Ignited By Joy: Radiance Sutras Verse 48

So,

Today we are reading from the Radiant Sutras,

This is a beautiful book written by Lauren Roche and it's a translation,

Interpretation of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra.

This is my favorite tantric book,

Mostly because I think it just resonates with me the most.

These verses that we are going to read,

When I was researching it,

I came across a word called Shaktopaya.

Shaktopaya is the path of knowledge,

Where you don't need to do practices to become enlightened or you don't need to chant mantras to become enlightened,

You just have to have an awareness.

You have to have an experience and that experience is what enlightens you from the inside.

So instead of say,

Memorizing something that a guru tells you or chanting a mantra or anything like that,

You simply allow something within you,

An experience and that experience sort of lights up your soul,

It lights up your chakras,

It lights up who you are and you have an experience inside and that's it,

Like you are never the same.

You may have to have that experience a few times,

Maybe to undo different programming and things like that.

So the apaya is a path,

It's a way of doing something and this is all about awareness and one,

It will make more sense when we do the sutra.

That's one of the reasons I love the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra because it's a series of sutras that have that intention,

That you hear it,

You experience it,

You let it unfold and ferment almost inside of you,

Like the idea goes in and then you go out into your life and you apply it and you think about it and you chew about it and then all of a sudden it just becomes a part of you,

Even if you don't remember it and so that's what we're doing,

We're reading one of these a week and allowing it to take us wherever it's going to take us and so in many ways it is a kind of yoga,

It's a kind of practice that helps us become clearer.

So today we're reading number 48 for anyone who has the book and if you're new to our class what we're going to do is we're going to read it,

We're going to have a discussion about it and then at the end we're going to do a meditation.

So let's close our eyes,

Just breathe into the belly and what the breathing does,

When we take deep breaths we automatically calm the nervous system,

It's one of the most beautiful relationships inside of our bodies is that the breath and the nervous system are intimately related.

If you start breathing quickly the nervous system will respond assuming you're in danger and it will fire like crazy to get you out of danger and as soon as you're out of danger and you take that deep breath in,

All the nerves relax and you go into a peaceful state and of course when the nerves relax the brain relaxes and when the brain relaxes we're not thinking about the future or the past,

We're not pondering anything and we actually are here and we're present,

Our soul is present,

We are here.

Or maybe our soul is always present but our mind distracts us from that reality,

So just using the breath to naturally calm the mind so that our soul can listen to this sutra.

In the great joy of seeing a loved one after a long absence,

A flash of recognition ignites you,

Space becomes charged,

The bond between you shimmers and a surge of delight arises in your being.

Beloved,

Find within you the source of this surge,

Melt into that place of upwelling,

A wave rolling in a vast ocean of delight.

What rings for you when you hear that?

What words or feelings come up for you?

That ocean of delight always inside of me that is sparked by seeing a loved one,

Tingling rush of excitement,

Delight,

Recognition,

Connection,

So beautiful,

Surge,

Upwelling,

Find within yourself that flash of joy that flows through you,

Comfort of remembering the embrace and connection of really knowing each other.

I've heard that dogs fall in love with you every time they see you,

This must be what happens within them.

That's awesome.

Remembering that we are deeply connected with those we love,

Everyone who is love.

Surge of delight,

Bliss within the electric energy of connection,

Oh the electrical connection yes,

The magnetic energy of joy,

That's why we love dogs.

That we can remember the beautiful energies and moments rather than sad for the loss.

So I'm going to read,

This is a book called the Vijnana Bhairava or Divine Consciousness.

So this is a direct translation and again even a direct translation can have many translations because Sanskrit is a very rich language.

It doesn't lend itself to easy translation,

Simple translation.

Here's a translation from here,

On the occasion of a great delight being obtained or on the occasion of delight arising from seeing a friend or relative after a long time,

One should meditate on the delight itself and become absorbed in it,

Then his mind will become identified with it.

I'm going to read this again because it is really important.

I'm actually going to read the notes about it.

On the occasion of a great delight being obtained or on the occasion of delight arising from seeing a friend or relative after a long time,

One should meditate on the delight itself and become absorbed in it,

Then his mind will become identified with it.

So I'm going to read the notes and the notes are a little wordy.

So if English is your second language,

This is a bit tough when English is your first language,

But I'm going to read the whole thing just because the context is important.

On the occasion of such great delight or intensive experience,

One should lay hold of the source of such experience or the pure spiritual throb and meditate on it till his mind is deeply steeped in it.

He will then become identified with the spiritual principle.

One should lay hold of the source of such experience or the pure spiritual throb and meditate on it till his mind is deeply steeped in it.

He will then become identified with the spiritual principle.

This is really interesting to me.

Also there's a story in this Sri Vijnana Bhairava Tantra,

Actually you know what,

I'll read it to you.

Why paraphrase when I can read you the original awesomeness.

One day a young girl was going to the marketplace to secretly meet her lover.

So engrossed was she in the memory of her sweetheart that she accidentally stepped on a prayer mat of a devotee who was praying to God.

The young girl never even saw him and continued to walk on.

But the man ran after her in a rage,

Yelling that she had rudely disturbed his prayers.

On hearing someone shouting behind her,

The girl turned around and noticed him for the first time.

She was quite surprised when she heard his accusations,

As she was so immersed in thoughts of her beloved that she did not even know that she had disturbed him.

All the while she had been remembering her lover and the joy she had felt when she looked into his eyes,

Speaking sweet and tender words to him.

So enamored was she that she simply could not wait to see him once again.

She stopped for a minute and listened to the devotee,

Who was shouting,

I was immersed in prayers to my Lord and you dared to step on my mat and break my meditation.

When she heard that,

The girl apologized for her behavior,

But she also expressed her surprise that he could so easily be distracted when thinking of his Lord,

Whereas she was so deeply immersed in the memory of her lover that she did not even notice him or his mat.

This to me is the core of Tantra.

That there is a love,

There is a root of all love,

But it's not just an idea,

It's not just a concept,

It's not a dry idea that we meditate on.

It's a spiritual throb.

Those are powerful words,

That same feeling of when you see someone,

You pick them up at the airport and you haven't seen them and you're so excited,

Or the joy of listening to a child giggle hysterically,

Or the joy of going on holidays and you're so happy.

That thrill,

Where does that thrill come from?

Where does that joy,

Where does that light come from?

When you go deep inside of you,

Which of course is now beyond our thought process,

It's beyond our brain.

Our brain can't go here,

We're in a transcendental aspect of being human here.

So you go into that state and you feel the throb of where that energy comes from.

When you think of joy,

When you think of how thrilling it is and how exciting it is,

Your heart is pounding,

You're so excited.

Imagine the goal of Tantra is to merge that spiritual throb with everything we do in life.

That no matter what,

You always have this beautiful source.

And then what happens?

When we feel that,

We identify with it.

And identifying with something is really important.

Because when we identify with something,

It means I know this,

This is me,

This is who I am.

I identify with it.

I identify with this spiritual throb.

Imagine!

I'm just going to re-read this guy again with notes.

On the occasion of such great delight or intensive experience,

One should lay hold of the source of such experience,

The pure spiritual throb,

And meditate on it till his mind is deeply steeped in it.

He will then become identified with the spiritual principle.

Here's another translation.

When great joy is obtained through any event such as meeting with relatives,

One should meditate on that with one-pointedness until the mind becomes absorbed and the bliss ever rises.

And the bliss ever rises.

Living like everything is a magical miracle,

Totally.

Remembering oneness,

The centering presence of love,

It's always available to us.

It's so interesting,

Because according to,

They were talking about this idea of shaktopaya.

And they talk about,

It's the energy of knowledge,

And how powerful this is.

And I don't mean kind of intellectual knowledge or memorizing things out in the world,

But the actual knowing something.

So just for a moment,

Imagine that joy is our center.

Imagine joy is our center.

I'm wondering why,

When I think of this applied to family,

I have a raw visceral reaction where my body turns sideways and my stomach turns with worry.

How do we turn that back into,

Back into that hot and anticipation?

I think this is where it's important to not try to find it there.

We have to use what's real.

We can't pretend.

Somewhere along the line,

We were told that family is supposed to be a source of joy.

And I don't know whether that,

It's funny,

We were just talking about that this weekend,

Because my family is all kinds of drama going on in it right now.

Not in my kids,

But my sisters and above,

Just nasty messages over messenger groups and stuff.

It's just,

You know,

And it's sort of like we had Hallmark movies that kind of told us that families are easy,

And with enough love,

Everything's perfect,

And all that kind of thing.

But the reality is,

Hollywood actually portrays families more realistically.

And there are happy families.

That is a thing.

Like,

It's not that that's not possible,

It is possible.

But by and large,

There can be a lot of dysfunction in families.

Sometimes the more moving parts,

The more dysfunctional it is.

Or there's many families that certain people never come to family gatherings anymore,

Because of past dysfunction or whatever.

And when all of a sudden everyone gets together,

All the old stuff rises,

All the stuff you tried to hide.

And when you watch Hollywood movies,

They play on that,

And it's real.

And so,

Imagine in life you're this soul.

There are aspects of my life that bring me great joy,

And there's aspects of my life that are difficult.

That's reality.

Family sometimes is in the difficult camp.

Work could be in the difficult place,

Or in the source of joy place.

And our children could be a source of difficulty,

Or a source of joy.

Or that child is struggling,

And when I think of them it makes me sad,

Because I'm worried about them.

But that child,

I'm very thrilled that they found their way,

Or whatever.

Sometimes thinking of the future can make us be filled with joy,

Or filled with fear.

So if you imagine all the things in your life,

There are lots of things that twist our guts when we think of it.

And so we have to be careful that just because society says that family should be a source of joy,

If it isn't,

It isn't.

It's a source of challenge.

It's a source of something else.

It has another role in our journey.

And maybe there's occasional joy,

Or maybe there's occasional joy with those people,

Or this person.

But as a whole,

It just brings to mind chaos and crazy.

And that's okay.

It's an interesting thing to say,

That's okay.

That's okay that my biological family,

That's not a source of joy in my life.

It may be a source of many other things.

So the key with a practice like this,

Is to find something that does bring you joy,

Genuinely brings you joy.

There's no should in it,

There's no I wish it was,

And all that kind of thing.

So it reminds me of Harry Potter.

Most of you guys probably have seen Harry Potter,

But if you haven't,

There's this one point where he needs to learn the Patronus charm.

And what a Patronus charm does,

Is this beautiful white spirit animal emerges from you,

And it conquers these beings called Dementors,

Who are sadness.

They just suck the life and joy out of you.

But if you can summon a Patronus charm,

That will conquer the Dementors.

Well the way to conjure the Patronus charm,

Is by thinking of a very happy memory.

It's essentially this particular tantric verse.

Well Harry Potter,

If you don't know,

His parents died when he was young,

And he was raised by his mean old aunt and uncle,

And he lived in the area under the stairs,

In the broom closet under the stairs,

For most of his early life.

He doesn't have a lot of happy memories.

And so he didn't have a happy memory that was strong enough to conjure a Patronus charm.

So Dumbledore said,

It doesn't even have to be a real memory.

So the memory he would have was his parents,

Whom he never actually met,

They died when he was a baby,

But his parents are standing behind him,

And they're proud of him.

And that memory,

Made up memory,

Was enough to conjure the joy that we're talking about here.

And what's interesting is,

According to the writings that I was researching,

That the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra,

Which is what we're studying,

Considers this act centering.

The act of focusing on a joyful memory,

Feeling the root of it,

Feeling the pulse,

The spiritual throb of that,

Identifying with it,

And making it become who we are,

This is centering.

So imagine this in life.

Imagine walking with this spiritual throb of joy in our hearts,

And practicing this.

Imagine after this class,

You go out for a walk,

And you have a memory of something,

It has to be real,

In our case,

Maybe not,

If you have none,

Maybe you can make one up.

But,

Because you're just accessing the root of it anyway,

Right,

Not the story.

You summon a memory,

You bring it up,

And then you go for a walk,

Practicing holding that spiritual throb in your heart.

I'm just taking it for a ride,

And seeing how that feels.

But then imagine,

Then,

Everything else is around that.

This is your center.

Christmas family stuff,

All these things,

This is all outside,

It's all,

It's in the periphery of my center.

My center is,

I know that the spiritual principle is joy,

And I'm going to keep coming back to that.

No matter how many times I have to dive into the drama,

I'm going to come back to joy.

I'm not going to get lost in the drama,

Because that's over there.

So wherever you are,

Let's close our eyes,

Let's breathe deeply,

Expanding the belly as we inhale,

Contracting as we exhale.

I'd like you to imagine a park bench,

And in your mind's eye,

See yourself sitting on that bench.

It's a beautiful day,

The temperature's just right,

There's lovely sounds all around,

Birds,

And people walking,

And kids playing,

And you're just sitting there,

Completely relaxed.

Everything you wanted to get done is accomplished,

And you're enjoying a beautiful day,

Just relaxing on a bench.

And then all of a sudden,

You see someone walking along the path towards you,

And it's a friend you haven't seen in decades.

And you were once such good friends,

But they had to move away,

And you never got to see them again.

And you see them,

And your heart leaps,

And your stomach starts to get flutters,

And you're so excited,

And it could be anybody.

It could be someone in your role today that you're excited about.

It could be a lover,

It could be anyone,

It could be a lover from the past.

And you jump up off the bench,

And you run to them,

And once they see you,

They run to you,

And you run together,

And you hold each other,

And you say,

I can't believe it's you,

This is so exciting.

And in this moment,

Freeze frame what's happening,

And feel what's going on inside you.

Feel into your belly.

Feel this excitement.

See if you can feel where is it coming from,

And wherever that is,

Breathe into that space.

Continue to hug your friend,

Come out of the freeze frame,

And continue to hug your friend,

And maybe even lead them back to the bench,

But still feel this happiness inside.

Feel this joy,

And feel where it's coming from,

And really let it continue to flow through you like a child would.

No need to come back to sobriety,

No need to be nonchalant about it,

Stay as excited as you were when you first saw them.

And now you're sitting with them on the bench,

And your eyes are practically sparkling because you're so excited,

And so thrilled,

And you feel so grateful that you just happened to be there,

And this person just happened to show up,

And just sit there,

And maybe they're chit-chatting and talking,

But in this moment,

You are meditating within.

Maybe your hand is on their shoulder,

And you are just feeling the joy inside of you.

Feel that joy flow through your whole body,

With every breath,

Feel it pulse down into your lower back,

Down into your legs,

Down into your toes.

Feel the joy go up into your shoulders and down your arms,

Feel it fill your aura.

This joy is what you're swimming in,

And then feel yourself at the center of it,

And realize this is what my chakras are made of,

This is the energy flowing through my body.

When I connect with this joy,

Divine energy flows through me,

And it's always flowing through me,

But now I identify with it,

It's me.

It's like I've tuned my radio to the signal so that I can feel it.

So let's imagine that your friend has to keep going,

And so they get up and they walk away and you're sitting on the bench,

And your arms are wide,

Holding on to the back of the bench,

And you're just feeling the sun on your face,

And this joy flowing through your body,

And you're breathing deeply,

And maybe you go for a little walk,

And you feel the earth under your feet,

And you feel such gratitude for your body,

And you see the birds,

You not only hear them,

But when you hear them,

You look up and you can see them singing,

And no matter where your attention is taken,

This joyful place is your center.

Ananda Mahati Prapti Drishti Vabandhava Charat Anandam Udgatam Dyatva Tatlaya Tatmana Bhavet In the great joy of seeing a loved one after a long absence,

A flash of recognition ignites you.

Space becomes charged,

The bond between you shimmers,

And a surge of delight arises in your being.

Beloved,

Find within you the source of this surge.

Melt into that place of upwelling,

A wave rolling in a vast ocean of delight.

Let's just breathe into that wave rolling in the ocean of delight for a moment,

And let's take a deep breath in,

And exhale,

And with this sense of joy in our heart center,

I hope you have a wonderful day.