The Eternal One In Every Heart: Radiance Sutras Verse 101

During this session, we discuss Verse 101 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 book by Lauren Roche and it is a translation or an interpretation of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra.

Beautiful ancient tantric text.

The point of this text is to help us experience our divine self in our physical world.

That's one of the differentiations between tantra and a lot of teachings is that it isn't about transcending the world and no longer experiencing being human but it's about remembering that we are also infinite beings,

Infinite consciousness in these individual bodies.

And so imagine perceiving life that as we walk around,

You know right now there's 72 people who have tuned in.

Imagine we were all looking at each other in a huge circle and we looked around the circle and we realized that every single person here was a divine being in a different form.

Just different it's like I remember the first time I ever went to a nude beach.

The funny thing about going to a nude beach is when there are no bathing suits you no longer have these funny horizontal delineations in the body and so everybody kind of looks like plasticine people but they're all just kind of squished into different shapes.

There's no ideal shape.

Everyone's just oh you know it's just like they took a plasticine person and some squished more up into the shoulders and some squished more down into the hips and some but we were all just people.

Imagine that.

Imagine looking around the circle and we're all just God squished into little other shapes,

Sizes.

And I use the word God but feel free to use whatever word is good for you.

That's what tantra is.

Not only do we remember that we are supreme infinite consciousness walking around we also know that everybody else is.

And now imagine interacting with each other.

Like how different would that be?

In tantra you know people talk a lot about tantric intimacy.

Again people are like oh what you know what positions should we be using or what you know there's all these funny questions.

But the reality is is what if you saw the other person as a divine being then what would you do?

What would your relationship be like?

How would you speak to each other?

How would you hold each other?

That's what's interesting.

Not what the plasticine people do.

So that's the point of this book is to help us remember that divinity within our physical lives.

All right so today we are reading number 101.

So let's all just close our eyes for a minute and breathe deeply and feel into that divine self that spark of life that's within you.

That's animating this wonderful plasticine shape.

The reality of the divine is everywhere apparent especially among people who haven't even thought about it.

The very nature of I consciousness to be an individual is in essence divine.

The excitement of the eternal one is throbbing in the heart of every creature.

Know this and be without superiority inferiority or resentment at your limitations.

What comes to you when you hear that?

What thoughts?

What emotions rise?

What phrases stick out for you?

To be non-judgmental.

Reality of the divine.

Oneness.

All is divinity.

We are all divine beings.

The peace of just being.

No ego.

No judgment.

Just peace.

Be without inferiority.

Resentment at your limitations.

Give myself the grace needed for myself.

Unconditional love.

We all want the same thing.

We are all one.

We are all pulsing with the essence of God.

We are all equal and worthy.

We just have to tap into the truth that we are all love.

No matter what compassion is possible.

A wave may feel separate.

It rushes back into oneness.

In meditation this morning saw animals,

Ethereal beings,

Angels,

Ancestors.

Felt so supported.

Seeing light force divinity in all beings.

Loved the ending.

Something about neutrality of limitations.

I'm going to read a direct translation of the sutra.

Lorin Roche's version is a poetic version of it.

And so this is a literal translation.

The reality of Bhairava dwells everywhere,

Even in ordinary people.

By contemplating thus,

There is nothing other than him.

One attains the non-dual state of homogeneous awareness.

So Bhairava is the essence of the divine.

It isn't the divine.

It's the essence.

It's the energy of the divine.

I'm going to read another one.

The reality of Bhairava is apparent everywhere,

Even among common folk who do not possess any particular sense of discrimination.

One who knows thus,

There is nothing else than he,

Attains the non-dual condition.

So I'm just going to answer the question,

What about the desire to be treated that way as well?

So the interesting thing is when we perceive each other all as divine incarnations,

We start to understand that it doesn't necessarily mean that everybody's happy.

It doesn't necessarily mean that everybody's good at being nice to each other or has positive outlooks on life.

But they're all still the energy of God.

They're still the energy of Bhairava,

Brahman,

Consciousness.

They're all part of that quantum field.

And it's interesting like when you think of what the essence of who you are is,

The essence of each one of us.

And I think back to times maybe back when I was on the farm and the kids were little and we had so much work to do and we were so tired.

And I'm sure there are a lot of things then that I did that I regret.

I would regret today.

Maybe I don't regret them but I would do differently in a different state of mind.

But the essence of Bhairava was still within me.

I was still a divine being,

Growing,

Expanding,

Learning,

Trying to make my way.

It's really interesting to dive within ourselves and think of ourselves maybe in our worst moment.

You know we all have moments of regret that we're like,

Wow I so wish I hadn't done that,

Said that.

But even in those moments we are still divine consciousness.

We're just learning.

Everybody's just journeying out of wherever we came.

And there's really something about recognizing that essence in everyone around us.

And this in no way means on a physical level putting up with bad behavior,

You know not enforcing boundaries,

You know not allowing people to disrespect us,

Things like that.

It's not that.

This teaching,

This particular meditation is for our inner peace.

This is where we actually look at the other person who may not be treating us as divine beings,

But recognizing that they too are just divine bits of plasticine wandering around and kind of like a dog that's been wounded,

Just snaps at everybody.

But that's still a beautiful dog.

You know even though it can't make friends and it can't even accept love,

It's still divine beauty.

Like God says,

We'll walk this way now even our pain plays a role in the energy.

Totally.

Maya Angelou said,

When you know better you do better,

Sowing the seeds of self-forgiveness.

What happens to the inner divinity when the form dies?

Does it take on new form?

I have no idea.

It's a great question.

That's my favorite theory.

It's kind of all I can say is that makes the most sense to me,

But I don't know.

It's one of the great philosophical questions.

What's interesting about this teaching is that we talk about wanting to experience this consciousness.

We say like higher consciousness,

But I don't mean it as a superior consciousness.

I mean it as a a lighter consciousness.

Like if you imagine water dense as water,

As it warms up,

As the vibration rises,

It slowly becomes steam.

It's different.

It has a different perspective.

It has a different,

Yes,

Vapor also.

It's different,

But it's not superior.

Vapor isn't superior to water.

It's different.

And when we have a higher consciousness,

We understand more.

It's almost like we rise up and we're able to see the big picture.

But we're not better than the components that we're looking at.

One of my sisters calls it looking at something from 50,

000 feet.

And so you rise up and you see the big picture of humanity.

And from that space you can imagine that we really are all divine beings having an earth experience.

Some are really challenging.

Some are easy.

Some situations create battle.

Some situations create love.

And the key is it's not about not being part of the players.

We are down on the earth also.

But what if we could live our life down on the earth and at 50,

000 feet?

What if we could see both?

Imagine.

Imagine the inner peace you'd feel as you wandered around the world.

It may not be our lot to reach beyond the wounded,

But we can see them as divine beings.

It does take some sting from the actions.

It's for our peace.

It's for our perception.

We were just talking about this the other day in the car.

How our brains really do create whatever simulation we want to live in.

You know how in the movie The Matrix,

The idea was that our brains were just plugged into a great computer simulation?

Our brains interpreted everything and made it all real.

But what's interesting is we all have the choice to plug in to whatever simulation we want to.

We don't have to change the events around us.

But how we perceive those events?

There are a thousand options.

We get to create our own program and how we perceive them is a hundred percent up to us.

This is Viktor Frankl's teachings that you cannot change the circumstances,

But what you do have is your choice in how you respond to them.

And that is our whole reality.

Living in the world but not of it,

Exactly.

This is our choice.

So let's say for a moment,

Right now,

We say let's explore the idea that the divinity is everywhere.

We talk about this all the time in spiritual teachings that I want to see God everywhere.

I want to see the divine.

I want to feel one with all things.

So imagine you go within.

Close your eyes and you feel yourself.

Okay,

I feel really good.

I feel expansive.

I feel I can taste the divine within myself.

And then you can feel the divine in your energy consciousness.

You're moving out out out and then you think of someone out there that you disagree with and bam there's a wall in the energy.

There's a break in the consciousness because they're not in a divine state.

They're doing something bad.

They're thinking something bad.

They're saying something bad.

So now all of a sudden they're not part of the divine field.

And so now we have to get picky and choosy as to well in that tree I like so that's part of divinity and I like that dog and I like that person but not that person.

And so now all of a sudden we have this fragmentation of a divine field.

But that's not true.

That's not a divine field.

That's just our opinion now.

Now we've just fallen back into judgment.

We've fallen back into this is right and this is wrong and this is duality.

Right and this is why they say in this translation the one who knows thus there is nothing else than he attains the non-dual condition.

So if we want to experience this non-duality this oneness then everything is simply divine.

I think one of the great challenges with this teaching is that for a lot of us our sense of self and our sense of identity was quite kind of squished out of us or beaten out of us or convinced out of us.

And for many of us we're fighting for any part any kind of identity to begin with.

You know I'm not like you.

I'm not like the people who raised me.

I'm not like the people who are around me.

I'm not like those people.

I'm me.

And to really understand that this is a very very important part of the spiritual journey.

We can't go from being a nobody and then transcending our ego and becoming one with everything.

That's not how this goes.

When we've been oppressed which we never should have been it's not an ideal part of a human life or a natural part of a human life but when that's happened we actually have to reconnect with who we are.

I have to sit for many years and try to figure out who is Katrina?

Who is little Katrina and when did I lose her?

For me I lost Katrina when I turned 14 and I entered high school and I realized that who I was was not socially acceptable.

It was not cool to love reading and to love learning and to I mean to be a goody-goody.

A goody two shoes in the 80s was like social suicide.

And so when I was 14 I completely obliterated all sense of self and I tried so hard to be everybody else and then this hit a point where you come to a dark night of the soul because you realize you are literally living someone else's life.

Or you are living in the history of an action that someone took 30 years ago.

Friends of ours,

They had a farm when they were growing up and a shyster came through their church and basically took the farm.

He was a complete shyster.

He had nothing to do with the church.

He just used the church as a way of taking advantage of people and of their faith and of their trust in people and essentially this family lost the farm.

And the boys who are now in their 60s are still so angry about that.

They can't go on.

They just live in this constant fury of this thing that happened over 40 years ago.

They are in a place where they need to actually find themselves.

They need to heal that wound from 40 years ago and come forward and find themselves today in 2025.

So for me,

I was carrying this wound from when I was 14 all the way forward until it all falls apart and you kind of start at rock bottom and you start to try to remember who you are.

What do I love to do?

What comes easily to me?

What is my nature?

What is my true nature?

This is no small journey and I think this is the journey that most of us here are all on,

Me definitely included,

And that's a very,

Very,

Very important journey.

And then at some point,

We feel very comfortable in who we are and we've had lots of opportunity to play in who we are and to play in our gifts and expand them out into the world and find community that also loves our gifts and we fit in and we've been woven into society.

Like this is sort of the next part of the journey which becomes a lot of fun.

It's very hard to find community when we're still lost in someone else's simulation,

You know,

Someone else's life.

But once we find ourselves,

We join that theatre club or we join that hiking group or we volunteer at that dog shelter or whatever it is we do and we actually start to find our people,

Then we start to flourish,

We start to grow and have this wonderful experience in life.

Once we've done that,

Then it's a bit easier to imagine saying,

Hmm,

All right,

I can look at all these other people and recognize that they too are on a journey of becoming.

I've been where they are.

I've been lost.

I've been angry.

I've been confused.

I get it.

I can see the divine in you.

I can see the journey in you.

I can see that.

And now imagine you go out into the world and you look at every person you see and you can relate.

And it's a really interesting thing to dig down in our hearts and say,

And whether or not you can exactly relate to their circumstances and all that.

Sometimes our personalities are so radically different that that's quite a stretch,

But we know that they're all just human beings.

They're all just divine essences on the earth.

There's a beautiful saying that's part of the Sanskrit of this one and it says,

Sarva Bhairavo Bhava.

And this is a very beautiful mantra.

And it means that everywhere the infinite consciousness is becoming.

Everywhere,

Infinite consciousness is becoming.

Just imagine.

Just inside of your heart.

Breathing that in.

Everywhere,

Infinite consciousness is becoming.

The thing about this teaching is it's a teaching that allows our finite mind to merge with the cosmic mind.

It allows us to remember our own divinity.

We think it has to do with other people.

We think it has to do with the faults and things of others.

But the reality is we have things inside of us that we judge too.

We have things inside of us that we don't like also.

And if we can see the divine in others,

Even though we don't like what they do or what they say,

Then we can find the divine in ourselves even though there's parts of us I wish were different.

It's never about other people.

Let's do a meditation.

Let's close our eyes.

And I'd like you to envision everyone here in a circle.

And if you're listening to this as a recording later,

Just imagine 112 awesome people standing in a circle.

So envision us all in this circle with our eyes closed,

Standing very close together,

Breathing deeply,

And then open your eyes and your mind and look around the room.

Look at all these people.

And imagine their heart center.

Imagine each one of them placing their hand over their heart center and seeing a bright light shine through their heart.

Shining from behind their hand.

This beautiful divine energy flowing in each person.

And then imagine people joining our circle.

Maybe people who have never considered these things.

Maybe neighbors.

Maybe people who you don't think would be interested in this kind of thing.

But they're all joining and placing their hands over their heart.

And this bright white light shines from behind.

And then imagine all the people outside of the circle going about their days and see this bright white light in their heart center shining.

With every breath they take,

That energy flowing through their whole being.

Imagine every person,

9 billion people on the planet with this beautiful white light shining.

In their heart center.

The reality of the divine is everywhere apparent.

Especially among people who haven't even thought of it.

The very nature of I consciousness to be an individual is in essence divine.

The excitement of the eternal one is throbbing in the heart of every creature.

Know this and be without superiority,

Inferiority or resentment at your limitations.

So let's take a deep breath in together.

Exhale.

So thank you so much for being here.

And I hope you have a wonderful day.

Reviews

Third time listening and I always hear something new and go deeper. Thank you for your work. 🙏🙏🙏

So lovely. Inspiring. Bless you, Katrina. Thank you ❤️🙏