Through Focus Emerges Infinity: Radiance Sutras Verse 10

During this session, we discuss Verse 10 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 and if you're new this is a book written by Lauren Roche and it's a translation and an interpretation of the ancient tantric text the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra.

And today we are reading the 10th verse.

If you have the book it's on page 45.

You don't have to have the book but it's a beautiful passage.

So one way or the other let's close our eyes and let's just take a few deep breaths.

Let's let our soul listen to what this is saying.

The journey begins here with whatever is capturing your attention.

Are you gazing at the patterns on some wall?

Are you daydreaming about a celebrity?

Is there someone you love and long to cling to?

Disappear into?

A soul who is a chalice for beauty to pour into the world?

Whatever your focus give your whole being give your whole being gradually step by step the infinity from which you both have emerged will encompass you with blessing.

What comes to you when you hear that?

Pour your soul into the chalice longing whatever your focus give your whole being permission to fully engage grace emerging give all of yourself gradually step by step.

This is a very interesting sutra because we did a whole series about the eight limbs of yoga.

The eight limbs of yoga you know these are the yamas,

The niyamas,

Asana,

Pranayama,

Pratyahara,

Dharana,

Dhyana and samdhi.

And I'll just mention them short quickly for a moment.

These are all the stages of becoming happy of being a content alive human.

They're not some mystical idea they are very very practical.

So the yamas and the niyamas these are sort of codes of living.

Codes of living.

They're focusing on truth,

Focusing on not harming anything,

Things like that.

And so once we sort of clear our philosophies that's what the yamas and the niyamas are all about.

Kind of what are the philosophies of life that I want to live according to?

And we all have them.

We may have different things we value.

Maybe we really value trust,

We really value honesty,

Or we really value kindness.

So when we really define our philosophy which is a very interesting exercise to sit and journal about.

To sit down and say what are the pillars of my life?

Whether Patanjali who wrote the sutras of these eight limbs he said these are the important pillars of life.

But what what are your pillars of life?

What are the virtues that you really deeply believe in?

And you'll know that you deeply believe in them because if you meet someone and they don't embody these you won't hang out with them.

Like let's say truth is really powerful for you.

This is something that's extremely important.

If someone lies to you once even a white lie you won't want to be around them.

There's something that just won't allow this kind of idea.

And someone else might be like that's no big deal.

No that's not really the point.

So these are the yamas and the niyamas.

And then asana.

Asana I mean in the western world we see this as warrior pose or crow pose or something like we've sort of created an exercise program around it.

But asana actually means how I sit on the earth.

How do I carry myself?

Do I walk in an elevated way?

Do I walk in an aligned way?

If you imagine walking down the street and you have this energy channel going from your core down into the earth and this energy channel rises all the way up as you connect with the galaxy.

Do you walk in this posture?

When you sit still like even when we sit in meditation whether we're sitting on a chair,

Whether we're sitting cross-legged,

Whether we're in full lotus it doesn't matter.

If we're sitting how are we sitting?

How are we taking up space on the planet?

Am I comfortable?

Is this right for me?

Do I feel like me sitting here?

And then of course the next is pranayama.

Am I breathing?

It's an amazing thing what has happened to us over the last couple millennia that we actually have to learn to breathe again.

We've been so traumatized by life and difficulty and cruelty that we have stored so much trauma in our breath we don't even breathe naturally anymore.

So this is a huge deal if we actually want to be happy in life we're walking down the street or we're sitting in meditation and we are actually breathing full breaths allowing ourselves to be in that non-fight or flight.

Pratyahara is the ability to withdraw the senses like to not be overwhelmed by people.

If you're an empath it's specifically important for you to be able to withdraw your antenna from the world and focus on what you do want to focus on but not be distracted by every person's drama or issue that you might observe.

Pratyahara is a saving grace for an empath.

This is very important.

And then there is dharana.

Now this is the focus of this sutra is focus.

The focus is focus.

Let's imagine you're sitting in meditation you're sitting in a comfortable seat you're not forcing yourself into some lotus position because someone else said you should.

You're actually sitting fully comfortable 100% in your body.

This is asana.

You are breathing deeply.

You're being kind to yourself.

You're honoring yourself.

These are the yamas and the niyamas.

And then you retract your senses into your body closing your eyes which is why we close our eyes because we're so visually stimulated.

We need to close our eyes and then we must focus on something.

It doesn't matter whether we're focusing on the tip of our nose or our third eye,

Focusing on a candle,

Focusing on a rose.

I mean I know our eyes are open right now with these focuses.

So if our eyes are open we're focusing on one thing.

If our eyes are closed we're maybe focusing on our third eye or we're chanting a mantra.

We're doing something that brings us to a 100% focus.

And this is really really important because it leads into the next limb which is dhyana.

And dhyana is total absorption.

In a world where we believe that multitasking is the answer,

Efficiency,

We must do a million things.

It was so funny in my yoga teacher training last week.

So in the yoga teacher training they have videos to watch each week like teachings and then there's the yoga and the practice.

And so one of the ladies she said in our gathering she said you know every week I would sit down with my notepad and I would sit and I would just listen and watch the videos.

She was in this week she says I decided that this was really an inefficient use of my time.

So I should just listen to you and watch you while I'm cleaning the dishes.

And the irony of course was I was exactly talking about this topic about the importance of total focus so that you can become completely absorbed.

And this is the thing and I really believe this.

It isn't just to be in the presence of a teacher in person.

I believe it actually can happen through video,

Through live like we are now.

That when we can be 100% focused and allow ourselves to lose ourselves in the conversation,

You and I merge.

I feel you and you feel me.

There is a sharing much more than my words.

There's a much more much more being passed between us than just what I'm saying.

And it's not one way either.

It's not just that you are receiving my wisdom or something like that.

It's not like that.

I feel you also and that informs my soul which brings these ideas into my mind to say out loud.

So there's a real thrill in life when we first have dhyana,

Focus,

Which leads us to dharana.

Oh sorry I have it backwards.

First we have focus which is dharana and when we can practice 100% focus something inside of us expands.

It's like we relax something and my whole being is now receiving something.

And then the final limb of yoga is samadhi which is bliss because when we can float in that total absorption we've let go of the dock.

We are just flowing in this beautiful infinite world we have reached bliss.

And it all comes from all of these pieces together.

So in this sutra,

So the first part he says the journey begins here with whatever is capturing your attention.

So literally this could be anything.

This could be what am I doing right now.

Right now we're doing this so maybe you're 100% focusing on this and it's not that you're focusing on me.

You're just simply I'm the focus but you're relaxing into it and allowing your being to explore the corners.

What does this mean to you?

I'm nothing but a catalyst within your psyche.

All the magic happens inside of you.

So if you sit and just focus it's the exploration inside of you that's the magic.

But it could be anything.

It could be and they you know they say maybe it's a painting on the wall.

It's like if you go to a gallery or a museum and you find yourself transfixed in a painting.

What happens?

You're staring at this painting and it's not necessarily maybe it's a landscape and you're suddenly transported into that beautiful field and you can smell the wheat blowing and you can hear the birds singing and you're instantly in diana because you're focusing on the wheat field.

But what if it's an abstract piece of art and you're looking at it and it's doing something to you.

Your eyes are so focused on it the more you focus on it the more it opens something up inside of you.

It could be another person's face.

What I find really interesting is when I am intimate with someone and it tends to only happen with intimate partners.

I don't know that it's ever happened with anyone else.

Maybe a close friend if we're having a very very raw conversation about something.

But especially intimate partners their face changes.

Like the more you're like a hundred percent in their face starts to shift.

Sometimes completely different faces and I don't know what that is whether it's multiple lifetimes or I don't know or what that is but it's fascinating.

Imagine making love and no matter what you're a hundred percent focused on this and it could be the sensation of touch.

It could be the sensation of intercourse.

It could be the sensation of kissing.

It could be anything but you're a hundred percent focused so focused that you lose yourself in it.

It can be anything.

It can be a book and the thing about whatever it is we're focusing on regardless of even whether or not we're meditating the eight limbs of yoga are meant for life.

The reason we talk about I practice meditation.

This is my meditation practice because I am practicing how to live as a fully actualized blissful human.

I'm practicing that sitting cross-legged with my altar or my candle or my prayer shawl or whatever I use.

I'm practicing I'm practicing right now.

I'm practicing a hundred percent focus.

I'm practicing releasing myself to that focus.

I'm practicing flowing in the bliss of that in this moment because if we struggle to pay attention to one thing when we're meditating we struggle to pay attention to one thing in life.

We are always being distracted in life in the same way that we can't stay focused in meditation.

This isn't a blame thing.

This isn't like you suck thing because you can't meditate.

This is why meditation is a practice because we've been trained to be distracted.

Whether it's our phones beeping or whether it's somebody saying hey hey hey hey hey can I have your attention can I have your attention can I have your attention whatever it is.

When we can live our life focused on what we're doing and it could be anything it could be leading a board meeting it could be vacuuming it could be walking the dog as long as we're a hundred percent in we are happy.

If we're bored we're not paying attention.

We're not paying attention to the trees and the birds and the sky and the fact that we can walk we're missing some yamas and some niyamas there.

All we have to do is find something beautiful to focus on.

It could be the dog we're walking it could be the sensation of the sun on our face or the wind on our face or the rain pelting down but if we can focus a hundred percent on the rain pelting down on us we will fall into a bliss state.

It doesn't matter what it is.

It's like we don't have to go to the Himalayas.

We can do it right here on anything.

I have to tell you a funny story.

So years ago when I was writing Tantric Intimacy and I was in my time of celibacy.

Lots of you guys know this if you've read Tantric Intimacy but I started because I don't know whether it's because I just wasn't focused on having a partner or whatever and I was really focused on playing in my inner masculine feminine dance.

I would walk around as this fully whole person all the time and I would be sitting somewhere and I was researching for Tantric Intimacy.

I was reading all these books.

I was in the huge Toronto Reference Library in Toronto so I've got all of these books ancient books about Tantra and whatever and at one point I would open some book that has some beautiful poem in it and I would read it and my whole body would go into like a full body orgasm which sounds hilarious and it's not some like you know some weird orgasm guy from Saturday Night Live.

It's not like that.

It's just this like beautiful flow state that kind of runs.

It's almost like when the hair stands up on your back when you hear something.

If you would allow yourself to release to that feeling your whole body would feel it.

Anyway it was so funny because it was happening all the time.

I would just walk down the street and see something beautiful and I would start to smile and this would just flow through me and I was like what's going on.

I like it.

It's just weird.

So of course on cue almost Jim called me who was my first teacher and he called me and he's like hey how's it going you know and Jim rarely calls me like it's not like we're we chit chat.

It's like maybe once a year twice a year.

He just happens to be taking a break at the mill.

He works at a sawmill with his son and he'll just go hey what are you doing and he calls me and I'm like and he goes how's it going and I said great.

I said I'm having all these wild experiences just and I told him and he says yep I always told you if you can't have a full body orgasm looking at a salt shaker you're not doing it right.

And I do remember him saying something like that like 30 years ago and my poor husband and I were just both like what are you talking about but the wild thing is it's almost like this idea to imagine that human beings were actually designed to be in bliss.

So even if all we did was go out today or tomorrow for any of you guys who are in other time zones and you just went for a walk and you sat on a bench and you picked one thing to gaze at.

One tree,

One rock,

Anything and you just gazed at it.

It could even be man-made.

It could be a beautiful town clock or it could be a building and you just gaze at it and allow your focus to be complete and as you gaze at it you just keep relaxing and relaxing and relaxing into this focus.

It's the most beautiful thing.

So the next line is are you gazing at the patterns on some wall?

Are you daydreaming about a celebrity?

So the funny thing is there's a word in here.

There's a Sanskrit word which means another and they talk about for example in this translation.

This is a translation from this book called Sri Vijnana Bhairava Tantra The Ascent and their translation of this is in this so this is very literal.

Lauren Roche creates a poem for us to embody.

This is the literal translation of the sutra.

In this way wherever there is mindful awareness either on the void or on another object such as a wall or on an excellent person such as a guru gradually the boon of absorption into the self is granted.

This is a little harder to understand but this absorption into another and so it's interesting because in this translation they say like if you focused on a guru or a teacher which would be very interesting if you picked someone who you particularly loved maybe it was Paramahansa Yogananda or it was Gandhi or someone like that and you sat and you looked at this other person and you gaze at them again it could be another person it could be a person you love it could be a grandchild it could be a nephew it could be a good friend but you gaze upon them and you allow more of them to come into you than just their physical appearance.

You kind of feel their whole being.

What was interesting is Lauren interpreted as a celebrity or an actor which is interesting and that's all he means is someone you respect and in the western world we often have favourite actors or favourite celebrities and it might be someone like like I have great respect for Keanu Reeves who's a Canadian actor,

The Matrix and I know lots of people know him but he's actually a genuinely great guy he's actually a really down-to-earth wonderful human and if I was to sit and sort of ponder him what makes him tick and again I'm not analyzing it I'm not googling it there's something about him that I'm drawn to I have a great draw to Matt Damon.

What is it about Matt Damon?

Sure I can analyze it and find out where he was born and who he's married to or whatever but there's a spirit there that I feel an affiliation with so that's all.

Is there someone who you really respect that you'd like to sit and sort of just meditate with do some kind of Vulcan mind meld?

Is there someone you love and long to cling to disappear into a soul who is a chalice for beauty to pour into the world?

And again this can be anyone like my friend was talking about she was babysitting her granddaughter on the weekend and my friend's really fun some of you guys met her Nancy and she said her favorite thing like her bliss state is getting right down on the floor and just playing with her granddaughter who I think is maybe a year old and she just flows in this bliss state with this granddaughter she's she's pouring herself into this child and playing like a child the child becomes the chalice that she pours herself into and it could be anything it could be anybody it could be a lover it could be a child it could be a parent it could be someone you're caring for it could be anybody all right here's the last part whatever your focus give your whole being gradually step by step the infinity from which you both have emerged will encompass you with blessing because this is the bliss whatever we choose to look at whether it's a piece of art or it's a person's face person's face or it's the starry sky or it's a ocean or a bubbling brook a river it's made of the same molecules that you are it springs from the quantum field just like we do you know so if we choose one thing we don't have to look at 10 things we just choose one thing and use that as the portal to infinity because it's made of the same infinity that everything else is it's just taking a different form so all we have to do is stay on this one thing because again we've been trained that says no no no i i need all 10 things i need all the things it's that fear of missing out FOMO it's like all we need is one and just keep going deeper into the one into the one from the gross elements of it the physical elements of it to go deeper into the subtle element of it to go deeper into the molecular the atomic the energetic how deep can we go so we're going to do a little meditation and in the meditation we'll go on a little little journey and then i will read the sutra in sanskrit and then i will read it in english so come to a comfortable position whatever your comfortable asana is asana literally means seat maybe you feel like lying down maybe you feel like sitting up whatever works for you as long as you can breathe deeply you don't want to be on a couch just slumped because then your lungs will be contracted because your diaphragm can't move so you actually can will only be able to breathe in your upper chest and then you won't be able to have a deep breath so that's why we sit upright or if you lie down you lie down perfectly flat because we want to be able to breathe we want to be able to invoke the pranayama so let's close our eyes let's bring all of our attention into our bodies let your attention flow into your feet your knees your hips your back your shoulder your shoulders your arms your belly your chest your face your ears be aware if there's any discomfort or pain you don't want to push it away we want to include all that's here so allow your attention to go into any part of your body that's uncomfortable right now any part of your body that's uncomfortable right now and as we breathe we want to inhale through the nose and exhale through the nose as we inhale expanding the belly in all directions contracting releasing the breath being fully in our body in our breath being aware of the sounds around us and then just letting them go allowing our ears to turn inward to listen to the sound of our breath or our heartbeat and whether you can hear that or not isn't the point but we allow our ears to go inward as well we allow all of our attention to come inward to the breath and from this place in our mind's eye let's imagine we're getting into a car and we're in the back seat and someone's driving us to a beautiful forest and we get to the spot and we open the car door and we get out and we walk through the entryway into the forest and we slowly walk and it's a place where you're very comfortable and now let's allow our senses to wake up a little to smell the trees and the forest and the air allow our ears to open up to the sounds of birds the crunching under our feet maybe a distant river or bubbling brook or bubbling brook our breath becomes a little bit deeper as we start to feel the resonance of nature frequency of the earth and our body starts to vibrate with the same peaceful quiet kind of like when you have a cup of tea and you put a tea bag in warm water and the water soon becomes infused with the tea our bodies become infused with the sounds around us the smell the feeling of nature all around and then looking around allow your eyes to wander to something maybe it's beautiful maybe it's old maybe it's a tree and what we're going to do is we're going to sit beside it and look at it so allow yourself to wander what does your eyes what do your eyes find is it moss on a log the leaves on a tree quiet river is it a bird find your spot sit down be comfortable maybe it's the sky and look at this focus in front of you allow your eyes to notice its color how the light plays with it maybe even wonder what it's called or what is it exactly and then release anything you might know about it and look deeper almost as if you had special vision that you could see into the molecules in between the moss in between the bark in between the water into the sky whatever it is then close your eyes for a moment and now imagine you have x-ray vision and open your eyes and kind of look through what you're looking at look at the inner workings of it see all that it really is and then close your eyes again and imagine your eyes now are able to see sub-atomically you can actually see the particles the atoms that make up this beautiful thing and open your eyes and allow your eyes to gaze upon the energy that this is and it can look however you want it to look and then allow your eyes to shift to your x-ray vision seeing into the center of it and allowing your body to relax let yourself become this focus feel what it feels like to be this thing as you breathe deeply let your back relax a little bit more the big muscles in your body relax a little bit more feel yourself start to swim in the energy that is inside of this thing and then very gently pull yourself back to your sitting position and simply observe this wonder before you knowing how deep it is knowing how infinite is inside of you.

The journey begins here with whatever is capturing your attention.

Are you gazing at the patterns on some wall?

Are you daydreaming about a celebrity?

Is there someone you love and long to cling to,

Disappear into?

A soul who is a chalice for beauty to pour into the world?

Whatever your focus give your whole being gradually step by step the infinity from which you both have emerged will encompass you with blessing.

Let's just breathe deeply on our own for about 30 seconds and then we'll come back together and let's come back into our bodies.

Let's take a deep breath in together and exhale and exhale and open our eyes.

So thanks everybody.

I hope you have a wonderful day,

Wonderful evening,

Wonderful sleep and we'll see you later.

Reviews

Beautiful words inspire poetry within me as the dancing rainbow light from my imaginary spring comes into my being and heals me. Thank you ever so much.

Loved this! Demystifying and thought provoking. Another Katrina classic.