#13. What Is Sannyasa | Vigyan Bhairav Tantra

Namaste and a very warm welcome to all of you in this daily live meditation session with me,

Dhyansa.

We are meditating on 112 meditation techniques of Vigyan Bhairav Tantra.

Meditation is a way of life.

It is a way of life that you do not choose.

It happens to you.

All the other ways of life which you call as lifestyle,

Your religious life,

Your family life,

Your spiritual life,

Your Vigyan life,

Your fit life,

Any kind of lifestyle that you choose is your choice.

Meditation is a way of life that you do not choose.

It happens to you.

When you sow the seeds of silence,

Of awareness in your life,

With all the technique,

With all the practice,

Then there is a blooming of a plant,

Of a tree,

Of a meditation life,

A way of life that becomes your entire life.

It does not remain just as a seed.

And if it would remain just as a seed,

Just as a practice,

Just as a technique,

It is practically useless.

Unless it happens to you,

Unless it blooms into this whole big,

Vast tree,

A way of life that you live,

That happens to you not by choice,

But by that natural organic growth,

That spiritual growth,

The growth of your consciousness,

And spills over your entire life.

What is this lifestyle?

What is this way of life that happens to you?

This is a way in which you are disidentified with all other lifestyles.

Whatever lifestyles that you have,

Your personal life,

Your professional life,

Your religious life,

Your spiritual life,

Any kind of lifestyle that you have,

You are disidentified with it.

Not detached from it.

Not disinterested from it.

See that there is a very,

Very clear,

But subtle distinction between disidentification and detachment.

All what meditation brings to you is disidentification and not disattachment.

In the ways we grow up in life,

We find ourselves in the body,

We find ourselves that we have a mind,

We are given a name,

We are given a description.

All that is given to us,

We are moving into attachment with that.

The attachment happens first as we come to life.

We have the attachment from the body or with the body.

We have the attachment with the mind.

We have the attachment with our family.

We have the attachment with our name,

Our description,

And whatever we bring as our unique skills in our life.

This is all attachment,

But soon this attachment becomes identification.

And that's where the problem starts,

Where this attachment to the body,

Attachment to the mind,

Attachment to your spirit,

Attachment to everything that you have in various lifestyles that you have becomes an identification.

Where you start saying,

I am my name,

I am my descriptions,

I am my lifestyle,

I am my profession,

I am this or I am that.

This is where you are in identification.

And the whole process of meditation,

The flowering of meditation is when you come out of this identification,

Not detached from everything in your life.

See that the world,

The way it is set up,

It is set up for attachments and identifications.

Every aspect of life is calling for identifications and attachments.

And by seeing the futility of that,

By seeing the unfulfillment in that,

There is a lifestyle,

A spiritual,

Religious lifestyle that is created where monks,

Where people,

They are detaching themselves from every aspect of life as we know it.

And in that detachment,

They move to the monasteries,

They move to the mountains,

They move to the solitude.

Meditation has nothing to do with that movement,

Has nothing to do with detachment.

It is not an effort of detachment.

That detachment which a monk,

Which a spiritual person chooses is also a choice,

Is also a lifestyle that the person is choosing according to his preferences,

According to his mind,

According to his desires,

According to his wishes.

That is a choice,

A choice that is completely opposite to the worldly life.

In the worldly life,

There was complete attachment,

There was complete identification.

In this spiritual,

Monastic,

Religious life,

There is complete detachment.

Detachment not only from the entire lifestyles of the world,

But detachment from the body.

If you see,

There are so many spiritual,

Religious practices where the body is condemned,

Where the mind is condemned,

Where there is all efforts done to completely detach yourself from the body,

From the mind,

From your identity,

Your eye,

All the stories that you have of the world,

Of your possessions of the world.

It is a complete detachment.

But meditation has nothing to do with this detachment.

Meditation puts you right in the middle.

Not in this deep attachment of the world,

Not in complete de-attachment of a monastic life.

Meditation brings you in the middle,

In the middle way of dis-identification.

You remain attached to the body,

You remain attached to the mind,

You remain attached to everything that you have in your life.

It is not disrupting,

Disintegrating your life and making you move to the mountains,

Become a monk,

Rather it integrates your life.

It gives you a way of life that happens to you,

A way of dis-identification.

The body is there,

The mind is there,

The life is there,

The job is there,

The kids are there,

The family is there,

Everything is there.

You are living all that but dis-identified.

This dis-identification is not disinterest,

Is not displeasure.

It is a state where you are at your center,

Where you are at a distance from all attachments,

All what identifies you.

Your name,

Your descriptions,

You can use them as you like in the world but always remain dis-identified in the knowing,

In the centering that you are not your name,

You are not your descriptions,

You are not the body,

You are attached to the body,

You are attached to the mind but you are not the body,

You are not the mind,

You are none of those.

Then who are you?

You are in this centering dis-identified awareness.

In this middle way of life,

In this way of life,

We enable this way of life with meditation.

With meditation,

This lifestyle happens to you,

You don't make a choice out of it.

And this lifestyle,

This middle way of life is known as Sannyasa.

A few of the meditators from our newly formed community of meditators,

We call this community Dhyansa Meditation Sannyasa.

In this community,

A few of the meditators have asked this question,

Why is it called Sannyasa?

What is Sannyasa?

Sannyasa is this way of life which is rooted,

Which is integrated,

Which is attached to all what you have in your life,

All the spectrum of different things that you have in life,

But dis-identified with each one of those.

Not detached,

But dis-identified.

The meditator asks this question and says,

I was wondering why you choose to call the community Sannyasa?

I read on Wikipedia that a person in Sannyasa lives a simple life,

Typically detached,

Drifting from place to place,

With no material possessions or emotional attachments.

If I understand well,

Sannyasa is kind of a set-asome in Hindu tradition.

So Sannyasa is not a detached life.

It is not necessarily even a simple life.

As complex as your life is,

It is still a Sannyasa.

It can still be a Sannyasa.

It is not drifting from place to place.

It is being very much centered in one place,

At home,

In your home,

In your being.

It is not a detachment of material possessions or emotional attachments.

It is not a detachment of material possessions and emotional attachments.

You can have as much money as you want in life,

As much material possession as you want in life,

If you can remain dis-identified with it,

While having it,

While being attached to it,

In whatever form you are in Sannyasa.

All your emotions,

All your love,

All your anger,

All your sadness,

Any kind of emotion that you have,

You are free to express that,

As long as you remain dis-identified with it,

You are in Sannyasa.

The Sannyasa is a way of life that you don't choose,

That you don't force on yourself,

That you don't adopt.

It happens to you in silence,

In awareness,

As your silence and awareness grows.

And the last thing,

Is Sannyasa a kind of asceticism in the Hindu tradition?

It has nothing to do with being a Hindu or a Christian.

Just like you don't call a monk a Buddhist,

A monk can be a Christian monk or any kind of monk.

Similarly,

A Sannyasana,

A Sannyasa has no religious connotation to it.

It is a way of life,

Free of all identifications,

Even from your religion.

Whatever religion you practice,

You practice that.

You are attached to that,

You remain attached to that,

But dis-identified.

With that,

Let us move into the technique which Bhairava has given in Vigyan Bhairavatantra for today,

And practice this in our silence.

A technique that once again reminds us of this middle way,

Not to be completely attached,

Not to be completely de-attached,

Dis-identified in the middle.

The technique says,

The central channel located in the middle of the spinal cord,

Which is as slender as the fiber of lotus stem,

Meditate on its inner space and be transformed.

Tantra is always talking in energies.

You understand the session,

You understand the technique,

Both as your lifestyle,

As a way of life,

And also as energetics.

So here Tantra talk in terms of energies,

Bhairava is talking in terms of energies.

He says,

The central channel located in the middle of the spinal cord,

Which is as slender as the fiber of lotus stem,

Meditate on its inner space and be transformed.

If there was enough time,

I would have explained this middle energy channel,

How Tantra is seeing these energies and channels.

Very briefly,

30 seconds more on it before we sit in silence,

You will bring your awareness to your spinal cord in this meditation.

Physically,

You will keep awareness on the spinal cord,

And if your awareness becomes finer,

You will feel the energy as a channel along the spinal cord.

In this channel,

There is another finer energy channel called Brahmanadi.

This is what is referred to in this technique.

The very simplest version of this technique is your awareness on your spinal cord,

And as you feel the spinal cord as an energy channel,

See that energy is flowing from bottom to the top,

And connect to this empty space of this energy channel,

Which is known as Sushmana.

I have spoken about these energy channels of Ida,

Pingala and Sushmana in the context of yoga,

In the sessions on yoga,

But I will once again pick this up if a technique requires it.

For now,

For the simplicity of the technique for today,

Follow my guidance and I will guide you through this from the physical to the non-physical version of the technique.

Please close your eyes and take a posture that is comfortable for you,

With your hands in your lap or on your thighs.

Keeping your spine erect,

Your head,

Neck and spine aligned.

Make sure you have a comfortable sitting posture.

Take a nice deep breath,

Inhale from the nose,

And exhale from the nose,

Allowing your body to rest,

Your mind to settle,

And your awareness to also settle on yourself,

In your inner space.

As the breath flows in and out naturally,

As the breath settles,

Your body relaxes.

Shift your awareness to your back bone,

To your spine.

All your awareness.

All your awareness on your spine.

Just feeling the sensations in your spine from the very bottom to the top.

If it helps,

You may visualize your spine with your imagination.

Your body is at rest.

And your awareness on your spine.

Making sure it's comfortable,

Alert,

At rest.

And as your awareness settles on the spine,

Feel the energy.

In your spine.

If it helps,

Visualize your spine as a space filled with energy.

And feel this energy in your spine.

This energy gives you centeredness,

A balance,

A balance between right and left,

Between forward and backward.

Shift and focus slowly to this empty space,

This energy filled empty space.

In the spine.

From the physical towards the energies,

Sensations,

The feeling of energy in your spine.

And as your awareness settles on the spine,

Feel the energy.

And as your awareness settles on the spine,

Feel the energy.

Letting go of all physical.

And remaining in tune with this inner space,

This energy.

No more effort.

No effort whatsoever.

Simply stay in this silence,

In this awareness,

In this centeredness.

Letting go of all physical.

Letting go of all physical.

This state,

When this happens to your entire life,

Becomes sannyasa.

Very gently and slowly,

You may open your eyes.

Maintaining this centeredness,

Silence and awareness,

Keeping your spine erect physically and also energetically all throughout your day.

If you wish to be a part of this wonderful community in the making,

Please write me an email with your interest with what you would like to have from the community and what would you give back to this community.

Thank you very much.

Namaste.