Shimmering Energy Without End: Radiance Sutras Verse 63

During this session, we discuss Verse 63 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

Today we are reading from the Radiant Sutras and this is a beautiful translation of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra by Lauren Roche. So we are going to read a sutra then we're going to have a conversation about it and then we're going to do a meditation. For anyone who has the book we are reading number 63. So let's close our eyes together and let's breathe deeply. Releasing the world around us, Just coming into our breath. I read in a book recently that our breath, We aren't breathing our breath, The universe is breathing us. So imagine that, Imagine being the recipient of the universe breathing you and all you have to do is relax to have all of this beautiful energy easily breathed into every cell of your body. Dreaming, Dreaming, Sleeping, Awakening. Rhythms of darkness and light, Day and night, Night and day. Wondering, Who am I? Who am I? Who is morphing through this ever-shifting flow? Beloved, Wake up. Dance in your true body before time, Shimmering energy without end. What comes to you when you hear that? Or what feelings come up? Before you said that part that mentions dance, That's what I thought of, The dance of life. Back to that. I'm going to read the translation from the book, The 112 Meditations. Now this is very different. Contemplate that the three states, Waking, Where there is a limited type of knowledge that produces the sense of duality, Dreaming, Which is filled with impressions of the outer world, And deep sleep, Which is filled with darkness, Are just different forms of consciousness. Realizing this, You are filled with the splendor of the infinite. I'm going to read one more. This is why it's so interesting to have multiple translations or interpretations. This is the absolute kind of word-for-word translation. Knowing a bit about duality, The outer light and darkness in the manifest world and so on, One who again experiences the infinite form of Bhairava procures illumination. That takes a little bit of unpacking. Okay, What are some comments? I want to live more connected and intentional, Not waste my time, Create myself. We are here for just a moment in time. Dance while you can. The strangeness of dreaming sometimes and how I find it like life, Experience that either I am open to or not. The freedom embodiment and connection felt during ecstatic dancing, Even in the bathroom at work, Or especially in the bathroom at work. So this is a very interesting sutra because what they're talking about are the three states of consciousness. But it's not a lesson about the states of consciousness. There's actually four states of consciousness or five depending on what school you're studying, But in this one they're talking about the three. Waking, Dreaming and deep sleep. The fourth they call Turiya and Turiya is the state of consciousness that all of those consciousnesses live within. This is an actual practice that we do to experience actual reality, Ultimate reality, What they would call Bhairava. So when we're awake we are very focused on our who we are, Our ego, And this isn't a negative. None of these states are negative. We're very focused on the people around us, Our circumstances, Objects, Events. This is our waking state. Now imagine for a moment that you have a witness mind within you that is observing you being awake. So in yoga we develop a witness mind. So my witness mind is observing myself. Maybe I'm observing myself crying. Maybe I'm observing myself arguing with someone. I'm watching myself swim in the ocean. I'm watching myself enjoy breakfast. If you were to sit back you're able to kind of observe yourself in your life and this is really important. This is a really important part of the spiritual journey because without it we are caught in the physical world. We are caught in all the dramas because we think we are only that. We are only that person's partner. We are only that job. We are only this body. We are only this and so all of a sudden if anything goes wrong our whole lives just just collapse. The spiritual journey is remembering that we are more. That we are a spirit. In Hinduism in the fourth chakra here Anahat that we study this is where Atman lives and Atman is like if you were to imagine again in Hindu, Not all in Hindu. Hindu is a very very broad study but in say Advaita Vedanta or beliefs like that all things are Brahman. All things are God. All things are the quantum field however you want to understand it. When we say that we each are the world in a drop or the ocean in a drop as Rumi would say or we are the microcosm of the macrocosm this is like Atman. This is our divine self. This is our who we are. This is the the seed of consciousness that creates this being and it lives within our heart center. I always have this vision of Atman this little alien which my language is probably really poor but it's like this little being in my heart center with like a steering wheel like watching where we're going. It's always sort of just like witnessing oh wow look at that hmm that's fun you know like it's like where else are we going today right? That's how I actually honestly see this divine being that lives in my heart center. I've actually never really thought of it but this is actually my inner vision. So we have a witness mind that we can observe our day-to-day life and it's really interesting like Viktor Frankl. Viktor Frankl wrote Man's Search for Meaning and we've talked about him a lot. I don't know if he coined this phrase or not but first time I ever heard the phrase noetic and he because he was a psychologist and he believed that not everything that human beings struggled with could be understood through behavioral conditioning or operant conditioning which most of the psychological world is based on. Oh someone hit you as a child therefore you have this behavior or these were your circumstances and therefore you develop this behavior that because we weren't just animals we're not just monkeys or rats and again nothing against animals that human beings have a noetic realm that there is a realm that actually defines us as humans and the idea that we can laugh that we can believe in a higher consciousness but one of them is that we can separate ourselves and observe our own life. We can actually objectively observe our own life so that is the consciousness we're talking about is this objective observer. Okay so we can understand that that we can observe our waking life. Well last night I had some crazy dreams that I don't really want to repeat to anybody. Crazy dreams. Interestingly enough my observer is also there watching the dreams. My observer is observing the dreams and sometimes in the morning I can remember the dreams like a third party. Wow I dreamt this really weird thing. I don't pretend that I am that thing in the dream right. I know that that wasn't me or those things weren't real but I knew that I dreamt. So these are the two states the waking mind and the dream state both of which have this interesting observer observing. I'm observing my waking time I'm observing my dream state. That's interesting. The third state is deep sleep where none of this exists. None of the outer world none of our inner world just darkness and stillness. So right now if you imagine this darkness the stillness all of us have been in deep sleep states you have visceral memory of this right now. So when you tap into that visceral memory right now you can observe it. You can observe that deep state. You can instantly observe a dream state right now. You can remember them and you can imagine observing yourself walking down a beach. So here are the three states of consciousness. This is what our being our person our atman our spirit is experiencing. The question is where are all of these states existing? What is the space that we are having these different states of consciousness? No I don't have an answer for that. We have names for it like turiya, Bhairava, Divine consciousness, Whatever but there's something within us that can feel it. You can feel the state beyond beyond those three states. This is the exercise. It's not verbal. You just do it. We observe our waking state. We observe our inner state. That's an interesting point actually. So there's a lot of a lot of different interpretations of this. Adi Shankara interpreted these three states as the first waking state is 100% focused in our outer world and they call and this is connected with our gross body. This physical body. How does this physical body move through maya? How does it move through time and space? And then the dream state he actually considers our inner world, The light of consciousness, Our ability, Our subtle self and so this is connected with our subtle body. And then the third state, The dreams or the the deep sleep state is neither the outer world or the inner world. It is the silence. It is the quiet. And so where do all these exist? In a fourth state they call turiya because we like creating things. Some even identify these things in the sound ohm that our waking state is ah and our inner state is ooh and the deep sleep is mmm. Like sometimes when we first started studying yoga or depending on the teacher they'll just teach ohm like o-m and they'll just go ohm. If you imagine the human body as a divine flute, A divine instrument, An instrument for the divine energy to breathe and make sound in the world, Then you are this beautiful instrument and when you take a deep breath and you open your mouth this flute, This beautiful wind instrument makes this sound ah It just naturally makes those three sounds. In some teachings the ah is our outer, The oh is the inner and then it ends in this beautiful inner silence. It completes. And what is this beautiful state? What is the space that we are sounding ohm in? This is total reality. This is, Well in one person's very heavy language, It is the liberation, The realization of non-causal brahman underlying all the states. Which is basically just reality beyond duality, You know, It's just beyond what we imagine. So what I really love is if we just circle back to Lauren Roche's interpretation. One thing I love about what he says here, He says dreaming, Dreaming, Sleeping, Awakening, Rhythms of darkness and light, Day and night, Night and day, Wondering, Who am I? Who am I? Who is morphing through this ever-shifting flow? This is the question. Who am I? Who is this witness that is witnessing waking, Dreaming, And deep sleep? How often do we identify with how I interact with the outer world? How often do I identify with my own inner world? Whether I'm literally asleep and dreaming or I'm just simply in a space of inner contemplation. How often do I identify with my silent meditative self? But who am I? Who is it that is witnessing all these things? So of course the goal is that as we start to observe these things, And this isn't an intellectual thing, This is something to take to our meditation mat and experience. Because what it does is it informs us of our true expansive infinite reality. And this is why the last part, Lauren says, Beloved, Wake up. Dance in your true body before time, Shimmering energy without end. That every one of us is shimmering energy without end. That's who we really are. And from that space we do get to play in this world, Play in the outer world, The inner world, The quiet. But we, Who are we? We are the ones watching. We are the ones watching ourselves strive to work, Pay the bills, Make love, Eat chocolate. We are the ones watching. How much fun is that? How much more interesting does life become? Does anyone have any thoughts you'd like to share before we do our meditation? Practice observing self and life objectively. Human being versus human doing. Well the cool thing is you get to be both. You're actually still observing you being and doing. Okay, So wherever you are, Let's sit nice and tall. Let's close our eyes. And if you're lying down, Be comfortable wherever you are. Close your eyes and just breathe deeply. Watch your belly expand as you inhale. Contract as you exhale. And we're going to take a few deeper breaths just to start. Really slowing down your inhale. Enjoying the expansion of the belly, The ribs, The upper chest. Slowing down the exhale. Let's have one more nice long inhale and long exhale. And where you are, I'd like you to become aware of anywhere in your body that is uncomfortable. Any sensation you have of heat or coolness or anything that's drawing your attention right now in your body. Allow all of your attention to go to that spot of pain, Discomfort or sensation. Just breathe deeply. If there are other points of discomfort, Let your attention shift there. Now I'd like you to imagine that you are a beautiful tree and you have roots going down into the earth. You can feel them reaching down through the soil, Finding their resting place where there are nutrients and water. Feel your body start to become easily still. In your mind's eye, Visualize your right leg. What is it feeling right now? How does your foot feel? Your knee? Your thigh? Your calf? Just breathe into your right leg. Visualize your left leg. What sensations do you have there? In your ankle, Foot, Knee, Thigh, Calf? Visualize your hips. How does your hips feel? Your low back? The places where your legs connect? The ligaments? The muscle? Your sexual organs? The base of your spine? Then bring your awareness to your spine. Every vertebrae. Every cushion between them. The ribs coming out of them. All the way up into your shoulders. Then visualize your right arm. What's happening there? What do you feel in your right hand? Your upper arm. Your elbow. Your forearm. Then your left arm. Your forearm. Your bicep. Your elbow. Your hands. Your fingers. And then your head and your neck. What do you feel there? Is there temperature? Comfort? Discomfort? Visualize your whole body. Allow yourself to come to stillness. Deep stillness. From this space in your mind's eye, I'd like you to watch yourself walking down the street. Notice what you see. Watch yourself talk to people. Look up at the sun. Watch yourself go and sit on a park bench. In your mind's eye, As you sit on that park bench, Observe yourself thinking, Wondering, Watching you go inward. You can hear your thoughts. You can feel the feelings that you're having. Maybe they're happy thoughts. Maybe they're struggle. And imagine that. Imagine yourself sitting on that bench and you're wrestling with something. And observe yourself. Observe yourself happy sitting on that bench. Observe yourself suddenly with a burst of energy and you go running. Even if you've never gone running before, You don't think you can run. Watch yourself run, Light as a gazelle. And observe yourself coming home. And going upstairs to a bedroom. And going and lying down on the bed. And as you fall asleep, Your mind starts to become very active with ideas and thoughts and scenarios. Some of them very fantastical and creative. Some of them borrowing from all kinds of parts of reality and putting them together like a fun art project. And watch yourself in this curious, Thought-created universe. And then slowly the thoughts start to dissipate as the body begins to rest deeper. And the mind starts to rest deeper. And soon all the thoughts are gone. And you are left in this beautiful quiet. Your breath has slowed way down. And you are now in a deep sleep. And you are watching this beautiful deep sleep. What is this beautiful place where we are? Where we can have all of these ways of being here. Ways of living, Ways of experiencing. What is this space? Tincit jnatam dvaita daya bhaya aloka tama puna vishvaadi bharavam rupam jnatva ananta prakasha brit Dreaming, Dreaming, Dreaming. Dreaming, Dreaming, Sleeping. Awakening. Rhythms of darkness and light. Day and night, Night and day. Wondering, Who am I? Who am I? Who is morphing through this ever-shifting flow? Dance in your true body before time. Shimmering energy without end. Let's breathe together. So before you open your eyes. Who are you? If I was to say to you I am love. I am peace. What word rises for you? What completes the phrase I am in this space? Let's open our eyes. Thank you so much for being here. I hope you have a wonderful day.