Tantra The Supreme Understanding Session (8)

Join us for a series of talks, focusing on the greatest position- Tantra. Commentary on the book by Shree Rajneesh written in 1975. In this 8th session we will discuss the truth around the drama of "Choosing", or in the words of the poet: "Whoever clings to mind sees not the truth of what's beyond the mind". Join us for the most fantastic journey of your life.

Transcript

So,

We're going to start with a short ceremony.

Let us sit comfortably and make sure all the beeps and sounds are turned off.

Let's take a deep breath in and let go.

Let's close our eyes and take another deep breath in and let go.

And the next breath we keep in,

We don't breathe out.

And slowly breathe out.

And let go.

Let go of all your efforts.

Let go of everything that already happened in the past.

Let go of everything that may happen in the future.

And allow your breath to guide your attention back to the present moment,

To whatever is happening right now.

Everything is happening around you.

Become aware of all the sounds,

Smells,

All the information generated by your environment.

Become aware of the space that your body takes within your environment.

Become aware of the position your body took upon its seat.

As you scan your body,

Make sure that there is no tension hiding anywhere in your body.

Especially observe the muscles around your belly area.

Make sure they are loose in your shoulders and your neck and face.

Your whole body is comfortable and loose.

Become aware of all those functions that are happening within your body effortlessly.

Your pulse,

Your blood gushing through your veins,

Your metabolism,

Your breath.

Become aware of all those functions.

Let go.

Let go more and more.

Become aware of your own thoughts and how they try to steal your awareness and take it somewhere else,

Another time.

What are you thinking of right now?

Thoughts come and go.

You just observe without getting carried away by any specific thought.

Become aware of all those happenings around you and within you.

All the information your mind is gathering,

You just observe.

Great.

And as all those phenomena continue,

Allow your attention to turn away and face itself.

The origin of awareness.

That space within that exists before and beyond any phenomena.

Where there is no movement.

There is only silence.

And for a moment,

Become that silence.

Another deep breath in and down.

Slowly allow your attention to come back to your body.

Have you seated here in this room?

Part of our virtual circle?

Unite our individual intentions into one unified intention.

The intention to grow,

To develop,

To evolve.

With a smile,

Let's take another deep breath in.

Now when you feel comfortable,

You may open your eyes.

Thank you.

Welcome everyone.

Welcome to the beautiful journey that we are in the midst of.

Under the title,

Tantra,

The Supreme Understanding.

We are following a poem that was sang by a very special spiritual teacher 800 years ago.

And we are today on chapter 8 of that song.

Out of 10 chapters.

So briefly allow me to review what we've discussed so far.

Just to make sure that we are all on the same page.

So Tilopa experienced a very special state of consciousness.

And he was looking for a disciple to teach and express somehow that state.

But it was very difficult to find someone who was ready to receive that type of knowledge.

But eventually he did find.

And he told his disciple Niropa that what they are about to do is an impossible task.

There is no way he can actually explain or express in any word or symbol.

It's not going to happen.

But the only way he could refer to that was through a poem.

So he started singing.

And the first verse of that song was just reminding the student,

The disciple,

That there is no way he can understand or comprehend.

So just let go of the effort to try to understand.

And now we are,

As the disciples of that path,

Are invited to also let go of that need to understand.

The second chapter was about the root problem,

According to Tilopa's words,

Which is the mind.

And today we're going to continue discussing this.

Instead of trying to cut the branches,

Tilopa is guiding us to the tree trunk.

If you really want to be effective in your work,

You have to go to where the problem is actually hiding.

Instead of trying to correct all the wrongs that you see,

You have to deal with your mind.

The third chapter was about stop fighting the darkness.

As the darkness is a non-entity,

There is no reason to fight it,

Like most of the people are busy doing.

You just need to add some light and darkness will go away by itself.

So adding light,

Adding knowledge,

Light is a reference for self-knowledge,

Will be the cure to all of your problems.

And then he starts in the first chapter,

He starts to explain what we can actually practice in order to come closer and closer to that state of consciousness.

And that guidance is about focusing on the not.

Instead of focusing on something,

Like our mind is so trained to do,

Instead of focusing on the object,

You focus on the not,

On the non-entity,

On the background behind all the phenomena,

Like we did today.

This was a tantric exercise,

Shifting your attention from everything that is happening,

All the phenomena,

All the objects,

To the background,

To the not.

Do not.

Observe not.

This is the Tantra way.

The fifth chapter was about how different the spiritual path that we are working on is from any other spiritual path.

Because this is the path of no-path,

The practice of no-practice.

There are no rules,

No regulations,

No right-doings or wrong-doings.

There is no way to be out of it as much as there is no way to be in it.

It's a very unique path to follow.

No teaching can help you to move forward on this path.

You actually cannot do anything to move forward on this path.

There is actually no path at all.

There is nowhere to go,

There is no progress on the tantric path.

The sixth chapter is speaking about how there can be no sin accumulated on your path,

No karma.

You cannot do the wrong thing on the tantric path.

So instead of trying to enhance yourself,

Better yourself,

Like all the other spiritual paths are recommending and guiding you to do,

By following a very specific set of rules and regulations,

Here you cannot sin.

Whatever you do cannot be put against you.

Because it is referred to the same wrongdoing that a sleepwalker is doing.

As long as you are not fully aware of your own self,

You cannot sin.

And when you are fully aware,

You cannot sin.

So you cannot sin.

You can just relax about that.

And then,

The seventh chapter was about transcending duality.

Realizing that our mind is artificially separating reality into two.

Usually the separation is about good and bad,

Right and wrong,

Desirable and undesirable,

Cravings and aversions.

You see?

What I want,

What I don't want.

And even the fact that there is I that wants something,

It's already a dualistic way to look at reality.

So transcending duality.

.

.

First,

Transcendence is something that happens spontaneously,

Naturally.

It's not something that you can effortlessly.

.

.

It's not something that you can use effort in order to achieve.

It is something that is happening spontaneously when you are ripe.

Right?

Then you transcend.

And transcending duality meaning there is no two anymore.

You can observe reality as one complete wholeness and recognize yourself as a part of that wholeness.

That was the last chapter.

And I hope we are ready now to embark on the eighth chapter.

So I would like to invite you to listen to those words,

But don't try to analyze them.

Just let them sing in you like a song,

Like a holy song.

In,

But a flesh will burn the evil of ignorance.

Whoever clings to mind sees not the truth of what's beyond the mind.

Whoever strives to practice Dharma finds not the truth of beyond practice.

To know what is beyond both mind and practice,

One should cut cleanly through the root of mind and stare naked.

One should thus break away from all distinctions and remain at ease.

So first we need to discuss the idea of choice.

There is so much drama around us choosing.

Because you see,

The moment you persuade yourself that you have to choose,

You are already stuck in a drama,

In a trap.

Choosing is like sitting in the middle of the river on a rock and trying to decide if you should jump left or right.

You know?

What happens while you are debating if you should jump left or right?

Life happens,

Right?

The river flows.

Both sides of the rock,

The river flows.

While you're stuck,

You're stuck on that rock.

You put yourself on that rock.

And the debate is always because of ego.

Ego is trying to persuade you that the choice that you are about to make is crucial.

You have to be very careful about what you choose to do next.

Because if you jump left,

God knows what is waiting for you.

And if you jump right,

Oh my God,

A whole new drama is created.

So in both left and right,

Life happens.

But you are not participating.

See,

It's always about gaining and losing,

Gaining and losing.

This is the ego,

Gaining and losing.

The ego is trying to decide if I'm jumping left,

Am I going to gain more than I'm about to lose?

Or maybe right would be a better option because there I'm going to gain more than I'm going to lose.

And remember,

This is nonsense.

You know,

You need to zoom out from that drama that you think you're stuck in,

Choosing the right choice.

And realize that all the rivers are flowing into the ocean.

And the ocean is not really concerned about if the river came from the left side or the river came from the right side.

You know,

You need to expand your mind,

Expand your vision.

It's not really important,

Even though it feels like it's really,

Really important.

And it's going to affect the rest of my life.

Oh my God,

What to choose?

It's not really important.

Eventually,

All the rivers will arrive at the ocean.

And the river that you are flowing with will arrive to the ocean,

100%.

We are all bound for the same destiny.

Reunited with the ocean.

The question is,

Are you stuck on that rock?

And you're going to arrive to the ocean as a corpse floating on the water?

Or are you going to allow yourself to flow with that flow of life before you die?

Letting go of that idea that making a choice is so crucial.

And if you cannot really decide and you're still stuck,

I can give you a recommendation.

How to choose.

If you want to make sure that your choice is the most accurate,

I would suggest using this criteria.

Use this question.

What would you choose to do if there was no fear guiding you at all?

If there was only bliss?

If Buddha was in your shoes,

What would he choose to do?

And do that.

Follow that.

Even if you are still afraid,

It doesn't matter.

At least now you know that this is the right choice for you.

This is where the natural flow of your life is heading.

With minimal turbulence in that stream.

Now we've cleared that out.

Let's go back to the text.

Cut the root of a tree and the leaves will wither.

Cut the root of your mind and samsara falls.

What does it mean,

The root of your mind?

What is the mind?

The best way to explain it is to consider the mind to be a silver screen,

Like in the cinema.

And on that screen,

There are endless projections of various phenomena.

Whatever you are aware of,

It could be emotions,

Sensations,

Thoughts.

All the information you gather from your surroundings and from your own inner body.

The information you gather from your surroundings are under the title sensations.

Through your five senses,

You gather information from your surroundings.

And then,

Emotions that come from within and thoughts.

The combination of these three groups,

Emotions,

Sensations and thoughts,

They form a movie on that screen.

On that movie,

You are focused.

This is the mind.

Everything that you are aware of is the mind.

Okay?

If you want to go into details,

I recommend you going back to the series I call the seven levels of existence.

You can find it on Inside Timer page.

And listen to that chapter about the mind.

In details,

It will guide you.

Anything you need to know about the mind.

So,

Cutting the root,

What does it mean?

Cutting the root of the mind.

This is so important on the path of the spiritual seeker.

It could be the first true,

How do you call it,

Transformation that happens on your path.

What is it?

Realizing that the mind is not real.

What you are watching is not real.

Just like you sit in the cinema theater and you watch a movie.

What you are watching is not real.

Right?

It's just a projection.

It's just 25 frames per second of light that is screened and projected back to you.

Your eyes and your ears,

They see and hear.

And you translate that into a virtual reality of sort.

And you relate to it as a type of reality.

That's what makes it entertaining.

Right?

But it's not real.

So,

Realizing what you are observing,

What you hear,

What you see,

What you feel,

What you think is not real.

These are just objects of observation.

And specifically not real in the sense that it's not who you are,

The observer.

Cutting the root of the mind,

Meaning stopping identifying with the object of observation.

Let me say this sentence again.

This is transformational.

If you are able to fully observe this,

I guarantee your life will change irreversibly.

Cutting the root of your mind,

Meaning stop identifying with the object of observation.

That's it.

That's all that is required.

And what happens then?

Samsara ends.

Samsara falls,

According to Tilopa's words.

What is Samsara?

Samsara is that wheel of suffering.

Again and again and again and again.

Another life and another life.

You keep returning to give you another chance.

Another chance to do what?

Another chance to recognize the true essence of your own self.

To wake up from that dream that you are in.

Samsara falls in a blink.

When?

You stop identifying with the object of your observation.

You can flow through life easily,

Effortlessly,

Naturally.

The light of any lamp dispels in a moment the darkness of long kalpas.

Kalpas is a Sanskrit word for ages and ages,

Years and years.

Millennials.

So this is a metaphor.

Once you wake up,

It doesn't matter how many years,

How many lifetimes you were asleep.

It doesn't matter how used you already are to generate dharma and identifying with it.

Again and again and again.

The moment you wake up,

That's it.

It leaves without leaving any mark.

Then you become like a mirror.

Think about the difference between a mirror and a film.

Like cellulite film.

The materials that they shoot the film on.

How do you call it?

Like polaroid.

Polaroid camera,

Remember those?

The material of the picture.

Catch the light,

The blink of a light,

And then everything is imprinted on it.

Right?

And then you can see a picture because it's imprinted on the material.

So instead of being a polaroid picture,

You become a mirror.

What's the difference?

Mirror just reflects back that light and there is nothing sticks on the mirror.

It remains crystal clear.

Whatever is being projected,

Reflected,

Doesn't matter.

You are reflecting it back without any mark.

This is so special.

Do you see that?

Usually what happens,

We just keep on gaining more and more and more and more impressions.

And become heavier and heavier and heavier with past impressions.

And with life's load,

We feel that there is a heavier and heavier load on our back.

Past impressions.

The tantric consciousness doesn't accumulate that load at all.

It is always fresh because everything is immediately reflected back without leaving any mark.

Your consciousness should be the same.

As you grow,

Allow yourself to experience everything unintimidated,

But in the same breath,

Without leaving any mark,

Any stain.

And don't worry about how much load you already carry.

As Estilopa says,

Any lamp,

As soon as you light it up,

That's it.

Darkness is gone.

Doesn't matter how many years darkness was there.

Right?

Same.

Once you wake up,

Once you are able to observe life without any past impressions,

Without identifying yourself with it at all,

Creating a new identity that is a result of your experience.

No,

No,

No,

No.

Your identity has got nothing to do with your experience.

Who you are has got nothing to do with what you experience.

You are not here to correct yourself.

You are not here to get better.

This is not the tantric way.

You are not here to improve yourself,

To learn something,

To correct something.

Hoping that a better version of you will be worthy of what you are seeking.

Estilopa says,

No,

No,

No,

No.

If you believe that,

Then you will definitely never reach what you are looking for.

Waking up to your true nature,

That's all is required.

Waking up to who you already are.

Not a version of you that may be manifested in the future.

No,

No,

No.

Who you already are,

Just waking up from the illusion that you are not good enough.

As you are right now.

The strong light of the mind in,

But a flash will burn the veil of ignorance.

Just like that.

What is the ignorance?

What is ignorance?

Ignorance is lack of self-awareness,

Self-knowledge.

I tell you,

You remember when we discussed about how our intellect divides reality into two,

Good and bad.

Worthy and unworthy.

Desired and undesired.

Right?

And this duality keeps us away from the totality of life.

The wholeness of it.

You might say,

But this happens automatically.

I cannot control it.

So I tell you,

If you have to split reality into two,

Use this as a litmus paper.

Use this as your criteria.

Okay?

Is it based on knowledge,

Self-knowledge,

Or is it based on ignorance?

Lack of self-knowledge.

This is the only criteria that could be helpful,

Useful for you.

When you meet somebody,

They speak,

They behave,

They act.

This is the only criteria you are judging them.

Do they operate because of knowledge or because of ignorance?

Usually the answer will be ignorance.

I don't see many people who are a pure expression of self-knowledge.

And if you see somebody operate,

Behave because of ignorance,

Then you just add compassion.

That's it.

You don't judge them.

You are not getting angry or judgmental,

Frustrated.

No,

You just add compassion because this person is ignorant to their true nature.

Same with you.

When you find yourself acting out of,

You know,

Anger,

Out of frustration,

Locked in a drama that you created for yourself,

Stuck in a hole and don't know how to get out,

You just add compassion,

You know?

Because you act out of ignorance.

You lack self-knowledge at this moment.

So the strong light of the mind in,

But a flash will burn the veil of ignorance.

Once you are recognizing the nature of your own mind and you stop identifying with whatever you are observing there on that screen,

That's it.

It's in a flash.

There is no process.

There is no coming closer and closer to that.

It's a spontaneous event.

And unfortunately,

There is nothing you can do to accelerate it.

Whoever clings to mind sees not the truth of what's beyond the mind.

It's a different way to look at it.

Whomever clings to mind sees not the truth of what's beyond the mind.

What is beyond the mind?

Consciousness.

When you are identifying with the objects of observation,

Consciousness is lost.

You are mesmerized.

You are unconscious.

Tilopa is very firm.

You are unconscious.

You are like a sleepwalker.

You have no idea who you are.

Why?

Because your identity is completely trapped with the objects of your observation.

What is happening now?

It is happening to me.

It is happening because of me.

Right?

It doesn't matter if it's good or bad.

I am identified with it.

You can tell yourself that you are a great person,

A successful person,

A huge winner,

Because what is happening right now is considered to be good or successful.

Or the opposite.

You can tell yourself that you are a nobody,

You are unsuccessful,

You are a loser.

Why?

Because the results of whatever is happening right now is against your expectations.

Tilopa says neither are true.

Nothing to do with the truth.

Who you are has got nothing to do with what you experience.

What is beyond the mind?

Pure consciousness.

What is pure consciousness?

Untouched.

Unstained.

Now if we continue with this metaphor about the movie theater.

Tilopa didn't have that metaphor 800 years ago.

But we can use that now.

If the mind is the silver screen,

The consciousness is like the lens of the projector.

Of the film projector.

Right?

What is the lens doing?

It takes the big light of the projector and effortlessly just guides it to the mind,

To the screen.

Right?

And the more clean,

The more pure that lens is,

The more accurate the film is projected.

Exactly as the filmmaker intended it to be.

Saying a pure consciousness is able to take the big light and spread it to allow reality to be experienced exactly as the creator intended it to be.

So if you cling to the mind,

You cannot see consciousness.

You cannot observe.

You cannot experience pure consciousness.

The key is to stop that clinging.

Observing life naturally,

Effortlessly,

Unintimidated.

Whoever strives to practice dharma finds not the truth of beyond practice.

Yes?

It's another way to say stop trying to do that.

Stop trying to dip yourself in knowledge,

Believing that your intellect can take you there.

Or your practice can take you there.

Remember,

There is no better,

More advanced version of you waiting to be manifested.

Either tantric consciousness is revealed to you now or it is never revealed to you.

There is no future tense to tantric consciousness.

Only now.

To know what is beyond both mind and practice,

One should cut cleanly through the root of mind and stare naked.

This is so beautiful.

Stare naked.

What is staring naked?

Naked of what?

Not naked of clothes necessarily,

But naked of what?

Preconceptions.

The mind can show you what you already expect.

Or at least hold as a possible option.

What is not preconceived will never be experienced through the mind.

Consciousness,

Tantric consciousness is not limiting itself to whatever the mind is able to show.

The mind is like a huge filter.

It filters information from whatever is perceived.

So you can be aware that only what you are trained to be near is important.

For your survival,

For a successful completion of a specific mission.

The rest is just filtered away and you are not aware of it at all.

Again,

You can listen to that speech I gave about the mind for many examples in that sense.

But for now you need to know that your mind is a very limited tool to really deliver the complexity of the present moment.

So you can be aware of it.

Consciousness,

Tantric consciousness is not filtering anything.

Everything is included.

Everything is as important.

Everything is there for you to experience and enjoy.

Naked from preconceptions.

Free from any agenda.

Usually we observe reality and in the moment of observation we already have an opinion about it.

And immediately craving and aversions happen.

I want,

I don't want,

I want,

I don't want.

Naked meaning there is no agenda.

Tantric consciousness does not filter anything.

Everything that is happening is absorbed.

And then reflected back with no stains.

Keeping the lens pure and clean.

You know?

One should break away from all distinctions and remain at ease.

No distinctions.

That's a practice.

Next time you want to practice tantric consciousness.

See if you can go wherever.

You go outside.

Try 10 minutes to observe without distinctions.

Don't give it a name.

Don't give it a title.

Don't judge it to be good or bad.

Come completely naked with no agenda.

Well?

See what happens when you are completely empty of any opinion about the objects of your observation.

See if it even takes you one step further so you can observe that without being identified with it at all.

It's not you observing something.

Deciding if it's relevant or not.

Worthy or not.

Good or bad.

Just observe it naked.

See how it is experienced then.

Well?

Are there any questions?

Please,

Shoot.

Now is the time.

Lauren was asking what is real?

That was a while ago.

What is real?

It's a beautiful question.

Consciousness is real.

Consciousness is real.

And then one step lower than that,

Everything that you refer to as real is real.

Once there is two,

You and the objects of your observation,

Then the criteria is everything that you refer to as real.

It becomes real.

Above that,

Consciousness is the only real thing.

The rest is just a dream.

Good.

Hello?

Ward was saying it's interesting when I was freed from childhood slavery,

I had no sense of who I was.

So I was more like a mirror.

Then gradually as I became somebody,

I took on more impressions.

Turns out that that empty me is the me I'm striving to come home to.

Isn't that beautiful?

You see,

There is no goal to reach.

There is no point to get.

It's all about remaining in the original point.

Natural.

And he asked,

May I be like a crystal clear mirror?

Yeah.

Exactly.

Barbara says no filtering.

Staring naked sounds overwhelming to me.

Yeah.

Look,

Tilopa is a very unique teacher.

He demands everything.

He will take everything.

Everything from you.

Everything.

So that's why it took him a lifetime to find one disciple that was ripe enough to obtain that knowledge.

So we can enjoy it 800 years later.

Yeah.

It's definitely not for the weak hearted.

It's not going to soothe your pain.

Or find a way to make it more user friendly.

It's going to cut it from the root.

But you need to surrender fully.

Fully surrender.

And that takes a lot of courage.

For sure.

Recognizing how scary it is is an important step forward on this pathless path.

What else?

That's it.

And Nani says I'm coming out of apathy after great losses.

I can make the important shift to emptiness.

Yeah,

Apathy is a way to escape the pain.

Why are we trying to escape the pain?

Because we believe it's too painful.

We can't deal with it.

It's too much.

So we are looking for a way to mask it.

It could be alcohol.

It could be drugs.

It could be putting ourselves to sleep.

Saying no,

No,

This is too much.

Apathy is like shutting down your emotions.

And you don't feel the pain.

At least not as much.

The problem is that the price you pay is losing your humanity.

Because being human means experiencing both pleasure and pain.

That's why we are in a body.

Pure consciousness doesn't experience neither pain or pleasure.

It only knows.

That's it.

To experience pain and pleasure,

You need a body.

And this is the present you have now for the next 50,

40,

30,

20 years.

I don't know how many years you have left.

So you can choose how you want to use this present that you received from nature,

From life,

From God.

Do you want to close your heart?

Making sure it's not so painful anymore?

Or do you choose to remain open?

And allow life to come and touch you?

Whether it's pleasure or pain.

Nani says,

Apathy comes with victimhood.

Chosen emptiness feels empowering and free.

Apathy comes with victimhood,

Yeah.

I'm caressing Elbert.

Just make sure you don't create another identity.

Okay,

Who am I?

I am the empty one.

I am the one that reached emptiness.

Because that's just another trap,

A spiritual trap.

Emptiness comes with no medals.

Emptiness is who you already are.

Without the artificial layers that you put on top of that.

To create an identity for you.

Make sure that you don't create another spiritual identity.

It's just another layer.

Emptiness is not an achievement.

Emptiness is what is waiting in the background of all your experiences.

Silence is waiting behind the noise.

Good,

Good,

Good.