The Same Divine Stuff: Radiance Sutras Verse 153

During this session, we discuss Verse 153 of the Insight Verses from the 'Radiance Sutras', a translation of the Vijanana Bhairava Tantra by Lorin Loche. A meditation follows our discussion.

These sessions are recorded every week, and all are welcome.

Transcript

Today we are reading from the Radiant Sutras.

It's a beautiful book written by Lauren Roche and this is an interpretation or a translation of the Vijnana Bharava Tantra,

A wonderful tantric text.

And when you read the original tantric text in Sanskrit,

It's pretty hard to discern.

Like you sort of read it and it's like,

Ah,

It doesn't really mean much because not knowing Sanskrit and not knowing the context of why we're learning this,

It really falls flat to an English ear.

And so Lauren took all that,

Deeply understanding like Kashmir Shaivism,

Like the tantric lineage that this comes out of.

And in meditation and deep contemplation and research,

He wrote this beautiful interpretation of it so that our hearts can experience something.

So I don't know why,

I don't know if you guys do this,

But I have conversations with people in my head all the time who aren't there.

Like,

You know,

I'll be walking along and all of a sudden,

You know,

Some person who's not there will say something to me and I'll say,

Well,

You know,

And then this,

And I mean,

I always win the argument,

Obviously.

I swear like a quarter of my mental processes is just having,

Finding myself all of a sudden,

Who are you talking to Katrina?

Why are you getting all upset about this thing?

So this morning,

The conversation I was having in my head with this non-existent person was someone,

And I was,

Because I think I was thinking about the Radiant Sutras,

I was thinking about what we were,

What we're going to talk about in a moment.

And I was thinking about what would happen if someone who was a real science brain or math brain or whatever said,

This is nonsense.

This is illogical what you're saying.

What are you trying to say?

So the argument I had in my head with this person who didn't exist was the first thing I would say to them was,

Of course it's illogical.

Of course it's illogical.

And then my question to them would be,

Have you ever had anything happen to you that you can't explain?

Ever.

Has anything ever happened that didn't abide the laws of science?

And in my particular scenario,

They said no.

And I said,

Well then you probably won't understand this.

Very often when we go on a spiritual quest,

It's because something in the world doesn't line up.

Whether it's specific experiences or things you just,

You're like,

There's more here.

There's more here.

That knowing that there's more here opens us up beyond the logical,

Opens us up to say the mathematical way of looking at the world is just a small percentage of the world we see.

You know,

That maybe there's wisdom in what I don't understand.

And that's really what this tantra is all about,

Is understanding that as much as our mind may be able to perceive a certain amount,

There's so much more.

Imagine you wanted to visit Italy.

And so you've watched a lot of Italian movies and you're drawn to the culture,

You're drawn to the food,

Or there's something that you just love.

So the first time you go to Italy,

You observe all the things.

Maybe,

You know,

The first thing you want to do is have spaghetti.

And then you find out that,

Wow,

Spaghetti is actually quite a North Americanized version of Italian food.

This isn't actually something they eat so much,

And they certainly don't eat it like we eat it.

But the first time you have spaghetti,

Because that's what you understand,

But you sort of see all of Italy within the filter of what you've studied about Italy.

But then you stay a bit longer in Italy,

And you've sort of exhausted all the things you thought you were going to see there.

Then you start to notice other things about Italy that you didn't know,

That they weren't in the books,

They weren't in the movies.

And then you start to notice more,

And you start to notice all these other nuanced aspects of Italy that's very different.

I know when I spent a lot of time in Italy when I was traveling,

And you start to quietly see the effects of the mafia on people's lives and the fear they live in,

Or even the effects of the Catholic Church and the Vatican.

Or maybe you see the effects of the family structures,

Like I lived with a family in Sicily on a lemon farm for a couple months,

And you just,

You start to notice other things.

This is a lot like Tantra.

It's almost like you can begin with your preconceived ideas,

But when you sit with it long enough,

You kind of sit with the experience,

Suddenly other aspects,

It's almost like sitting in the woods for the first time,

And your left brain says,

Ah,

That's a beech tree,

Ah,

I can hear a cicada,

Ah,

I can see that,

You know,

And you sort of analyze it all.

But then if you stay sitting,

And you stay quiet,

You start seeing more,

And you notice the moss,

And you notice this,

And you notice the bugs,

And you see all these other things.

And then if you sit longer,

It's like you feel the forest.

You know,

It's something beyond just naming everything,

That you almost feel the life,

The ecosystem you're living in,

The wisdom of it,

The beauty of it,

The ancient-ness of it.

That's really what Tantra is.

It's feeling what's beyond what we can perceive with our mind,

And then blending it back in.

So you have this amazing insight sitting in the woods,

And you realize that everything is connected,

And there's a life in that ecosystem.

There's something more than just what our mind can name,

And sort,

And categorize.

But the problem is what the world does is it compartmentalizes it and says,

Well,

That's why I only feel spiritual when I'm in the woods,

Or I only feel spiritual when I'm sitting in a church,

Or I only feel spiritual when I'm sitting on the top of a mountain,

Or I'm sitting in an ashram,

Or I'm sitting in meditation.

Tantra says,

Allow that experience to change your cells,

To change you at an atomic level,

So that when you return to the hustle and bustle of life,

You start to see the same pattern in life.

You start to see,

Oh,

There's an ecosystem here too,

And everything's connected here too.

And it may not be moss,

And butterflies,

And sunshine,

And bubbling creeks,

But there's an ecosystem here too,

Even if it's traffic,

And people's gardens,

And butterflies,

And kids,

And perhaps the only reason we can't find the beauty in it is maybe we have judgment about what life should be.

Maybe we have thoughts that are in us that are blocking our ability to feel the life that is right here in our day-to-day life.

And so that's really what Tantra is,

Like to have the wonderful experience,

Let it change you,

And then bring that into your relationship,

Especially the difficult times,

Especially when you're having difficult conversations or difficult relationships.

Can you remember in those moments the magic of the woods?

That's really what Tantra is.

And so the Radiant Sutras,

It's in three parts.

The first part are the banter verses,

Which kind of creates the foundation of a conversation between God and human,

Or Bhairava and Devi,

Or Shiva and Shakti,

Like it's sort of the discussion between energy and matter,

God and the human,

Like all that.

But that being said,

To always know that in Tantra these are all the same thing.

They're not separate.

It's not that God is out there,

Or the human is down here.

They're actually all the same,

But we sort of experience it in duality so that we can have a conversation.

So the first part of the banter verses,

And then they have what they call the Yukti verses,

And there's 112 of those,

And these are all meditations,

Contemplations,

That each one,

If you choose one that you love,

And you practice it,

Practice it diligently,

Really work on it,

That's what allows that change of the cells on an atomic level that then shifts us as we live in the world.

And then after the 112,

There are what they call the Insight verses,

Where they kind of bring it all together,

And we have realizations about life.

And that's where we are now in our journey through the Radiant Sutras.

Today we're looking at verse 153.

And whether you've been with us all the way through,

Or you're just starting today,

It's all good.

We just start today.

But if you do want to go back and explore the other verses,

I have a playlist here on Insight Timer called the Radiant Sutras.

We have a group called Tantra Love and Connection with Katrina Boss,

And Lady has posted the link to that playlist very recently.

So if you just scroll back through the chat,

You'll find the link,

And you can go through it at your leisure if you want to go into some of those Yukti verses,

Some of those meditations and contemplations.

But today we are doing 153.

So whether you have the book or not,

Let's just close our eyes for a moment,

Wherever you are.

Let's just breathe deeply,

Expanding the belly as we inhale,

Contracting as we exhale.

Just sort of settling in your heart center,

The place within you that if I said to you,

Who are you?

You would point there and say,

I am so and so.

And go into that quiet,

Still place inside.

And let's listen to this verse.

The flowers,

The incense,

Grains,

Spices,

And honey offered in ritual are made out of the same divine stuff as you.

Who then is worshipped?

What comes to you when you hear that?

Does an emotion rise?

Does a word float through your mind?

Everything is everything.

All is sacred.

A riddle.

We are all connected,

The sacred in all.

Here again is the concept of worship.

We are the worshipper and the worshipped.

Oneness.

Our mind separates it.

I'm going to read a literal translation of it.

So this is a literal translation of the sutra.

The oneness of all things.

Yes.

So this is a little wordy,

But the oblations and the worshipper by which verily the transcendental reality is worshipped are all one in the same.

What then is this worship?

I'm just going to read this again because there's a little part that I want to include.

The oblations,

And again I'm just saying this,

I'm just explaining it because I know there's lots of people here who English isn't your first language,

And even if English is your first language we don't use the word oblation very often.

So an oblation is something you offer in worship.

You give an oblation in worship.

So the oblations and the worshipper by which verily the transcendental reality is worshipped are all one in the same.

What then is this worship?

And what I want to pull out of this is it's almost like the thing we're doing that we call worship.

We're doing it to worship a transcendental reality,

Whatever you want to call that.

Call it God,

Consciousness,

Brahman,

Shiva,

Shakti,

The goddess,

Whatever.

But it's what we would imagine a transcendental reality.

Reality.

So the sage,

The candles,

The tobacco,

Those are the oblations.

Yes.

So what I want to do is,

So this teaching comes out of a time thousands of years ago where daily religious worship was normal.

This was a very common thing,

And that you would sacrifice things.

And we don't have to go so far back to animal sacrifice,

They wouldn't have to go there.

But we would give gifts of grain.

And imagine this is coming out of India where it would be normal that you would go to the temple and you would give food and flowers and incense.

And you would give things in worship to really understand the context of this teaching.

And today in 2025,

Especially over in North America,

Parts of Europe,

Wherever we're listening from,

Not quite the same.

We don't really have the same societal expectation of daily worship and things like that.

But for everybody here,

I would love if you would share.

If you have an altar in your home of things that remind you of spiritual things,

Or maybe you have things on your walls,

Pictures of gurus,

Whatever that is,

I would love for you to share in the chat.

What do you have on your altar?

What do you put on that altar that you love to sit beside?

And this is nothing against altars.

This isn't an embarrassing thing.

But I really want to talk about it because this is really real in our life today as well.

Dried flowers.

What else do we often put on altars?

Or what else have you seen on altars?

Rocks,

Sand,

Shells,

Yes.

Crystals,

Candles,

Incense,

Sage,

Buddha pictures,

Pictures of my family,

Stones,

Candles,

Incense,

Idols,

Tarot decks,

Little statue of Shiva,

Selenite wand,

Feathers,

Bird feathers,

Pretty rocks,

A Buddha statue,

Candles,

Candles,

Reminders of the energies I want to connect to,

Elements,

Small statues,

Hearts,

Angels,

Prisms.

This is so awesome,

Guys.

Thank you.

Buddha,

Feather,

Sage,

Pics of my daughter,

Quan Yin,

Sitting in the kitchen,

Yes.

Our lady,

Little Buddhas,

Candles in angel form,

Russian Orthodox,

Mini triptych,

Nightlights,

Food,

Drinks,

Rocks,

Feathers,

Candles,

Yin,

Candles,

Symbols of the four directions and elements,

A goddess statue,

Fruit,

Candles,

A Buddha statue,

Glasses with water.

When I practiced Buddhism,

I had a Buddha terrastrat statue,

Water,

Candles,

A stupa,

The cards drawn for the day,

Malas,

Fairy lights sprinkled through the family wall of framed pictures,

A picture of Jesus laughing,

Tara,

The goddess.

Yes.

Thank you guys so much.

Singing ball.

So when we look at these things,

So let's take,

For example,

Feathers.

That was a really common one.

When we look at a feather,

Why do we put feathers on altars?

I'm with you.

Feathers have something magical,

But why do we put feathers?

What does that feather mean to you?

A symbol of the element of air.

Ah,

What else?

Free,

Wild and free,

Freedom in flight,

Connection to nature,

Mystical communication.

So this is the feather.

Oh,

A message from the bird.

Yes.

Birds and their freedom,

A reminder of a place in time I found it,

A special gift.

I think of mat and a reminder to keep one's heart light as a feather.

If you find one outdoors,

Look through it close to the sun.

What I've seen is there is a prism quality that shows up in sunlight through the structure.

So what this sutra is saying,

That we look at the feather and we have a reminder again of that transcendental reality of freedom,

Of communication,

A state of being I was in when I found it.

So now imagine we take it one step further and we look at that feather,

But the feather is us.

So the feather then reminds us of the freedom that we are.

The feather reminds us of the divine communication that we are,

That the memory attached or the wisdom of the teaching of the message we got when we found that feather is a reminder that that is our true nature.

Let's take something like candles.

Why do we put candles on an altar?

What do candles mean to us?

What does it feel like when we light that candle?

Peace,

Comfort,

The element of fire,

Hope,

The light within,

The element of fire,

Motivation,

Guidance,

Home,

A knowing that you're connected,

Pushing away the darkness.

So beautiful.

So now imagine that all of those aspects of the candle are you,

That when we look at it,

It reflects within us that we are the guidance home.

We push away the darkness.

We are intrinsically hope.

That's who we are.

We are indomitable spirit,

A light for the dark,

That we are calm,

That that calmness that we feel when we see that light,

That is our true nature.

So everything on that altar,

This is why the altars are beautiful.

This is a wonderful thing to have an altar.

And like,

What if you have a picture of a guru,

A statue of the Buddha,

A picture of Jesus,

Or who,

Whatever,

Saraswati,

Whatever guru you love,

And you look at that guru.

Like,

So why,

Let's take that for example.

Why do we have pictures of gurus or statues of gods and goddesses?

What is it about that,

That we put them on the altar to,

How does that make us feel?

What does it do for us?

It's very common.

I can say for me,

The connection to the divine,

Gratitude,

Hope that they'll help us,

Embodiment of the qualities we wish to have.

They represent something we aspire to and want to connect to,

Reminders of enlightenment,

Honoring their wisdom.

We admire them for the qualities they have to live our life as they did,

A hope for grace and a sense of reverence.

Thank you.

It's beautiful.

So you can imagine how we take that and we see that it is us we see in that.

We have the capacity,

Every one of us,

Closeness.

Dandelions is closeness.

This is one of the greatest journeys of Tantra,

Or any of these kinds of spiritual paths,

Is that we are also that.

So often we're taught in the spiritual communities or the introspective communities that if you see something negative in someone else,

Then obviously you have it within yourself and all this stuff.

I have a lot to say about that,

But it's a whole other discussion.

Imagine we flip it and we see the wisdom in someone and it stirs something inside of us.

I mean,

If you see a picture of one guru,

You might be like,

Meh,

Whatever,

Right?

It doesn't stir something inside of you,

But this one stirs something.

What is it stirring?

It's stirring the part of you that is that,

That resonates.

Like if there's a part of me that resonates with the peace and the lightness of the Buddha,

That's because I am the peace and the lightness of the Buddha also.

So when I had the train station,

I used to own a train station that I'd renovated into a wellness center,

And I had framed pictures of all of my teachers.

These aren't people I studied with,

But these were people like Gandhi or Mother Teresa,

Or people who,

Actually also Joss Whedon because he created Buffy the Vampire Slayer and other things,

But that's a whole other story.

So I had framed pictures of them all around my train station.

I actually considered them the guardians of my station.

But when I look at a picture of Gandhi,

I remember the truth within me.

The life of Gandhi that I love so much was his deep search for his truth,

And then his ability,

Joy,

Devout life of standing in that truth and seeing what happened.

So when I see Gandhi,

I don't look at Gandhi and go,

Wow,

Wasn't Gandhi amazing?

That's not the point.

Gandhi triggers me to dive deep into my truth.

It's like,

I've thought of doing this again,

Putting up pictures of these people all around my place.

I might put up someone like David Bohm,

Who was a quantum physicist who I've spoke of a lot over the last few years here.

He was kind of an outlier,

But he was a genius and he was awkward and a little bit,

You know,

Dorky and people didn't really get him and all that kind of thing.

But when I look at a picture of David Bohm,

I feel like you don't have to fit in,

Katrina.

You don't have to be like everybody else.

You don't have to be cool and interesting.

Just be you.

Allow your genius to flow.

Allow that.

Just be like David Bohm,

Because I am like David Bohm.

So now to imagine all the things that you would put up around your house to kind of remind you of the transcendental reality.

That's why I wanted to read that literal translation.

Even like some people mentioned that they put pictures of their family,

Pictures of their daughter,

Like people like,

You know,

Like that.

Why would we do that?

Because it reminds us of something.

It fills us with gratitude.

Why do we do that?

I put pictures of my favorite female yoga mentors who have passed on.

I don't know whether it was Marianne Williamson,

Like decades ago,

She said something like,

You know,

Our greatest fear isn't that we aren't good enough,

But that we're so great and we don't know what to do with it.

There's something like that.

So now imagine anything that you place in your home,

Because it reminds you of some transcendental reality,

Like oneness,

Communication,

Joy,

Enlightenment,

Truth.

Imagine that we put it up around us to remind us that that's who we are.

It's just such a beautiful,

A beautiful thing.

Because,

Of course,

In Tantra,

In Tantra,

The idea is,

And so this is just this tradition.

It's not necessarily all spiritual traditions by a long shot,

But it's maybe why I love Tantra.

But in this tradition,

It's the belief,

It's sort of what they would call a non-dual tradition,

Where there is no separation between you and the divine.

You are the divine incarnate.

Oh,

Lady,

Thank you.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.

Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.

It is our light,

Not our darkness,

That most frightens us.

We ask ourselves,

Who am I to be brilliant,

Gorgeous,

Handsome,

Talented,

And fabulous?

Actually,

Who are you not to be?

Yes.

Thank you,

Lady.

I'm just going to slide back,

Because I think there was a question.

If you had a question,

Please rewrite it,

Because I won't be able.

Steve,

Now,

Of course,

I want to know what you were going to say about if you see a negative in another.

In short,

What I was going to say was,

If we walk through our life,

And we are constantly seeing anger in everyone you see,

There is a high chance that you are angry,

Because you're interpreting the world through a view,

A vision of anger.

If you're struggling with depression,

You will likely see depression everywhere around you.

It's sort of that if you have a boss that is perpetually a jerk,

It doesn't matter where you work.

People in places of authority are always jerks.

There's a high chance there's something inside of you that is the pattern that keeps ending up in these patterns.

This is a truth.

But this is where spiritual teachings get all messed up when you turn them around.

What people do then is someone misbehaves.

If you say,

Hey,

That's not okay what you're doing.

That's what you're doing.

That really hurts my feelings.

They then say,

Oh,

Well,

If you think I'm doing something wrong,

Obviously it's something inside of you.

And this is how we are taught to gaslight ourselves.

And there's a lot of that in the spiritual world.

So it isn't that the teaching is wrong,

But you never can use it against someone.

Then it's wrong.

And it's used a lot like that.

Or if they tell you there's three fingers pointing and one's pointing back at you,

Right back at you,

Which means you're just projecting.

Exactly.

And so that's it.

So there was a question about duality.

Do we need duality to experience connection?

Yes.

It's a great question.

About,

I don't know how long ago,

Maybe 10 weeks ago or so,

We did a sutra,

Which was very illuminating to me.

And that's why I love this question,

Because in the sutra,

They talked about how.

.

.

Now let's imagine that there's two ways of experiencing the world.

If we all close our eyes and breathe deeply into our heart center,

You can imagine that we are all breathing into the same oneness.

For all intents and purposes,

There is no you,

There is no me.

We are all just a collective heart beating.

In that space,

We are God,

We are human,

We are dog,

We are tree,

We are everything.

There's no discernment because our eyes are closed.

We're not moving.

We aren't navigating duality.

We're sitting still.

This is one of the beautiful,

One of the ways that meditation is interesting,

Right?

We can close our eyes and feel oneness.

We can escape duality and experience oneness.

But as soon as we open our eyes,

Suddenly I see a chair and I see a door and a computer and a microphone.

I'm now back in duality.

And by design,

We're supposed to be in duality.

This is maya.

This is what allows all of us to have a conversation right here.

This is what allows all of us to gather as all these beautiful,

Independent people.

We get to have a conversation together.

So this is duality.

And what this sutra,

Again,

I can't remember which one it was,

But it talked about,

This is also why when we talk about worship,

We often make God,

Whatever you understand that to be,

Outside of us.

Again,

Even the feather and the candle and the picture of the guru,

It's outside of us.

And there's something in the interaction between me and this other.

That's the magic because we're in duality.

So in duality,

I can intellectually say that I am God incarnate.

I can say that,

But the reality is when I am seeking guidance,

I sit on my wingback chair and I close my eyes and I ask for guidance.

I'm asking someone,

Something,

Some entity,

And my mind sounds like I'm obviously asking someone else because then I receive guidance.

So there is a duality in how my mind is interpreting the experience.

But then of course,

You know,

In Christianity,

Jesus would say that before you even finish asking the question,

I will have already answered.

The funny thing is,

And what he's intimating towards is in oneness,

All you have to do is have the thought of the question and the answer is already there.

So this is sort of where oneness and duality start overlapping.

And it's almost like if I sit in my chair and I close my eyes,

It's like you're almost feeling for the answer.

It's almost like there's no duality really.

You're just sort of feeling for what's true.

So it's interesting how we interpret the world as dual,

Which is perfect,

But we also know that it's oneness.

And this is just how I'm interpreting it because it's helpful.

It's useful.

I think that's the key with duality is that it doesn't own us.

We aren't a victim of duality.

It's a joy to get to be here.

So let's close our eyes for a minute.

We're going to do a little meditation.

Wherever you are,

Just relax.

You can lie down.

You can stay sitting.

You can,

If you're at work,

You can just close your eyes and pretend you're thinking.

And let's just breathe deeply together.

And in your mind's eye,

I would love for you to picture yourself in a room,

Any room.

And you're sitting in that room,

Breathing deeply,

Completely at peace.

And in your mind's eye,

You open your eyes and you look around the room and you start placing objects in the room that you love,

That you would place on your altar.

Maybe you hang pictures on the wall that are inspiring.

And you place all kinds of things,

Things that remind you that the world is bigger than we think it is.

Inspiration from people who have lived in ways that resonate with you.

Pieces of nature so that we remember who we truly are.

And now just sit and gaze upon everything in your room,

All these things that truly speak to your heart,

Speak to your soul.

And individually,

Just let your eyes gaze upon one thing and then the next,

Then the next,

And allow those feelings to permeate your body.

And then to look around the room and realize that everything I am observing is me.

All of these things come from the same source that I do.

All of these people are from the same source as I am.

I am the same as these.

And to really breathe that in,

That you are the freedom of the feather and you are the light of the candle and you are the wisdom of the guru.

Vaparapara.

The flowers,

The incense,

Grains,

Spices,

And honey offered in ritual are made out of the same divine stuff as you.

Who then is worshipped?

Let's just breathe deeply together.

And then let's return to our group.

So thank you so much for being here.

We'll see you later.

Hope you have a wonderful week.