Subtle, Ever-Changing Tones: Radiance Sutras Verse 17

During this session, we discuss Verse 17 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, Which is a beautiful book by Lauren Roche and it is an interpretation of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra, Which is an ancient tantric text. And it's interesting when you think of it, What the words mean. I'll show you this other book. This is the one book we read from. This is another book that is called the Sri Vijnana Bhairava Tantra. So these are the words I'm using. Vijnana, It has a million meanings, But one of the meanings is wisdom. Bhairava, Again many many meanings, But one of the meanings, It's when two energies come together and you experience the bliss of oneness. And that can happen inside of us as well. It's not just two people or two things coming together. It can be us merging with the sunshine. It can be the process of inspiration and manifestation. And when we can flow in that magnetic coil, It's like it just amps up and up and up and up and then it literally is like bliss. And this is Bhairava. So Vijnana Bhairava Tantra, When you think of that, It's literally to really access the wisdom and develop the wisdom inside of us to experience that kind of bliss in the world. In many ways, Even the discussion of how do we stay fully focused in our day-to-day life, The emotional roller coaster, Because I don't want to know how because I don't want to not care. You know, I don't want to not care about my life just because I'm an infinite being. That's the whole point of being human is to have the experience and that's the whole bit emotionally, Mentally, Physically, Spiritually. You want to have the whole experience. So what an interesting marriage, What an interesting interplay between that our day-to-day life being inspired by the infinite potential, But we don't get lost in the minutiae either. So it's a very interesting journey, This Vijnana Bhairava Tantra to find the wisdom in the world so we can feel whole and happy. So today we are reading verse 17 on page 52. If you have the book, You don't have to have the book at all, But I highly recommend it. It's a really beautiful book just to pick up and read and let ourselves meditate on it for the day. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to read the sutra, Then we're going to have a bit of a discussion about it, Then at the end of class we will do a meditation based on the sutra. Just in case you're new, That's what we're going to do. So let's close our eyes, Breathe deeply, Relax your shoulders, Let your belly expand as you inhale, Contract as you exhale. Here we go. Think of any vowel, They are all delicious. Savor the sound with infinite gentleness. Attend to where it comes from within you and where it goes to when it fades away. Listen to the subtle ever-changing tones, Layer upon layer. Discover what gradualness is. The power of sound will lead you into the power of silence. Syllables are born from space, Resonate in space, Then melt into spaciousness. Know the silent spaciousness as yourself. What stands out for you in that? Meditating on peace, Focus on the letter and then the space between. Sound coming from space and returning into spaciousness. Know the silent spaciousness as yourself. I am the silent spaciousness. I never thought of vowels coming from a deeper place. Interesting. Power of sounds leads to the power of silence. Within the yin there is the yang. We only hold vowel notes when we sing. So this is an interesting passage. In the Sanskrit, They say the word shunya like three times. I'll read you the Sanskrit later. But shunya is the silence. Shunya is nothingness. Shunya is stillness. And it's interesting because in Western thought, We only think of what is manifest as being important. This brings us to one of David Bohm's concepts of the plenum, That we often look through the world, That we only focus on the things we can see. We can see you and I, We can see the fridge, We can see the tree, We can see the dog, And everything in between is nothing. We might say it's air or it's oxygen or something. But for all intents and purposes, Our entire focus in life are on the things, The book I'm writing, Not necessarily the thought processes that go into it. But what's the final result? How far have you gotten? We think of our accomplishments, We think of the things. And David Bohm said, Because he's a quantum physicist, And a big part of the journey of the quantum physicist is trying to understand reality. Because when they started to really look at how subatomic particles acted, You know, So for example, If you have a ball, Throw the ball up in the air, And you catch it, You can calculate how long it takes based on what we understand about gravity and wind resistance and what have you. So we think we understand the physics of life. But then when they discovered that within the atom, And the atom, Of course, Is just charged particles flying around. But what's curious is if you actually took one of those electrons, It doesn't act according to these laws of physics. It might just disappear. It might go through solid wall, It might split and appear in many places at once. It didn't make any sense. And so these physicists said, Wait a minute, How can that be? Or do we misunderstand what's really going on in the world? What if the world really isn't about throwing the ball up in the air and understanding all this? And of course, The problem is, You can't find another solution within the mindset that we have. We can't figure it out as long as it's called the Newtonian perspective, Or the mechanistic perspective of life, Where we have the ball, We have the bat, The bat hits the ball, And that's how we understand the world. But within that understanding of the world, We cannot find another solution. We can't understand what doesn't fit. So the physicists step back and they say, Okay, Maybe we have it all wrong. Maybe the container for what we're trying to understand isn't right. We've made some assumptions and assertions, Which are incorrect. So this is where David Bohm might sit back and say, Well, What if we don't even understand the difference between matter and space? What if we have it backwards? What if all the things we see are actually space? What if the things we see are like bubbles? And what's in between is fullness? And he called it the plenum, Like plenty. He compared it to swimming in the ocean. If you had a mask on and you were swimming through the ocean, You wouldn't be able to see the water, But you could see the bubbles. So when we swim through the water, We see bubbles, But really what's the meat of the matter when you're in the water? The water, That's the juicy part. The bubbles are just space that's interrupting the water, Which is why we see it. And so David Bohm said, Well, What if that's the same way as the rest of the world? What if it's everything in between that is actually the plenum and that dog and that fridge and that tree are just bubbles in the plenum? And the idea of this, It's a thought experiment, Is to then imagine how does that change the laws of physics? How does that change? And that's a real mind bend, Right? That's no small thing, Which is why quantum physicists sit around and think a lot and argue about things and come up with theories and try to test them, Which is also very difficult. So now we do the same thing in a spiritual path. In our world, We believe it's what we say that matters. It's what we write down that matters. It's what we accomplish that matters. And the idea of shunya, Zen, Nothingness, Is that what if all things exist in shunya? What if all things exist in the nothingness, In the zen of life? So then all of a sudden, Our spiritual journey feels very different. It's not accomplishing an asana or the ability to even sit in meditative posture for an hour. It's actually the exploration of the silence. So this is where oftentimes there's minimalism attached to a spiritual journey, Because we need some space. We don't want to be cluttered. And again, This isn't anything against people who love rich and wonderful things around them all the time. But there is something about having a space that is clear, So that we can experience nothingness, So that we can experience shunya. So oftentimes we close our eyes and we breathe, And all we do is focus on the breath. And if any thoughts come in, We let them float by, Because in this moment, It's the silence that's valuable. But it's a mind bend, Because we think the thoughts that are going through our head are what's important. We think these are the most important things. But the truth is, It's the silence. There's something juicy in the silence. But it's a paradigm shift, Which is why the spiritual journey is a lifelong, Joyful exploration. There's no such thing as arriving. Because the wild thing about silence is it's infinite. It's like, I often feel like if we can actually achieve stillness, If we can actually achieve silence inside of us, It's like a portal that opens. But we have to stay perfectly still. And then the portal opens. And we have an entirely different experience. It's like there is a subtle reality about life that is so rich. It's like if you imagine a painter, And they're painting with watercolors, And they have this beautiful blank canvas, And something in them reaches for a certain color, And they slowly bring their brush across the canvas. There's an entire journey in that experience. There's a subtlety about it, That if we really go inside, It's very beautiful. And we can haphazardly paint, We can do all kinds of things. But there's also a subtlety in life. But we only get there through the silence, Like Vipassana. Right? A Vipassana retreat is a silent retreat. And the interesting thing about Vipassana is that because it's long, It gives us a chance to have all the battles in our mind with the thoughts that we want to have. But once we realize we aren't going to speak, And we aren't going to communicate with anyone, Certain parts of our brains shut off. Because we're not recording what's happening to tell the people at dinner. We're actually staying in silence. So we start to get to experience this infinite beautiful silence. So now imagine, The stillness can happen all the time. It's one of the interesting pieces even in today's society. Like what's one of the number one things we can do to help ourselves in this journey. And it is really to be careful with the use of phones, And smartphones, And netflix, All these things. Because these are the things that fill the silence. I use social media and I have a smartphone and all that and I watch netflix. I'm not demonizing it. But to be very conscious, To allow quiet in our lives. Like could you imagine if you've got a few minutes before class, What are we going to do? We normally surf or answer emails or I guess they don't it's not called surfing, It's scrolling. But what if we didn't? What if we just closed our eyes and relaxed? We don't even have to sit in meditation posture or something. But we just allow nothingness. What if we drive by ourselves and we have no music, No podcasts, We're not talking on the phone with anyone, And we actually just allow the wheels to stop spinning. And it's very interesting because one of the great challenges is that we have and often have a lot of unresolved trauma and unresolved struggles in our lives. And so those things are really chewing on us. Or maybe we don't want to be silent because we don't want to think about the things that are hurting us. We want to be distracted. And again these are all just breadcrumbs on the journey. If we realize that well I don't want to be silent because I keep having this memory pop up that I don't want to think about, Well then that's an important piece. Now I know what this chapter of my journey is. It's to unpack that and heal it. That's the beautiful thing is every step towards this beautiful silence helps us see what's really bothering us. It's also really interesting this idea of shunya. So if you imagine, What if silence was your norm? And this doesn't make any difference whether you're naturally extroverted or introverted or anything like that. But what if your default was silence? And then when you spoke it was really it was really intentional. So even in an argument, You know, So something is really amok. Something happened, Something has to be discussed, It's hard, Whatever. Oftentimes our default is just to speak. Maybe we want to have the last word. Maybe we want to make sure they understand. Maybe we want to explain ourselves. Like whatever, Whatever that is. And we focus on all the words, Words, Words, Words, Words. But if we actually just take a breath and we default to silence, We know we're going to speak but we want the speech to come out of silence. And you kind of sit quietly and you wait for the sound to come out that will actually connect us. Because even our tone of voice says so much. If you and I are having a disagreement and my voice is like, Why are you always like, You know, It sounds so jarring, Right? But if I, You know what I mean? If I was just, I can be saying the exact same thing but because I'm just sort of just driving at it, It's just going to push the other person away. But if you breathe deeply, And I don't mean being weird and manipulative with your voice, I just mean being genuine. And we're going to be quiet and we're going to listen and we're going to ask and we're going to pray and we're going to ask for guidance. And then all of a sudden it's like, I really want to solve this with you. I really hate feeling distanced from you. And then allow words to come from that space. It's almost like we're allowing the words to come out of infinity, Out of our infinite selves. As much as we dive into the human experience with all of its emotional ups and downs and everything, We do want to have a beautiful experience here. Well, That's where we bring in our truly spiritual selves, Our truly infinite self full of wonder. And we fall into Shunya and we allow the sounds to come out. And then we return to Shunya. And we allow the sounds to come out and we return. And we've done a lot of meditations before where there's actually a tantric meditation here on Insight Timer, My very first meditation on here. And we've done it here in the Radiant Sutras. It's from the Radiant Sutras. Whereas you inhale, This is the physical part of life. This is the sound, For example. And then there's this place in between the inhale and the exhale where we change gears. And this is Shunya, Connection to infinity, Spirit. And then we exhale. And again, This is sound. And then after the exhale, We come into Shunya again in the gap. And then we inhale. And then we inhale. So with every breath, We are dancing between physical, Spirit, Physical, Spirit, Every breath. So imagine that was life, That we were just always playing in the quiet, In the active, In the quiet, In the active. This sutra talks about all the different vowel sounds. To explore all the vowels. Another interpretation of it talks about all the vowel sounds of OM. I'll actually read you another interpretation of this. Whoever contemplates even on the matras or letters of OM from first to last in the form of void, Verily that sadhaka by meditation on the void becomes the void. It's not the most easy to understand. That's why we just reference that one. But what's interesting is they talk about the sound OM. And it's not om, It's ah-om. And when you think of the three sounds, The ah, And then the ooh, They talk about when we contemplate these sounds, When we feel these sounds and everything in between, We experience all aspects of consciousness. So one interpretation is that the ah is the sound of the waking, Or it's the experience of our waking consciousness. And then so we go ah, You sound in there, That this is the dream state. And then when our mouth comes together, This is the sleeping state. So if I close my eyes and I open my mouth and I take a deep breath, And I continue chanting the sound, In every breath, I'm experiencing all aspects of consciousness. And there's something magical about that that we can't explain. And again, It's a visceral experience. And that's the really interesting thing about spiritual journey, Is that so often because there's philosophy around it, We think we can just talk about it. But we actually have to experience it. Because the actual wisdom is beyond words. It's a visceral experience of something that we cannot describe. So when you spend time, If you were to say, I'm going to chant om every day, For five minutes, Doesn't have to be a long time. Maybe to chant to be in silence afterwards for a longer time, That'd be cool. But you don't have to chant om for a long time. But to really sit there and experience it inside of you. To experience the silence inside of you. To feel this sound reverberating inside of you. To experience it. And this is really different. Because we are so accustomed to experiencing everything out there. And then our brain interprets it and tells us what it is. There's this strange external thing, Even when we look into our body like, Oh, Maybe my shoulder hurts. Well, I'm experiencing pain in my shoulder, My brain is interpreting it. And I am understanding that I have pain in my shoulder. But when we do this, The entire experience is inside. We're experiencing the effect of this vibration on our mind, On our body, On our heart. And that's different. It's a whole different experience. It's almost like crawling into a tub and feeling the warmth of the body. Feeling the warmth of the water on your body. It's not a descriptive thing. It's a absorbing, Releasing into the sensation. And that's the same as using a mantra like om. Another really beautiful interpretation of this sound, The sound om, Is if you've studied a lot of yoga, They sometimes talk about the gunas. And the gunas are kind of the different aspects of life. And there's three different gunas. And there's many, Many, Many applications of this. In this case, So the first one is sattvic. And this is normally considered light and pure and all that. So in this instance, The sound ah is pure luminosity. So you imagine that in your own heart. And again, We're all going to interpret this differently. That when you sit in the silence and you open your mouth and you go ah, This is my light shining out in the world. This is me extroverting myself out into the world. Pure light. Ah. And then ooh sound or the ah, Which is just the sound made as the mouth begins to close. That sound they consider rajas. And that in this instance, There's many interpretations in this instance, This is the creative aspect. This is the juiciness. This is the passion. Ah. And then mm sound is tamas, Which is stillness. So when you think of that, You go from this ah, Ah, You go from pure, Extroverted luminosity, To juicy creativity, To the bliss of stillness. And the idea is that if we experience all of these things, We actually experience a fourth kind of consciousness, Which is transcendental consciousness, Where it's like we experience everything and nothing at the same time. So this is why the journey of contemplating and experiencing the sound of ah within us, It's an entirely internal experience. Because it's so interesting when you can feel this extroverted luminosity, The juicy creative experience within, And the stillness, And keep cycling through these three aspects of being alive. They all somehow fit into a beautiful whole. One is not better than the other. They're all just the beautiful flavors of a lovely soup or something. And you just enjoy the whole, And they call it masala. It's more than just a mixture. It's a symbiotic joy of balance of tastes. So what we're going to do is we're going to do this meditation. And we're going to meditate and we're going to meditate on the sound om. You don't have to do it with me. But I highly recommend doing it later. When we make the sound om, The key is that we're really just making the sound that this creation that we are makes. So we are this manifestation of infinity. But we are like this vessel, Like this instrument of creation. So we don't have to make any effort to make this sound. We actually want it to be as natural as possible coming out of our vessel. Which is why when we take a deep breath, We open our mouth and we just allow the sound to come out. And then we slowly close our mouth. And the key, I want you to be able to feel it inside. There's no right or wrong way. And Lauren Roche's version here talks about, Listen to the subtle, Ever-changing tones, Layer upon layer. Discover what gradualness is. The power of sound will lead you into the power of silence. And he says, Think of any vowel, They are all delicious. Savor the sound with infinite gentleness. So imagine that, That when we're making this sound, There's no wrong way to do it. I remember being in these ruins in England one time, And it was very beautiful. There was a chapel, But there was also these ruins. And my friend and I were sitting there and all I kept thinking was, Boy, I wish I knew what chance I should be chanting here. And then this idea came into my head that there's no such thing. There's no such thing. There's no such thing as a proper chant. We are the vessels of sound. We are the vessels of infinite energy. We can just open our mouths and make whatever sounds come out. And whatever sound comes out in this moment in time is the sacred sound of this moment. And so to play with this here as well, To feel the layers of the vowels, To hear this changing of the sound and to feel it inside of our bodies. And maybe at the beginning, It doesn't feel like much because you're sort of focusing on the sound and wondering if I'm doing it quite right and maybe my hips hurt. But to just dive into that exploration, Like there's nothing to accomplish here except the experience of the warm bath water. That's it. There's nothing to accomplish. So what we're going to do is we're going to, We're just going to chant OM a few times, Maybe like, I don't know, 10 times or something like that. And then we're going to sit in silence. We're going to sit in shunya for a few more minutes. Then I'll read the sutra again in Sanskrit and then in English. But later, I highly recommend trying this on your own and just setting a timer and playing with it. I don't know, Kind of in your own way, In your own space. All right, Let's come sitting nice and tall, Breathing deeply. Our eyes are closed, Our chin tucked in, Shoulders relaxed. And let's just connect with our breath, Feeling the belly expand as we inhale, Contract as we exhale. And we're going to begin. And again, Feel free to not chant with me. Feel free to do this at your own pace. Imagine we're all sitting in a room, Chanting haphazardly, Whenever our breath comes. So let's take a deep breath in. Let's just sit silently, Feeling the breath flowing through our bodies. So, Shunya akara, Puman bhavet. Think of any vowel. They are all delicious. Savor the sound with infinite gentleness. Attend to where it comes from within you and where it goes to when it fades away. Listen to the subtle, Ever-changing tones, Layer upon layer. Discover what gradualness is. The power of sound will lead you into the power of silence. Syllables are born from space. Resonate in space, Then melt into spaciousness. Know the silent spaciousness as yourself. So thank you so much for being here, And I hope you have a wonderful day.

Reviews

This is brilliant. I am going to use the part of it on Quantum physics and silence with my 11th grade students as a follow-up to a video we watched of a Dr. Joe Dispenza interview. Thank you so much, Katrina!

Hey, is there a Radiance Sutras Verse 18? I can't find one even with a search.