Embody Your Inborn Wisdom: Radiance Sutras Verse 139

So today we're reading a passage from the Radiant Sutras,

It's a beautiful book by Lauren Roche,

And it is an interpretation of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra,

Which is an ancient text,

Comes out of Kashmir Shaivism,

And it's all about feeling peace within.

True peace,

Which is really easy to say,

But if we close our eyes and we breathe deeply,

And sometimes deep in our heart center,

We can feel a quiet,

A stillness.

Imagine living there.

Imagine living from that eternal stillness,

Because in that stillness there is a wisdom.

It's like this internal knowing that the universe is so much bigger and more interesting than we can think.

There's an old saying that says,

The world is not stranger than you think.

The world is not only stranger than you think,

It's stranger than you can think.

Imagine living with this knowledge within us,

And then going out and living all the things,

Doing all the things,

The ups,

The downs,

The difficulties,

The wonderful things.

How rich would life be if we could go into all the corners of being human with the awareness that we are also divine,

Eternal beings.

This is the foundation of tantra,

Of being tantric.

So today we're going to read a passage from the Radiant Sutras.

We're going to read verse 139.

The Radiant Sutras has three parts.

The beginning they call the yukti verses,

No,

What do they call them?

The banter verses,

Sorry.

The banter verses are a discussion between,

Kind of between the divine and the physical,

By Rava and Devi.

And the human is saying,

What is this world all about?

What is this place?

It's so confusing.

And the divine is explaining it to them.

And then the next 112 verses,

Yukti verses,

Are methods or meditations to help us to release the thoughts,

Release the mind,

Release the attachments to this world so that we can remember our divinity.

We still live in the world.

Tantra is not about transcending and then going off into the ethers and being aloof.

It's about remembering so that we can have a richer experience here on earth.

So there are the banter verses,

The yukti verses,

And then there are the insight verses.

And these are the verses that this,

That today's reading comes from.

So we've already done all of these methods.

And if you're new,

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

Where we go through,

There's over 100 classes recorded there that you can go back and listen and learn and meditate through those.

But even if you haven't,

Even if you're new,

Then today we can still learn a lot.

It's all good.

So I'm going to read it,

And then we're going to have a discussion.

And then we're going to do a meditation.

So let's close our eyes,

Wherever we are,

And breathe deeply.

Just totally release any thoughts we have,

Any worries of the world.

Just come into that center,

Come into that quiet.

Shining one.

In these teachings,

I have given you more than 112 ways of entering the stillness beneath the waves.

Cherish any one of these.

Make it your own.

Embody your inborn wisdom.

What comes up for you when you hear that?

Feelings or thoughts or phrases?

A little bird leaving the nest.

The answer is within.

Me,

Shining one.

Yes.

Drop below the surface into your soul.

See,

This is why I ask you guys,

Because you have great thoughts,

Great insights,

That there's a space I can reach to embody stillness.

Stillness speaks.

I'm going to read another one.

This is a direct translation from this book.

So this is a direct translation.

Oh,

Goddess,

I have briefly told you more than 112 ways whereby the mind is rendered still without any surge of thought,

Knowing which people become wise.

Oh,

Goddess,

That's all of us.

I have briefly told you more than 112 ways whereby the mind is rendered still without any surge of thought,

Knowing which people become wise.

So what I want to talk about today is how normalized it's become for us to think ourselves into a stressful place.

These teachings believe that the thoughts in our minds are like electrical surges to our system that cause damage to our bodies and minds.

If you were to imagine a house with an electrical system connected to computers and phones and TVs and who knows,

Charging pacemakers and who knows what it's connected to.

And outside there's a transformer that's malfunctioning.

And that malfunctioning transformer keeps sending surges of energy,

Of electricity into the house,

Causing damage to the sensitive instruments that are connected to the electrical system and causing damage to the electrical system itself.

These teachings liken the thoughts in our mind to those surges.

Those are the surges they're talking about here.

When he says,

I've briefly told you more than 112 ways whereby the mind is rendered still without any surge of thought,

Because they say that as long as we have these surging thoughts,

We cannot become wise.

And for me,

This is a very sobering teaching because we have been raised on drama.

And I don't mean just drama like soap opera stuff,

Or I can't believe that guy did that with his wife or whatever,

Like not that kind of drama.

I even mean the struggles of life,

The real struggles,

Could be illness,

Could be family,

Could be relationships,

Real stuff.

It's so important that we are conscious of how we are responding to those situations.

What are we allowing our mind to do?

Where are we allowing our mind to go?

Because it has been so normalized that we worry.

Worry.

Let's just take worry and think about in the context of this electrical surges in a house.

We used to have this all the time.

I don't know why no one talks about it anymore.

But if you had a surge in the house and your laptop was plugged into the wall,

It would fry your laptop.

So we would buy these special battery packs that you would plug your laptop into the battery pack.

The battery pack would be plugged into the wall so that it would protect our sensitive instruments from surges.

So let's think about your body.

Just close your eyes and imagine your body,

This beautiful electrical system,

Your mind,

Your thoughts.

You have organs,

Sensitive organs,

Organs.

And when I say sensitive,

What I mean is like sometimes we're taught that sensitive means weak or something.

Sensitive means that it can sense things.

So our organs sense when maybe we've eaten sugar and we need insulin.

Our body senses when there is strife or danger and we have an adrenal response because maybe we have to run.

Our body is sensitive to healing itself,

To nourishing itself.

It's sensitive.

So now imagine this beautiful body we have with its liver and kidneys and lungs and heart and digestion,

These sensitive organs.

And now something happens and we decide,

We decide to worry about it.

And our mind starts to twirl,

Our mind starts to go.

Imagine the surges of energy going through the body as our mind imagines all worst case scenarios.

Imagine the stress we create on all of our organs and all of our systems.

Imagine what that does to our sensitive organs.

Then let's imagine something like anger.

And I don't mean healthy anger.

When someone's done something and you get angry and the anger holds space and allows you safety to get rid of them or fix something.

I don't mean healthy anger.

I mean the kind of anger you feel sitting in your chair thinking about something.

And you become furious.

And then you have a story in your head that you repeat.

And then I remember when they did this.

I was so angry.

And then you go and talk to a friend and you're like,

And you know what else?

And then they did this.

And I was so angry.

I was so hurt.

Can you feel the surges of energy flowing through your body?

Flowing through your organs?

Flowing through your muscles,

Your ligaments,

Your bones?

And I don't mean to pull a big heavy about this.

But that's what this whole book is about.

It's about how do we slowly and gently unhook our mind from these habits of creating all of these mental surges throughout our bodies?

Our whole society is rife with it.

For people who watch the news on TV and things like that,

Or listen to the radio programming and things,

It's like a constant hit to the system.

And we've normalized this,

That this is completely normal to literally have something go into your system like a rocket ship and just like,

This is totally normal.

Is it?

Is it normal?

Is it healthy?

Does it bring us to wisdom?

Or does it simply create damage in our bodies,

Weakening us,

Exhausting us,

Distracting us from our paths?

It's a very interesting thing.

When we actually ask ourselves,

What is reality for us?

What are the things that are important for me?

You and yoga,

They talk about prana.

We talk about prana a lot.

And we often just think of it as breath.

Maybe it's life energy,

Maybe it's oxygen.

But prana is everything we take into our bodies.

Every book we read,

Every conversation we have,

Every news show that we watch,

Everything,

Every bit of food we eat,

Everything that goes into us is prana.

And everything that goes into us has to be digested by our system,

Mind,

Body,

And soul.

And we have to keep what is nourishing and we have to release everything else.

And I think the reason I'm being more serious than normal is that I think we really have to take this seriously.

Because lots of us struggle with pain in our bodies.

We struggle with emotional pain.

We struggle with illness.

We struggle with mental struggles.

I'm going through an interesting process these days.

And whether it's the time of my life or whether it's this other program I'm working through,

But I'm realizing that I'm actually a very emotional person.

I have a strong mind.

And so that mind is very good at quietening my emotions.

My mind is very good at reframing those feelings so that I can apply it to the philosophy that I want to live in life.

And I can be the Buddha or I can be very stoic or I can be very logical or I can be very responsible or I can be whatever.

But I'm starting to come to the realization that I'm actually very driven by emotion.

And if my brain has talked me out of them,

They don't actually go away.

They just get driven into my subconscious.

And what they do is they cause me to eat food I don't really want.

They cause me to stay up too late and not get enough sleep.

They cause me to say things that I wish I hadn't said.

They cause me to sit and chew on thoughts for far too long.

Whereas if I just honored those emotions to begin with and I didn't stuff them down with thoughts,

Then I would have to be willing to cry or be sad or be whatever and feel whatever is real,

Process them,

Maybe have the conversation with the person I need to have the conversation with.

And then it all goes away.

It's an interesting thing when we actually feel our emotions.

How we don't have to create stories in our mind about them.

And if we feel the emotions,

We also don't have to create stories that we then repeat to other people so that we keep feeling and feeling and feeling and feeling on this weird endless loop of suffering.

I just don't think we take it seriously enough how we let our thoughts run wild.

And it's interesting to think about the stories we repeat in our minds over and over again.

Just sitting where you are right now,

Just imagine like what are the stories you tell?

What are the stories that you tell other people?

Stories of when you were wronged,

Stories of when you were hurt,

Stories from your childhood,

Stories from your last relationship,

Stories out in the world,

News,

Whatever it is that you're listening to.

How many times a day do you repeat that story?

And why?

Why do we repeat these stories?

Why do we repeat them knowing,

Or maybe we don't know,

That every time we tell this story,

It is sending an electrical surge through our bodies,

Stimulating our adrenals,

Stimulating our liver,

Stimulating our thoughts.

Why are we doing it?

This is where a book like the Radiant Sutras,

The Vijnana Bhairava Tantra,

The reason it's so important,

Or the reason we could consider it important,

Is because it can help us.

It can help us release the hooks to those thought patterns.

But if we don't think that those thought patterns are a problem,

Then we won't do the exercises.

And I think it's really important for us to think about that.

Do I believe that my worrying about anything,

Our children,

My future,

The world,

Do I believe that me sitting and worrying about it is important?

It's a really important question.

Do I think this is important?

Do I think it's important to repeat the story of when someone else wronged me?

Do I think that's important?

And how many more times do I want to tell it?

Because if I think it's important,

If I think it's part of my,

It's almost like we have a narrative that we believe about ourselves,

That I believe that I am who I am,

Because this person did this to me when I was a child,

And then this happened,

And I have a university education,

And then I have X number of kids,

Or I don't have X number of kids,

Whatever.

And I believe that this narrative defines who I am.

So therefore,

If I meet you,

I want you to hear my narrative.

And I'm going to retell all these stories to you at some point in our relationship.

But what if we knew that every time we told these stories,

We were actually sending electrical surges through our bodies,

Damaging ourselves?

Would we do it?

And again,

This isn't an easy question.

This is the soup we've been raised in.

This is so normalized,

That our thoughts are always just flying around like wild horses.

Oh,

You know,

We all monkey mind and all these things and being multi,

What do you call it?

Multitasking.

You know that this is normal.

And sometimes it's required.

If you've got small kids or a million things on the go,

Sometimes it's just the way it is.

But the first step is actually looking at our own philosophy.

What do I believe?

Do I believe this is normal?

Do I believe this is helpful?

Do I believe it's important?

Because if I do,

I'm not going to let it go.

And it doesn't matter how much yoga I do,

Or how much meditation I do,

Or how many great books I read,

Or how many great talks I listen to.

I'm not letting go of it.

I'm not letting go of my worry.

I'm not letting go of my anger towards that person.

I'm not letting go of my stories.

And we do not change.

I so feel like I'm like,

I don't know what is coming through me today that I'm so like,

Er,

About this.

But I do think it's important.

But the beautiful thing about this book and the point of this sutra is it recognizes that as easy as it is for me to say,

Well,

We'll just let that go.

Yeah,

Just stop.

Stop telling that story.

Just stop with that philosophy.

Just stop being stressed.

That's really easy to say.

But we are multi-dimensional,

Amazing beings that perhaps are healing lifetimes of issues.

And so this teaching,

The Vijnana Bhairava Tantra,

Gives us 112 meditations,

Contemplations.

And each one has its own little way of unhooking ourselves from those philosophies that say,

Worry is important.

Anger.

You better stay angry at that person.

That'll teach them.

Lady says,

Sometimes we use anxiety and worry as a form of prayer because if we worry about enough,

It won't happen.

I've totally done that.

I totally hear you,

Lady.

I remember when I was young,

I used to disasterize about all the worst case scenarios because I believed that if I thought of it,

It wouldn't happen,

Right?

Because I'm always surprised.

So if I think about all the worst case scenarios,

But imagine what that did to my body,

Right?

Imagine what that did to my system,

Living through all these horrible outcomes.

Like imagine what that did to my heart,

My liver,

My poor kidneys that hold fear,

My body,

My muscles that tensed up and stressed out and my poor blood vessels that were trying to flow.

Imagine.

So that becomes the first thing.

It's just to ask,

What do I believe?

And what's interesting is I think this is also something that slowly does come with age.

It doesn't have to come with age.

We can learn it earlier.

But there does come a point that we keep watching the world turn and we keep watching people and we watch ourselves and we watch and eventually we go,

Hmm,

Maybe all that worry,

Judgment,

Even judgment,

Judgment is something that I struggle with a lot.

I have a high judgmental bone inside of me.

And I mean,

And I can,

I can,

Again,

I can call it discernment.

I can call it whatever I want to make myself feel better about myself.

But there are certain topics that I can get very high and mighty about.

You know,

Sometimes we,

We choose our emotion of choice.

Emotions are interesting because they can kind of juice us up.

Like we can feel really,

Um,

Alive.

And for some people,

We love,

And I'm going to say,

Like,

We love anger and anger makes us feel alive.

For some people,

Sadness makes us feel alive.

And it's weird because it's almost like we'll find things that will make us feel these ways.

And for me,

My greatest juice is self-righteous indignation.

I don't know whether it's the philosopher in me.

I don't know.

I don't know what it is,

But man,

I love standing on a soap box and this is wrong.

And this is why,

And here are my arguments and like,

Thank God I'm so right.

I am so conscious of it.

And when I,

Because there's certain things I'm chewing on right now,

And I'm like,

Katrina,

What are you doing?

Why are you chewing on that?

So for me personally,

When I think of these surges of energy,

All I have to do is think about this topic and there goes the judgment train.

Suddenly I've got a whole debate team in my mind.

And it's just like,

But what about this?

What about this?

And can you believe this?

And they're probably this and all.

It's just like going like,

It's just amazing in my mind.

And I sit there and I think,

What are you doing?

What is this?

It's so interesting to have some kind of practice that helps.

And it could be anything.

It could be journaling.

It could be meditation.

Of course,

You know,

My favorite is Kundalini Yoga because it works it all out in my system and doesn't let me think.

And then I can actually drop into my body.

Or we read something like the Radiant Sutras and we choose one practice and we practice it regularly until the hook is gone.

It's an addiction to excitement.

What do you tell new people you're meeting who you are when they ask?

Hmm.

What a great question,

Eh?

I don't know.

I guess no one ever asks me,

So I don't even have an answer.

And the truth is,

Very often when I meet people,

I'm being met in the context of something.

I'm Taylor's mom.

I'm William's partner.

I wrote this book.

You know what I mean?

There's some kind of context that simplifies me in some way.

But just as a funny example,

My kids,

People often ask me what their mom,

People often ask them what their mom's like.

And my son,

So if you guys don't know,

My son is 30.

And when he was off in college in Thunder Bay,

Way in northern Ontario,

People would ask him,

Like,

Well,

What's your mom like?

He would say,

She's a nudist and a mathematician and everything in between or something like that.

And he would,

That's what he would tell them.

She's a nudist and a mathematician.

Just that he would just let their imaginations go.

And then my daughter,

She's 27 and she works at a vet clinic.

And one of the women there has been listening to all of my audio books.

She says,

One day,

Someone,

They were talking about one of the books or they were talking about something I was doing or who knows.

And the one woman says,

What exactly does your mom do?

And Taylor looked at her and said,

Basically anything she wants.

Because it's such a funny thing to define ourselves.

And in all fairness,

Back in 2018,

I gave everything away,

Got down to a backpack and started traveling.

And as I was traveling,

I would live with different families who wanted to learn English,

Or I would live with students,

Or I would live on my own or whatever.

It was very,

It was wherever,

Wherever the universe took me.

And in that time,

I did find myself telling a script to people.

I remember one time I was living with a family and they,

Honestly,

They kind of just thought I was a hippie.

There's nothing wrong with hippies,

But they just sort of thought,

Well,

I've just always lived this way.

I've always just been free and lived in a backpack and just had no cares and no responsibilities.

Oh man,

That really,

That really bothered me.

So that was it.

I was telling stories about the farm.

I was telling stories about my kids,

About my childbirth.

I was,

It was literally,

I was telling them all the most horrific things I'd ever lived through because I wanted them to know that I've suffered.

I've suffered and I have risen out of the ashes.

And the person you see today is a result of this.

And so then I started telling this story all the time.

Every time I met new people,

I would be telling this narrative to make sure you realized,

I'm not just some hippie in a backpack.

I'm out the other side of,

You know,

But then,

And I did this for a while,

Like I did this for like a year,

Telling people this narrative until I got sick of hearing the narrative.

I was like,

Wow,

I am so bored with this narrative.

And then I just really had to do some deep thinking and think,

Why do I care if they think I'm a hippie?

Why do I care if they think I've never suffered?

Why do they care if they,

And I realized one thing is I was very attached to people thinking I was smart.

And that I had life experience behind me.

I had some real issue with that.

And so I had to look at that deeply.

And then I stopped telling the narrative and I just,

I kind of allowed people to think whatever they thought of me.

And it was very freeing to just let people think whatever they were going to think,

Because that's what's going to happen anyway,

No matter what narrative we tell.

I'm just going to back up and,

Because I think there is a couple other questions.

I wonder if we're afraid of boredom.

And that's why we stick with drama to avoid stillness.

I totally agree.

Because I don't think we're meant to be bored.

But we end up inside of structures that don't let us breathe.

I think we're meant to be always creating.

You know,

They talk about how we are all creators,

We are all God,

We are all I think we are always meant to be looking within and creating from that within place that we are literally perpetually creating the world around us.

That's what we all are.

And it could be anything.

It could be art,

It could be poetry,

It could be song,

It could be fun.

It could be anything.

But we're not meant to be stagnant.

We aren't here to be stagnant.

Yeah,

Cooking,

Anything.

But as long as we are constantly in creation mode of anything,

Knitting,

Cycling,

Dancing,

Anything,

I don't think we bother with drama.

Because we're busy creating.

Our life force is in use.

You know,

It's a funny thing to imagine that we incarnated here on earth to become stagnant,

To retire and then wait to die or something.

That doesn't make any sense.

So I think 100% you're right,

Mary Beth.

But it doesn't help us mentally prepare and process the fears,

Or that's part of the issue that we think it does.

Fear motivates me to move sometimes,

Though I agree.

I heard once some nine out of 10 worries never happen.

There are times,

Let's say you have social anxiety.

And you're really worried about going out.

Maybe groups are uncomfortable or going even out to a cafe is uncomfortable.

There's something really positive about sitting down and creating scenarios in your mind that you can try out in safety.

Just to sit and visualize yourself,

All right,

You know,

I come up to the door,

There's a person there,

What do I do?

Okay,

I got through the door.

I'm standing in line.

There's all these people around me.

I'm uncomfortable.

Okay,

You know,

I'll remember to breathe.

I'm going to breathe,

I'm going to breathe.

And then maybe someone said,

You know,

Find a color that you love.

Just look at that color.

And you know,

To actually practice practices in your mind before you go out.

I think that's really healthy.

Right?

When we consciously are practicing something,

And maybe it'll work out that way.

Maybe it won't.

But it's almost like,

You know,

You're not going to necessarily go to the coffee shop 500 times to practice,

Because maybe you have anxiety for really good reasons,

Right?

And,

And it's really,

It could be shocking.

So to mentally prepare,

Almost like a downhill skier,

Mentally skiing the slopes,

Skiing the course,

And getting it into their mind.

I think that's really healthy.

I think sitting down and brainstorming about ideas for what could be possible solutions for things.

I think that's really healthy.

I think there are many opportunities to even process fears that are really healthy.

And so maybe that's part of the answer.

To really watch our thoughts and say,

Am I just spinning in a circle,

Causing deep stress to my organs,

My mind,

My body?

Or am I creating constructive new pathways in my mind,

So that I can navigate the world better?

I think this is a really wonderful discernment within.

I want to read the passage one more time.

So let's just close our eyes.

Let's breathe deeply.

Let's place our hands,

Palms facing up,

One palm on top of the other,

Tucking your thumbs on top and just letting your hands rest in front of your heart.

I'd like you just to breathe in through the nose,

Out through the nose,

In through the mouth,

Out through the mouth.

Let's just do this a few times.

In and out through the nose,

And in and out through the mouth.

Really expanding the belly as you inhale,

Contracting as you exhale.

Shining one.

In these teachings,

I have given you more than 112 ways of entering the stillness beneath the waves.

Cherish any one of these.

Make it your own and embody your inborn wisdom.

I hope you have a wonderful day.

We'll see you soon.