So today,
For anyone who's new,
We're reading a passage from the Radiant Sutras,
Which is a translation of the Vijnana by Rava Tantra,
And this is a translation by Lauren Roche.
I highly recommend this book to have sitting by your bedside.
I am not an affiliate or anything like that.
I just think it's one of the most beautiful books to open up,
Read a passage,
And then let that be your meditation for the day.
It's just a beautiful,
Beautiful book.
And I met,
I got to meet Lauren Roche once in Big Sur at a retreat,
And he is a wonderful,
Wonderful human,
Wonderful man.
So today,
For anyone who has the book,
We're reading number six on page 41.
The key here is if you're new,
Is to just allow your inner being to listen.
This particular sutra is about the chakras,
But to almost allow the body to just listen,
Even if we know what the sutra is talking about,
Almost like a child allowing our imagination to just flow wherever it goes.
So what we're going to do if you're new is we're going to read the sutra a couple times,
Chit-chat about it,
Then we're going to do a meditation to sort of embody it,
And then we'll read it again.
So let's close our eyes.
Let's just breathe deeply.
Become aware of your body and your breath.
Become aware of that place inside of you that is still.
Maybe it's inside your heart chakra.
Just breathing deeply into that still space inside.
Let's listen from that space.
Trace the river of life that flows through you,
The luxuriously rising energies gradually touching each of the centers along the spine.
Remember every shimmer of color along the way.
Enter each area tenderly,
Loving as you go,
Finally gently dissolving in the crown of the head.
Then above,
In the space above the head,
The great dawn.
Let's read it again.
Trace the river of life that flows through you,
The luxuriously rising energies gradually touching each of the centers along the spine.
Savor every shimmer of color along the way.
Enter each area tenderly,
Loving as you go,
Finally gently dissolving in the crown of the head.
Then above,
In the space above the head,
The great dawn.
What image do you get in your mind,
Or what thoughts flow through your mind right now,
Or feelings?
Sounds like a leisurely sparkly journey of color and light.
Sunrise.
Chakras lit up,
Energy rising through them.
To have more gratitude for my magical body,
To connect it more and treat it better.
A trip up a mountain path.
Love the shimmering visual of the river.
In the back of this book,
There's little commentaries and places that we can focus.
And this week's focus is on the word krama,
Which means step-by-step process,
Succession,
Or a sequence.
And it's really interesting when we think of the chakras,
Right?
We think about how we want to open them up,
Right?
We want to open our chakras.
And we've talked about this in our Chakra 2.
0 and 3.
0 series,
That perhaps the chakras themselves are fine,
But we have an interface that's restricting them.
But we often say,
Oh,
I want all my chakras aligned.
I want all my chakras lit up.
I want all my chakras to be alive.
But the reality is,
We actually have to live in a step-by-step progression.
So easy to say,
You know,
Let's say somebody,
I mean,
It's a weird example to use,
But let's say you wanted to have a million dollars.
Well,
The first thing you have to do is make $10.
And then with that $10,
Maybe you try to make $100.
And then you can enjoy the process of every step.
But we get very goal-oriented,
That we want to be there.
We want to be in the seventh chakra enlightenment stage.
We want to be one with the cosmos.
We want to be free of all of our struggles.
But the truth is,
The chakras are actually this beautiful stepping stone.
Not like a ladder.
I guess it's a bit like a ladder.
But every chakra has its own world that we need to explore.
It's almost like if you imagine why we're even here on the planet.
You know,
When we have this idea that our whole goal in life is to transcend our physical experience,
You have to wonder why we came here to begin with.
Why did we come to earth if the whole point and all we do is spend all of our time leaving it?
So instead,
If we imagine the chakras like these amazing places that we're going to on the journey.
And as we complete one country,
As we journey into all the corners of one country,
Then we move on to the next country.
And what's interesting is each chakra then builds upon the previous chakra.
It's not just that we go here,
It's complete,
We move on to the next.
When we can complete,
Say,
The first chakra's journey,
The second chakra is now juicier and more joyful and more complete.
But if we try to move on to the second chakra without fully integrating and healing,
Say,
The interface of the first chakra,
The second chakra gets filled with whatever isn't resolved in the first chakra.
So for example,
If you look at the first chakra,
The first chakra lives at the root of your spine,
Perineum,
If you're new to chakras.
So when the first chakra is flowing,
We live in abundance.
We are thrilled to be here on the planet.
We are so happy to be incarnate.
We're happy to have a body.
We don't care what our body looks like.
We just are happy to have one.
It's like me being happy to have a car,
That I get to do stuff.
Well,
To be happy that I have a body,
Short,
Tall,
Fat,
Thin,
Black,
Who cares?
It's just a body.
It's awesome.
And we get to love it and care for it.
And it's a beautiful vehicle.
And we know that there's always enough food.
We can grow food,
We can go to the ocean,
We can connect.
The world likes to tell us that there's scarcity,
All these things,
Because if you can cut someone off at their first chakra and convince them of scarcity and fear-based things,
You can control them.
So we have been taught a lot of scarcity mindsets.
And that,
Of course,
Keeps our second chakra off kilter.
So then if we keep it off kilter,
And we don't really address those first chakra questions,
Then we flow into our second chakra,
Which is often about relationships,
How we interact with each other,
Money,
Things like that.
Well,
If we're kind of amuck in the first chakra,
And we're kind of terrified of everything,
And I don't know if I'll ever have enough food,
Or I'm always afraid that the other shoe's going to drop,
And who knows what's going to happen next,
Well,
What's going to happen in our second chakra?
What's going to happen in our relationships?
All that fear will now come into the relationship.
It'll be,
All of a sudden,
We'll be terrified all the time.
So what if you leave?
What if you leave?
And suddenly the other person becomes this first chakra security we're seeking.
As we continue up the chakras,
We go to our third chakra.
This is our sense of self.
Who am I in the world?
Why are each one of us so beautifully unique?
Well,
We won't see it like that.
We'll be all attached to what you think of me,
And how you see me,
And how I see me.
But what if I'm not good enough?
And what if I don't have the right job?
And then I won't have enough money,
And then I won't have any scarcity.
It all keeps trickling back down to that first chakra.
It comes down to that first chakra fear.
Or then,
Of course,
Because our first chakra isn't quite right,
Our second chakra,
All of our relationships are going to have all this anxiety,
And tension,
And difficulty in them.
So then all of a sudden,
Our sense of self is completely off.
It's very hard to see a clear sense of self if we are looking at the mirrors of other people,
And that other people are somehow defining who we are.
Or we are living like pinball machines based on the emotional responses of every other person in our life.
How can we possibly be clear in the third chakra if our first and second chakras are amok?
And then,
Of course,
We move up into the fourth chakra,
Which ideally is love.
Not romantic love.
Love.
Divine love.
How humans are meant to feel bliss and joy in the world,
Where you just walk around and you're like,
I love the rain.
I love chocolate.
I love my new car.
I love the way I feel when I'm with you.
Which is what we can get confused,
That it's romantic love,
That it's the love of you.
But the truth is,
When you're with me,
When you touch me this way,
When you do these things,
Oh,
So much love flows through me.
And they mix together.
It's not like they're disconnected.
But it is just love.
It's like even if we have someone in our life,
Whether it's a friend or a child or a parent or a lover,
The joy in getting to love them,
Of getting to have love flow through us,
It's like the most beautiful trickly energy flowing through us all the time.
This is fourth chakra love.
Are we going to be able to experience that?
If our third chakra is a muck,
Everything everyone else does is a reflection of my struggling ego,
Or my second chakra that I'm afraid you aren't going to like me,
Or I think everyone's trying to overpower me or I'm trying to overpower everyone else,
Or my first chakra,
Like I'm actually just absolutely terrified of the world,
How am I ever going to be able to relax and just feel this beautiful love?
So the concept of krama,
Of actually allowing succession,
Of actually allowing us to step through life in joy.
When we talk about the lower chakras,
They're not less evolved or less interesting or less spiritual.
For us to really explore the first chakra,
To enjoy it,
And again,
This is also where a lot of our trauma lives.
If we had difficult childhoods,
Especially in the first seven years,
This also all lives in the first chakra.
So it isn't all sunshine and roses and abundance.
There's a lot of struggle there.
This is also where ancestral trauma lives.
But to really look at it and say,
Well,
I'm here,
I'm here on this planet,
I've had these experiences,
Well,
Let's dive in.
See where this rabbit hole goes.
Where does the bread,
Where do the breadcrumbs lead?
What will I learn as I journey through this?
To figure out how do I integrate this difficult childhood into my day-to-day life today so I'm not feeling so dysfunctional and all over this?
So suddenly the journey is joyful.
And we don't leave our journey of the first chakra until it's complete.
We continue it.
I have a friend who used to teach nutrition,
According to Chinese medicine,
For me at the train station.
We would talk about going on a fast or a cleansing diet or something,
You know,
And giving up sugar or giving up wheat or giving up dairy or something like that,
Or giving up coffee or something.
And I remember saying to him,
Like,
Yeah,
I'm thinking maybe I'll give this up for like a couple of weeks.
And he looks at me,
He goes,
You know,
Would be a really interesting journey would be to give it up for a year.
Let your body really adapt,
Heal,
Come to neutral and then regrow.
And I remember at the time thinking,
A year?
No,
No,
No,
No,
No.
I wanted to be much faster than that.
I don't want to be without my dairy or whatever for a whole year.
But it was so interesting because he had this much greater timeline.
He had this much greater story arc that he was exploring.
And if you imagine our lives like these great big story arcs,
That if right now there's this,
Here's what's on my plate right now.
And we always know what chakra we're working with,
Because it's whatever's on our plate right now.
What are we being asked to eat today?
What are we being asked to digest?
What is the issue of today?
What is the topic of today?
That's what we're on.
And how often it's like,
You know,
But I don't want to work on that.
I want to work on this other thing because it's,
It's lighter and easier.
And it's maybe in a higher chakra or something like that.
It's like,
Yeah,
But this is what's on the plate today.
And so there's something about loving it.
There's something about loving that journey of wherever we are,
Being there and not trying to skip steps.
There's also something really interesting about really gathering ourselves at every step.
It's like he talks about if you watch a cat going up to about to pounce on something,
It's like the cat takes one step,
Fully gathers itself.
And then it takes another step.
And the tension is kind of rising.
She's kind of expanding and expanding in tension.
And then she takes another step.
And then she takes another step.
And then she's almost shaking.
She's so excited before like,
Bam,
She pounces.
That's what it's like when we really heal each chakra,
We really heal ourselves.
And we're in this moment and we allow ourselves to fully fill out whatever it is we're working on right now.
Then that energy flows to the next event,
The next journey,
The next piece,
Whatever it is.
All that potency flows with us.
And it builds in the next one.
So imagine,
Again,
We go back to our chakra example.
And let's say,
You know,
We had a difficult childhood and we've had a lot of trauma and our family maybe has generations of abuse or alcoholism or who knows what.
And we really go there.
However it is,
Whether it's working with others,
Whether it's research,
Whether it's counseling,
Whether it's ecstatic dance,
Whether it's Kundalini yoga,
However it is,
But you get into all the corners as all the emotions rise and all the traumas are brought to the surface and we get to really look at all of them and we integrate all of them together.
And at some point in our journey,
We kind of settle with ourselves and say,
Yeah,
I am happy to be here on the planet.
Our first chakra is truly clear.
I feel abundance now.
I feel content.
I feel safe.
And then all that energy,
All that gratitude flows into the second chakra.
And then we start looking at relationships.
Well how different our relationship experience is when we do that.
And of course,
That's not really how life works.
We don't just dive into a first chakra room and do it.
And we're not in relationships and we don't have a third chakra and we're not experiencing love and we're not experiencing insight.
That's not really how life works.
We are in relationships,
Whether or not our first chakra is clear.
We do experience divine love on occasion,
Whether we're all sewn up or not.
We do experience higher intuition and all kinds of things.
But the key is it's almost like while we're experiencing all of these bits of life,
We are aware of where we're working.
What are we focusing on?
What are we allowing insight for?
What are the questions we're asking?
So even while all the chakras are sort of being massaged and light is coming in and being untangled and all that kind of thing,
We still know that,
You know,
I'm still working on this thing.
Maybe I'm working in the second chakra for whatever reason going,
You know,
I really need to work on these power struggles I'm having in life.
You know,
And we're not like,
I want to do meditations that open my third eye or I want to do meditations that open my crown chakra.
It's like,
No,
I want to play in the second chakra.
I want to play in this relationship space.
I want to play in this fear space.
That's what I want to do.
And to really enjoy every successive step.
Because it can be really,
We really often just want to get there,
Right?
We want to dive there.
The other thing that's really cool when you think of the chakras,
The word chakra means wheel or a potter's wheel.
It also means a whirlpool,
Like a galaxy.
So if you imagine,
If you close your eyes right now and you imagine these chakras up through your body,
And I see them almost like whirling galaxies.
To picture your chakras like a whirling galaxy.
And if we only even look at the seven chakras,
You imagine these beautiful whirling galaxies inside of your being.
You just kind of close your eyes and feel that.
And just to feel how expansive that is.
You get to breathe into these beautiful galaxies.
How can we do anything but live life?
I feel like there's so much seeking energy to figure out what we should,
How to be.
We don't even know why we're here.
It all seems so beautiful,
Even the sadness,
The seeking.
It's all life.
It all flows with or without me.
Play in the foundation of safety created by celebrating abundance,
And then invite more holistic relationships and more deeply connected.
I'm going to read the sutra,
And then we're going to do a meditation.
Then after that,
I will reread the sutra in Sanskrit and then in English,
And we'll see where we're at.
Let's just close our eyes for a moment.
Trace the river of life that flows through you,
The luxuriously rising energies gradually touching each of the centers along the spine.
Savor every shimmer of color along the way.
Consider each area tenderly,
Loving as you go,
Finally,
Gently dissolving in the crown of the head,
Then above,
In the space above the head,
The great dawn.
So let's sit nice and tall.
If you're in bed and you want to just stay lying down,
Also excellent.
Let's just breathe deeply.
First just stretch out anything you might be stiff in.
Maybe you've been sitting for a while listening,
And you want to just stretch your legs out,
Stretch your arms and your shoulders and your feet and your face.
Just stretch out your body a little.
It's always good to do that before meditation anyway,
Because it helps us sit.
It helps our body to rest.
Then find a comfortable seated posture,
Or lie down,
But I'm going to teach it as if you're sitting.
Close your eyes,
And let's first just focus on the breath,
Expanding the belly as you inhale,
Contracting as you exhale.
Let the shoulders relax,
Let the chin tuck in a little,
And allow your inner awareness to float through your body,
Any place that feels uncomfortable.
Focus on the part that feels uncomfortable.
And then let your awareness float somewhere else that you have a sensation.
Your feet or your knees or your back or your shoulders.
Then move your sensation to another part of your body.
Imagine your body like a great tree,
Feeling roots going down into the earth.
Your body is beautifully still.
Allowing your attention still to go to anywhere that is uncomfortable.
Breathing deeply,
Expanding the belly,
The ribs,
The chest as you inhale.
Contracting as you exhale.
Letting the crown of your head rise up a little,
Chin tucked in,
Letting your body come to rest in a very comfortable,
Strong position.
Then let's visualize swirling energy at the root of your spine,
In the space between your anus and your sexual organ,
And flowing all along where you can feel yourself touching the earth.
So the whole kind of lower part of your pelvis.
See this energy as red,
The earth.
And as you breathe,
See the earth,
See the forests,
See the volcanoes,
The oceans.
Fully tap into the abundance of the earth.
Feel the forest growing.
Feel the grass growing in the spring.
Feel the energy of this abundance.
Feel the abundance in your own body as our cells regenerate constantly,
Right now.
Feel the abundance of thoughts coming into our mind.
Feel the abundance of possibilities that are all around us in the plenum,
In the air,
In the world.
Just feel that abundance flowing through and around the first chakra.
And let's flow up a few inches from there to the second chakra,
Just below the navel.
And this is orange.
The colors are just like the rainbow,
Because we,
As humans,
Are a refraction of light.
The second chakra is orange.
Feeling flow in life,
As we move through our day from one thing to the next,
To the next.
As we greet a friend,
And we hug each other.
As we sit down and we have a nice conversation with a cup of tea,
And conversation flows back and forth.
As we breathe deeply,
Really feeling this beautiful abundance and friendship and flow in life.
And rolling up to the third chakra,
In the solar plexus,
Between your navel point and your ribs.
This is yellow.
This is you.
Your unique self.
Imagine each person here today.
Imagine us all sitting in a room.
And then someone comes in,
And we all turn our heads to look at them.
And the person sees 150 unique faces looking at them.
All of these brilliant,
Unique incarnations,
Each with a journey,
Each with a unique set of thoughts and beliefs and steps to take.
Just to close your eyes and really love that you are unique.
That you really are just you.
And you shine a very unique light in the world.
Just feel that energy swirling in the third chakra.
And flowing up into the heart chakra.
This is the place where if I was to say to you,
Who are you?
You would point at your chest.
I am someone.
This is your heart chakra.
And here,
Feel love.
What do you love?
Do you love nachos?
Do you love puppies?
Do you love swimming in the ocean?
Do you love playing cards with your friends?
Do you love reading?
What do you love?
Just fill your heart with everything you love.
Feel this beautiful green energy flowing through your heart cavity,
Within your ribs,
Maybe beyond.
Breathing deeply.
Feel aware of these beautiful red,
Orange,
Yellow chakras buoying up the heart.
And then moving up into the throat chakra.
As we express ourself to the world,
As we share our thoughts,
As we sing,
As we chant,
As we draw and we paint and we build things.
And we share our perspective with our loved ones or the world or maybe just between you and God and you draw a beautiful painting or you paint a beautiful painting.
You feel this energy flowing like a galaxy in your throat chakra.
Breathing deeply.
Maybe even humming a little bit.
Feeling the hum,
The vibration of your body out into the world.
And then flowing up to the third eye,
The point in the eyebrow,
The ajna.
These colors are maybe indigo.
And as all the other chakras are swirling peacefully,
We sit in meditation and we connect with the galaxy and we listen for guidance.
We have great wisdom.
We know things.
We know what's true and what's not true.
We know what feels right and what doesn't feel right.
We ask questions and thoughts come into our mind as answers.
We can rest knowing that all we have to do is ask and the energy will flow in,
In an answer.
And we flow up to the crown chakra,
The fontanel,
The top of the brain,
The top of the skull.
Imagine this as white energy flowing up into the cosmos.
Feel the light even above the crown,
Like a halo.
And I'd like us to imagine each of these chakras.
Imagine in the center of the chakra there is a light that is the color of that frequency of the rainbow,
Almost like stoplights or traffic lights.
When we return to the first chakra,
There is this beautiful red light,
And on top of that is an orange light,
And on top of that is a yellow light,
And then a green light,
And a blue light,
And a dark blue light,
And then at the top,
It's kind of a violet,
White fluorescent light.
And I want you to imagine with every breath,
As you inhale,
The breath comes up from the earth and the first light flashes red.
The second light flashes orange,
Yellow,
Green,
Blue,
Indigo,
Violet.
You exhale,
Inhale every light flashing up the spine.
I'm just going to let you do this for a minute or so.
Every breath illuminating each chakra as it flows up the spine.
As each light shines,
It shines a bit of light into that area of our life,
Very gently,
Like it's gently loosening a knot,
Shining a bit of light into the corners,
All of them integrating together.
Ur gat chantim tadit rupam Prati chakram kramat kramam Prati kramam kramam kramam kramam kramam kramam kramam kramam kramam kramam kramam kramam Trace the river of life that flows through you,
The luxuriously rising energies gradually touching each of the centers along the spine.
Remember every shimmer of color along the way.
Enter each area tenderly,
Loving as you go.
Finally,
Gently dissolving in the crown of the head,
Then above,
In the space above the head,
The great dawn.
Trace the river of life that flows through you,
The luxuriously rising energies gradually touching each of the centers along the spine.
Savor every shimmer of color along the way.
Enter each area tenderly,
Loving as you go.
Finally,
Gently dissolving in the crown of the head,
Then above,
In the space above the head,
The great dawn.
I'd love to know what rolls through your mind.
Feeling a thought.
Being,
Feeling,
Healing,
Calm.
Peace away my soul.
The spacious peace and happiness,
The great dawn of the universe.
The whirling galaxy,
I am in you and you are in me.
The sutra seems to be saying,
Look how beautiful we are,
Like a celebration,
Sit and savor it.
Tantalizing for all my centers of plenum filled flow.
We lift each other up.
Visualizing all the individuals was so beautiful,
I felt connected to you all.
Connection to earth and universe,
The flow of energy.
I am my chakras.
So thank you so much for being here.
I hope you have a wonderful day.
