#33. The Resistance | Vigyan Bhairav Tantra

Namaste sannyasa family and everyone.

Welcome to this daily live meditation session with me,

Dhyan Se.

We're meditating on 112 meditation techniques of Vigyan Bhairav Tantra.

Our spiritual growth is the most natural flow of your life.

Just like the rivers,

They flow very naturally.

But the dams that are created,

They are the ones stopping the flow of the river.

And you have also created dams on the flow of your own life,

On the flow of your own spirit.

These dams of conditionings,

These dams of all the learnings,

All the shaping of the mind,

All the strengthening of the mind,

All the neurosis of the mind that has been happening all throughout your life.

This has made this natural process of spiritual growth an arduous pass.

It has made spirituality a challenge.

It has made this spiritual growth into an effort.

And yes,

Now some effort has to be made.

Some challenge has to be taken because of all what you have gone through in your life before.

If your life was a natural flow,

There was no need for any challenge.

There was no need for any effort and spirituality would flow just like the flow of the river on its own.

So spirituality,

This spiritual growth just cannot be addressed by having a psychedelic party of some kind or just an intellectual discussion of another kind.

It is a process.

It is an effort.

It is a challenge which you will have to take,

Where you will have to consciously work on certain aspects of your life,

Where once again the weed in your garden can be cleared and the seeds of love,

Compassion,

Prayer,

Silence,

Awareness,

Guidance,

All these things could be sowed once again so that the spiritual growth that happens in that love,

In that compassion,

In that trust,

In that surrender,

In that prayer,

In that discourse,

Once again that spiritual growth becomes natural to you.

But until that process becomes natural to you,

There has to be some effort.

There has to be challenges that you will have to overcome,

Where you will have to confront yourself.

You will have to confront your mind.

So meditation,

What we do,

Is showing you the awareness,

Is showing you what is the case.

But in order to act upon what is the case,

To move towards that growth,

Some effort has to be done,

Not just in the meditation but in your life.

A part of it happens automatically.

The more you meditate,

The more awareness is empowered,

The more your intelligence works in spontaneity of life,

And you make the decisions that are supposed to be made for your natural spiritual flow.

But still along this journey,

You will have to make some conscious decisions where you will have to face those challenges.

In order to somehow bring those challenges,

Those confronting oneself in this spiritual journey,

In our community,

We have given ourselves some weekly challenges just to create that impulse,

Just to create that situation for facing,

Confronting our inner space.

The first challenge that we gave to ourselves in this first week of 2021 was to write a love letter to oneself.

A very simple and yet a very challenging task.

To write a love letter to yourself.

So simple.

Along the journey,

We have forgotten to love ourselves,

This journey of what we are calling as good life or life or miserable life,

Whatever we are calling our life.

We have learned not to even love ourselves,

Or rather we have forgotten to love ourselves,

And therefore we gave ourselves a challenge to just simply write a few words to put ourselves in that expression,

In that contemplation of once again loving oneself,

Trusting oneself,

Being with oneself in appreciation of who we are,

Howsoever we are.

If you are not a part of the community,

It is a very simple task.

You can also take this up,

Give yourself 10 minutes of your life to sit down,

Take a piece of paper,

A pen,

And write a few words to yourself,

Whom you call as yourself.

Few words of love,

Of gratitude,

Of compassion to yourself.

But even this is a challenge.

Even this has been very difficult.

So some of the meditators,

They expressed their challenge.

I will share one of those struggles with you,

And let us reflect on this together so that the parts of which we also face,

Which we also confront in our own self,

We get to reflect on them,

We get to meditate over them.

Before we sit in the practice of today's meditation technique,

Let us listen to this struggle on the challenge of writing a love letter to oneself.

The meditator writes,

I wanted to share how I am struggling with the weekly challenge of writing the love letter to oneself.

I have been experiencing a deep resistance to engaging with or completing the letters as suggested.

I have been sitting with this resistance for a few days,

Wondering what is the source of the issue and linking my response to other situations in the past which resonate.

What is the source of this resistance?

What is this resistance?

Is this resistance to love?

Is this resistance to a challenge?

Is this resistance to doing something that has been asked to you?

What is this resistance?

More importantly,

Who is resisting?

Reflect on that.

Who is resisting?

Is it you who is resisting or your mind who is resisting?

And what are you resisting against?

Against love?

Against loving yourself?

Against yourself?

Against someone else?

What is this resistance?

See,

Be aware of this resistance.

Don't conflict it,

Don't fight it,

Don't accept it.

Just be aware of this resistance.

What is this resistance?

This morning,

When I was walking in silence after the meditation session,

The thought arose.

Then,

Don't do it.

I immediately felt a wave of relief.

My loving gesture to myself and to all at the same time is to accept the resistance as it is without judgment,

Or fear that this means I am lacking in some way that others are not.

Few things have to be understood here.

First,

The moment this thought arises,

Then don't do it.

This is your mind.

What is this resistance?

It is your mind that is resisting,

It is the thought that is resisting.

And the moment your thought,

It gave you an alternate,

It says,

Then don't do it.

I immediately felt a wave of relief.

No,

You did not feel the relief.

Your mind felt the relief.

Because this whole process is to take you out of the grip,

Out of the control,

This neurotic control of your own mind,

And not just you,

Everyone else.

And the moment you start to take things off this control of the mind,

The mind immediately starts shaking,

It starts shivering,

It starts giving you all kinds of responses,

All kinds of reactions,

All kinds of solutions to avoid what is happening.

And this thought arises,

Then don't do it.

So nice,

So easy to say,

Don't do it.

And the mind,

Once again,

It enjoys the control,

It enjoys the positioning of controlling your whole life.

It says,

My loving gesture to myself and to all at this time is to accept the resistance as it would,

As it is without judgment or fear.

My loving gesture to myself,

Is this a loving gesture to yourself?

Or is this the mind just protecting yourself or itself,

Mind protecting itself and calling it loving gesture to yourself?

Mind is actually coming in the way of your love to yourself.

Mind is what is not allowing you to write a simple letter to reflect some love on itself.

And you are calling it a loving gesture to myself?

It is not a loving gesture to yourself,

It is rather the complete opposite to yourself.

And to all at this time is to accept the resistance as it is without judgment or fear.

This is exactly the opposite.

Mind is giving you a completely antagonistic picture,

Completely an inverse picture of what is happening.

It is saying as if it is without judgment or fear.

There is a judgment,

Clear judgment that mind is taking here,

Out of fear,

Out of not letting you face yourself,

Be yourself,

In love with yourself.

Out of this fear,

Out of this judgment,

Mind is saying,

Accept this resistance.

Such beautiful words to capture ugliness of the mind,

To give clothes to this ugliness and using the words acceptance.

See how the mind functions,

The nature of the mind,

The ugliness of what has happened to our mind and how it is coming in the way.

It is such a simple thing,

It is such an easy natural flow of our own energies towards ourselves,

To love ourselves,

To love everyone,

But mind comes in the way.

By going through these reflections,

All my effort is for you to reflect in more honesty,

To reflect in more truthfulness,

And not just you,

Everyone else,

Because we all have the same versions of our own excuses or of our own versions that the mind create for our own self.

So please take this message as some moments of reflection and not a criticism,

Not something to bash you about what you wrote.

It is daring for you to express yourself,

Even this resistance to express yourself in the community.

You say,

I think this is often out of fear of how I will be viewed by others if I fail to produce all of the opportunity I am missing if I don't respond,

The fear of how I will be viewed by others.

This is why we have the community,

That safe space where you can be completely naked,

Where you can be completely yourself with whatever you have,

Your goods,

Your bads,

Your blessings,

Your flaws.

All is open,

All should be open in the community so that we can all help each other to come out of all these traps that we have created for ourselves.

The last thing I would urge you to do if you cannot write this letter to yourself,

Just write three words on the paper.

Put your name,

Two and three words,

I love you and once again sign it with your own name.

Three words,

How difficult that can be.

Let me know if that is also not possible,

We will find another one.

Moving on to today's technique,

To Vigyan Bhairav Tantra,

Which is also addressing this process of overthinking,

This process of thought creating these structures,

These prisons of our own mind.

So the technique in Vigyan Bhairav Tantra which Bhairava gives us says,

Just as you have the urge to think,

Stop.

Let me repeat.

Just as you have the urge to think,

Stop.

This stopping is a wonderful,

It's a brilliant technique if you understand what this means.

This stopping of the thought is not suppressing the thought,

Is not fighting with the thought.

It is before the thought arises,

There is an urge to think,

There is somewhere an undercurrent in you before any thought arises,

When you sit in meditation,

When you sit in silence,

Where there is no need for any thought.

And when a thought wants to arise,

Before that thought arises,

There is an urge to think.

Right at that urge,

Stop.

Remain aware and stop.

Try this,

It can create miracles for you in your meditation practice and thereby resulting in the silence,

In the thoughtlessness,

In that clarity in which you can see yourself,

Be yourself.

The technique is very simple,

Not to suppress the thought.

If the thought has arisen in you,

Let that be.

Simply observe,

Let it pass,

Let it once again reabsorb wherever it came from.

But before a new thought arises,

There is this urge,

This undercurrent,

This energy which wants to express.

It has not yet taken any manifestation,

It is still a potency.

In that potency,

You have the power to just simply stop.

Try that,

Practice that in the next minutes with me in silence and awareness.

Please close your eyes.

Take a posture that is comfortable for you.

With your head,

Neck,

Back aligned,

Shoulders down,

Face relaxed,

Legs relaxed,

Your whole body alert,

Yet relaxed.

Breath flowing naturally and with every exhalation allowing your body to rest,

Your mind to settle.

Awareness inwards towards your inner space.

Let it In these moments of silence,

No need for any thought.

No need for any thought.

No need for any thought.

As thoughts arise,

Become aware of these thoughts.

Become aware of this urge of thinking before the thought.

Become aware of these thoughts.

Be aware of this urge before the thought can stop.

Be aware of this urge before the thought can stop.

Be aware of this urge before the thought can stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Awareness not on the thought,

But on the urge underneath,

If it arises.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Stop.

Let go of all effort.

All technique.

And rest in this silence,

In this awareness.

All technique.

Let go.

Total let go.

In this silence and awareness.

All technique.

All technique.

All technique.

All technique.

All technique.

In the total let go.

In the silent awareness.

Very gently and slowly open your eyes.

Let go of all the courage,

The silence,

The centeredness to face yourself during your daily life.

To confront your own mind,

To confront your own creations so that you gradually come out of it.

On this path,

On this process,

If you feel the urge,

The need for a community to share,

To participate,

To do,

To grow something towards your spiritual growth,

Please write me an email with your introduction.

You're calling for the community and what can you give back to the community.

Me and everyone else in the community would very much welcome you as you are.

Thank you very much.

Namaste.