the etheric part of the world.

And then smell,

We smell and we experience earth.

The earth is required,

The smell of earth,

The smell of the tomato plants.

Even more palpable than the taste of the tomatoes,

But even then you taste the tomatoes and what do you experience,

The juiciness and the wateriness of the tomatoes.

So now imagine that every time we taste something,

We are actually experiencing the primal elements of nature.

If you taste something and smell something,

You are experiencing earth and water on a primal level.

This is why,

You know,

He talks here in our reading,

The sun and moon and earth danced together to bring you this delight.

The elements of the universe danced together to bring us this delight.

Water and earth brought us this incredible taste and smell.

Nature is offering herself to you.

I do a dark chocolate ritual on my way home from work.

I put a small piece of dark bitter chocolate on my tongue and just feel it as it melts and I let go of the stresses of the day.

It's so interesting and this is why like in Tantra,

You use every single aspect of life to experience expansion or bliss or elevated consciousness,

Everything.

If all you did was sit outside,

Close your eyes and listen to the sounds of nature,

You are immersing yourself in the etheric element of the world and imagine allowing yourself to be completely absorbed in those sounds.

You would be carried away.

On some level,

You would become etheric just by listening or imagine,

You know,

You're walking through the woods and all you're noticing is the smells.

It's funny when I go walking with Storm and I don't know anything about this.

This is just me observing things on my walk but she is so tuned to what she smells.

I often wonder if she maps our walks based on what it smells like in the same way that I map the walk based on what it looks like,

Right?

It's almost like I see that there's grass and there's a sidewalk and there's a grass and there's a house and there's whatever but as she's walking,

She's actually creating this little topographical map in her mind about the smells of things.

So you imagine to a dog their intense experience of the earth through the smell.

The other interesting point that they bring up is that so often like our senses can distract us from inside.

We can get kind of focused on I want to taste that and I want to have that and I want to have experienced that and our attention actually becomes very externalized and almost separate from ourselves.

But in this way,

We can actually take that same external desire for pleasure through the senses and bring it inside and experience it from the inside because all of our thoughts,

All of our emotions,

All of our actions,

Everything,

All come from the inside.

So no matter what we're experiencing out there,

We can always bring it inside and experience it from the inside.

Dog's nose opens immediately,

Their eyes later and the ears after that.

People are eyes,

Ears,

Nose,

All that's interesting.

It's kind of interesting like even today I was reading this and then I went to the dog park with Storm.

It was snowing but there were like ice pellets,

There were these tiny little ice pellets hitting my face.

I was completely bundled in a parka and everything but the ice pellets were like hitting my face and my first thought was like,

Oh man,

That never hurt because they're really sharp little ice pellets.

But then I was like,

What is this because I had just read this before I went to the dog park.

I thought,

What is my experience of this from the inside?

And it was so different.

I can't actually explain it.

All I know is as soon as I brought my attention inward,

It was almost like there was a joy in it.

There was a joy of even feeling the coldness on my face,

Feeling even the sharp ice hitting my skin.

And then suddenly I saw the sun and I saw the dogs and I was sort of back.

I wasn't so drawn out of my experience because it was so uncomfortable.

So we're going to do a meditation.

Wherever you are,

Let's close our eyes and breathe deeply.

You can be sitting,

You can be lying down.

Let's just really focus on the breath for a moment.

Letting the belly expand as we inhale,

Contract as we exhale,

And now just becoming aware of what you can hear right now.

It could be anything.

It could be the sound of a fridge humming.

It could be the sound of people talking in the distance,

Birds singing.

And as you listen,

Realize that this sound is flowing through the ethers and feel yourself surrounded by the element,

The ether element.

It doesn't even matter what the sounds are.

And now be aware of anything you can smell.

The smell allows us to connect with really all physical things around us,

Even at a distance.

If there's not a lot of smell around you,

Maybe imagine your favorite incense burning or your favorite candle or what it smells like when there's something baking in the oven or the smell of tomato plants.

Allow that smell to feel the earth element.

Imagine the smell when you are by salt water or walking through the woods.

Now imagine in your mind's eye that you're walking along a quiet road and your eyes are bringing in everything that you can see,

The sky,

The sun,

The trees,

The people,

And your eyes are receiving the fire of the sun and that light is reflecting off of everything around you,

Which is allowing your eyes to perceive them.

Through this,

We are experiencing the origin of fire and imagine as you're walking,

Imagine your eyes drawing in all of this light from around you.

Then imagine yourself lying down on a bed.

Maybe someone you love or a trusted masseuse or someone is gently running their fingers along your legs and the hair on your legs are standing up in a lovely sensation and chills are sort of flowing through your body at the very touch of their fingers.

Through this,

We experience air,

We experience the space around us.

Imagine their hands massaging your feet or your ankles or your shoulders or whatever feels good to you.

Then in your mind's eye,

I want you to see the most delicious thing you can imagine.

It might be one of those things that the first time you had it,

You had to stop talking and you had to just experience this for a moment and you're looking at this thing,

Whatever it is and whether you have to take a spoon or a fork or whether you're just going to pick it up and eat it.

In your mind's eye,

Taste this delicious thing and allow the water to flow,

Allow your taste buds to dance,

Allow yourself to be completely lost in this experience and then returning to this moment with the sounds around you,

Allowing you to feel the ethers,

The taste in your mouth flowing with water,

The air on your skin,

The earth entering your nose through smell and your eyes are closed,

So we're letting that one go for now.

Just breathe deeply and feel yourself swimming in the elements of the world.

Jagdi Panna,

Krita,

Alu,

Alasa,

Rasa Ananda,

Vi,

Srimbanath,

Bhavayat,

Bharata,

Avastham,

Maha Ananda Tata Bhavet.

Tasting dark chocolate,

A ripe apricot,

A luscious elixir,

Savor the expanding joy in your body,

Nature is offering herself to you.

How astonishing to realize this world can taste so good.

When sipping some ambrosia,

Raise your glass,

Close your eyes,

Toast the universe.

The sun and moon and earth danced together to bring you this delight.

Receive the nectar on your tongue as a kiss of the divine.

Let's take a deep breath in together and exhale.

Thank you so much for being here.

I hope you have a wonderful day.

Reviews

Superb! Mouthwateringly and humbly presented. Thank you very much

Katrina, wow, this is my first time hearing about Tantra, it is brand new to me, however, I feel like I have been this way my whole life and I just came out of a cave into light. I’m intrigued and want to learn more. This was so beautiful I could barely breathe. Thank you. 💜