Is Life An Illusion? A Reading From The Radiance Sutras

54:48

54:48

Is Life An Illusion? A Reading From The Radiance Sutras

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What is the nature of reality? Is life real or is it an illusion (maya)? In this discussion, we discuss what is real in our lives as it relates to our reading from the Radiance Sutras, a translation of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra.

Radiance Sutras Reading Reality Concentration Tantra Consciousness Non Attachment Chakras Grounding Love Healing Quantum Physics Consciousness Expansion Individual Chakras Giving And Receiving Love Emotional Healing Illusions Spirits

Meet your Teacher

Toronto, ON, Canada

Meet your Teacher

Toronto, ON, Canada

Transcript

So today we're reading from a book called The Radiant Sutras. And The Radiant Sutras is a translation of the Vijñāna by Rāva Tantra. And it's an ancient tantric text that is all about what they call dharāna, About concentration. And each, So there's all these sutras, All these little pieces that we can concentrate on. And when they say concentrate, They mean to ponder. So you could pick up The Radiant Sutras, Which I didn't write or anything, I don't get any royalties from this. But I love this book. Like you could literally just open it up. You could read one a day, Which is what we're doing. We're doing like, We're actually doing one or two each week. And you could read it, And it's just something to ponder through our day. It's almost like, You know how our minds can think about a million things, Right? Our minds can think about like thousands of things in a day. Like I actually sometimes I sit there in my own brain thinking, Who is driving this ship? It's almost like there's 12 captains. And you know, It's like suddenly I'm thinking about this and then I'm thinking about that. And then I'm thinking about this and then I'm thinking about that. And I'm like, Where are these thoughts coming from? And they all seem very relevant to my life. You know, So it's very easy for us to have this almost like we just walk through our day, Like this humming ball of a million focuses, Which is really confusing. And it's really interesting too, Like if we desire a spiritual path, If we desire a life that's actually connecting us with our highest self, Like connecting our physical life with our emotional, Mental, Spiritual self, It is so easy to get distracted by all of these thoughts and all of these focuses. And suddenly we're down that rabbit hole and down this rabbit hole and down that rabbit hole. So, The idea of dharana or the idea of having various concentrations, Things to focus on is it's almost like it gives you a theme for the day, Like a touch point that well, No matter what is going on today, No matter how many million directions I get pulled, I'm going to ponder this reality. I'm going to ponder this idea and if we can really do it, Like I mean, I used to write on my hands. Like if there was something I really was working on, I would write it in pen on my inside of my wrist just so I would remember. It's like no, Katrina, You're not just a robot, Just stepping through your day mindlessly getting my to-do list done. You have an intention here, You want to have a rich life, You want to have a life that all these things have meaning and they matter and they all fit into a bigger picture, Like I wanted that. But it was so easy to forget, Like it's so easy that something happens and now I'm stressed out, Now I'm worried, Now I'm you know, I don't know, Stressed out. And then I would look at this word or this little note I'd written to myself on my wrist that kind of just said, Remember, You know, You're here for an experience and whatever's going on in your life right now is all just part of that experience. It's all just part of this beautiful opportunity to be alive and it helps us with that non-attachment to the outcome. It helps us with the non-attachment to our worries and concerns and it really helps us go, Well, This is interesting. I wonder how this fits in the hole. So, This is the intention of all of the sutras. A sutra means, It means to sow and so these things like all weave together to create life and very often these focuses aren't meant to be resolved. You know, We're not reading them to find an answer so we can now go forward with this solid answer inside of us. Oftentimes a focus is kind of more like a zen kon where the idea is to have the idea in our mind and then we explore it. You know, We kind of think oh, That's interesting and that's interesting. But instead of you imagine like here's an idea and if we, If our goal is to find an answer we bring it down to a point and now we think aha, Now I have this piece of wisdom that I can now take forward in my life. But instead, Imagine these sutras begin with an idea and they expand our mind. So, All it is, It's like a seed inside of us that we say, Interesting idea. And then we walk through our life expanding on it and kind of swimming into the corners and that's interesting and this is interesting. So, That's really our intention here is not to find an answer but to expand our consciousness and it's an interesting thing this idea of expanding our consciousness because it's not about finding an answer. Like that's a very physical 3D way of doing things. Aha, I have built my house it is now complete, Which is awesome, Right? It's the joy of 3D. But that's not what we're doing here because the divine, The infinite, The divine is infinite. So, When we're playing in spirituality our goal is actually aha. And the beautiful thing about tantra, Which is actually the focus today is that we can have both. We can have this beautiful physical reality and we can have this beautiful expanding spirituality and they can play together. We don't have to choose one or the other. We can actually do both and then have epic, Incredible, Fun, Exciting, Adventurous life. So, Today we are reading the banter versus five and six. So, If you have the book we're on page 18 or if you're on like a Kindle or something it's the banter versus five and six. And even if you have the book I highly recommend closing your eyes while I read it. Because there's something about. . . You know, It's like in our life we are heavily visually stimulated. It's like we define our world based on sight. So, Here's an example. So, Yesterday my daughter and I are at the Blue Jays game, Baseball. I don't know I'm just explaining it because I recognize that everyone's from Toronto and is familiar with what the Blue Jays is in Toronto. And so, We're walking along trying to find the gate and all of a sudden I can smell like waffle cones. You know, That beautiful bakery smell and I literally my eyes closed and I went, Hmm, Right. There's this like hmm smell. And I often, I'm always intrigued by dogs. Because dogs smell is so important, Right. When you see them out walking with their human they're always smelling everything. And I often think of as humans we map the world mostly visually. What do we see? We create visual maps. We're not even so interesting in topography so much as we are in directions and all that kind of thing. It's all very visual. And I often think if a dog created a map and it was based on smell and so, The map was you know, It was all this sort of sense of the smell. Like what did the, What does the earth look like according to smell? And it's very much the same spiritually or energetically. When we close our eyes and we map the world based in like that inner sense, That inner truth, The things we're drawn to, The things we're pushed away from, The things that feel good, The things that feel sad, The things that feel exciting, The things that feel neutral. Imagine we mapped our entire world based on this other sense. Whether it's the sixth sense or the seventh sense or the first sense or however we want to look at it. And so, In many ways it's interesting to read these sutras from that deep intuitive sense as opposed to visually. There's something about closing our eyes that allows our gaze to go inward to our soul. And now we allow our soul to listen. And just tap into that, That part of you that has always been there. That part of you that was the same when you were six years old, When you were 20 years old, When you'll be 80 years old. That eternal part of you deep inside. What is this power we call life appearing as a play of flesh and breath? How may I know this mystery and enter it more deeply? My attention is enthralled by a myriad of forms, Innumerable individual entities everywhere, Flashing into existence and fading away again. Lead me into the wholeness beyond all these parts. Do me a favor, My love. Let me rest in your embrace. Refresh me with the elixir of your wisdom. Ravish me with your truth. This is a discussion between Devi and Bhairava, Or the human and God, Or our physical self and our highest self. So this is us asking this question of the greater consciousness. I'm going to read it again. What is this power we call life appearing as the play of flesh and breath? How may I know this mystery and enter it more deeply? My attention is enthralled by a myriad of forms, Innumerable individual entities everywhere, Flashing into existence and fading away again. Lead me into the wholeness beyond all these parts. Do me a favor, My love. Let me rest in your embrace. Refresh me with the elixir of your wisdom. Ravish me with your truth. What stands out for you in that? What words float to the surface? What feelings do these ideas bring up? Flashes of life yearning lead me into the hole beyond all these parts. Let through my heart lean into the universe. How yoga allows this to be the play of flesh. It's very interesting. The focus of these two sutras is the question about is reality real? Is reality. . . So, In spirituality, They'll talk about the difference between the transcendent reality and the immanent reality. The immanent reality, Which isn't a commonly used word in English, But immanent means the physical, That what I can see, Smell, Touch, Hold, Taste, The immanent. Transcendent reality is the reality beyond form. And so, In a lot of teachings, Depending on the spiritual path, They'll often say, Oh well, This world is just maya. It's an illusion. It's not real. So, The goal is to transcend this physical experience because it's not real anyway. You're wasting your energy getting all caught up in what's going on in the immanent world, In the physical world. So, The goal becomes to release all attachment to this physical world and just connect with that transcendent reality beyond form. And then others say, Yeah, But we are here. Like, We did incarnate here. So, There has to be some reason for this. Why would we just transcend it? It's kind of like imagining, You know, We start as energy and somehow this energy incarnates here on earth in this physical form. Well, What's the point of then leaving the physical form? Like, What's the point of pretending I'm not in a physical form? There must be some reason. So, One of the great questions that these sutras ask us is, What do you believe? And this isn't, Again, There's not an answer so much. You know, There's ponderings, There's gut reactions, There's that kind of thing and there's something that we walk out into the world continuing to ponder. But do we believe that the world is actually, Like that transcendent reality is the real reality? That the world beyond form is the real reality? Do we believe that? A hundred percent, Imagine. Or do we believe that this physical reality is a hundred percent the point? This is the only reality. As soon as we start talking beyond physicality, You know, It's pipe dreams and imagination and creations of the mind. If I can't see, Hear, Touch, Smell it, It's not real. That's more valid than we think. Like, It's an interesting thing. It's not something to be pooh-poohed. Like, Sometimes I love embracing that idea. And then the question becomes, Well, Or do we believe it's both somehow? Do I believe it could be both transcendent and imminent? Do I believe that? And it's very interesting because when I think of that question, I actually wonder whether or not our language won't even allow us to have this conversation. I read a book once called, Um, Stranger in a Strange Land. Brilliant book, By the way. Really highly recommend it. So interesting. In Stranger in a Strange Land, What was really interesting is, So this guy was, He was human, But he was raised on Mars. What was really interesting is English is very limited. I'm not, I'm just using English, But many of our languages are very limited. You know, Whether maybe things can be described in Sanskrit better or Girmukhi or African languages or more indigenous languages, Perhaps, Um, These concepts are better described in truly indigenous language and maybe our European type languages. We can't do it. I don't know. But it was really interesting because of course this, This guy, He was raised on Mars. He was human, But he was taught how to actually be a fully, Fully human. He could translocate. He could do telekinesis. He could do, He was telepathic. He was empathic. He was all the things that I personally believe actually is what a full human is capable of. Like, I think we are using very, Very few of our actual abilities. I think we're moving into it right now. But what was really interesting is people who, If anyone wanted to study with him, They had to learn Martian, Which was actually the first gateway. Like if you actually want to study with me, You have to study Martian, Which is really hard because you couldn't even discuss the topic in English. Like we didn't have the right words. We didn't have the right context. We didn't have the right sentence structure to even conceptualize these realities. So, You had to learn Martian, Which is fascinating to me. I believe it's both what people are evolving to live more in a world of consciousness, Transcendence. Yeah. And well, And even there, Like to speak that we're living more in a world of consciousness and transcendence. This is just my interpretation of that is consciousness to me is my awareness of my life. Consciousness is being aware of my day, Being aware of my thoughts, Being aware of my emotions, Being aware of what's going on in this imminent form, In this physical form to balance this amazing consciousness of the world around us. And to understand that perhaps this is a transcendent reality, That there is a world beyond form and to imagine that it's both. This is really interesting. It's like the quantum physics idea of light. It's a great question. Is light a particle or is it a wave? I've talked to you guys before about this, You know, Where, You know, They once did a double slit experiment, They called it. And just basically imagine you have a wall with a hole in it, A slit like a hole and you shine a light through it. Historically, When they would, You know, Watch the light on the other side, It would go out like a wave, Right? Like as if you dropped a pebble in the water and the waves would go out. And then like a hundred years later, So they assumed that light was a wave. And then about a hundred years later, They thought, Oh, You know, I can actually get right down to a singular photon, Singular kind of packet of light. You know, What can we do now? So they took a wall and they put two slits in the wall and they shot these photons at the wall. And sometimes the photon would go through this slit, Sometimes the other one, And sometimes both at the same time. So they're like, And on the other side, There would be this beautiful wave pattern that would like interfere at the center, You know, All that stuff. Well, They thought, Oh, That's so interesting. You know, Maybe, You know, I wonder how often it goes through this slit or this slit or both slits. That's so strange. And they put a measuring device to try to measure how often it would go through one slit or the other. And as soon as they put the measuring device there, The light acted like particles and they no longer did a wave pattern. And they just shot through the slits and hit the back screen. And this has been a quandary in the world of quantum physics ever since. How can light be both a particle and a wave, You know, Or it might change because there's a measuring device or it might change whatever, You know, How can that possibly be? And I think this like scratches at the surface of this idea that, Well, Do we live in a physical world where we can imagine that this and this and this will always happen? Or do we just live in a world of energy? Or can we live in both? This is the most confusing thing about quantum physics, Because when they actually look inside an atom and they see electrons and protons and neutrons, The electron will be going along and the physics physicists are like, Aha, Yes, I totally understand that. And then all of a sudden the electron will just disappear. Just blinks out of its out of existence. And then it kind of maybe pops up over here or maybe there's a wall and they shoot light and there's no slits at all. But somehow some of the light gets over into this side. Like it's like, What? And this is why it's so valuable to keep our minds open to what we don't understand yet. Like at this point, Maybe all we can do is conceptualize the idea that. So is it possible that we are both energy and matter at the same time and that's interchangeable? Is it possible that this physical reality really matters and transcending this physical life really matters? You know, There's no answer to this. And, You know, Anyone that says they have an answer has closed their mind to the possibilities. When I consider the world as just a transcendent reality, That it's just beyond this form, I can kind of become pretty light walking on the earth. Kind of just observe the world like a visitor to a town. You know what I mean? Like you kind of have this, You can walk through a town and you're not really attached to anything. But there's a joy in that. There's a joy in just going, Well, I'm a visitor here. I'm a spiritual being having a physical experience. And there's a lot of interesting thought processes there. There's a lot of interesting ecstasy there. There's a lot of, For example, Like in tantric lovemaking and tantric experience. Often what happens, You know that you have reached that limit or that not the limit. You can make love and it's beautiful and it's pleasurable and there's two bodies and they're doing this thing. And then all of a sudden, If we're lucky, There's this moment where there's a merging of the two and the bodies disappear. And you're still making love, Like you're still engaged, But you have now transcended the physical body and you float in this absolute bliss. This is a real thing. This is a hundred percent repeatable process. This is not just something for the gurus. This is real. We do it all the time. If you're an artist and you're painting and you are fully immersed, Right? This is this merging of the masculine and feminine. And I'm not talking about genders. The merging of this yin-yang within us. When that happens, We transcend the physical and there is absolute ecstatic bliss there. So this idea of transcendence is awesome. You can experience it lying in the sunshine, Feeling the sun entering the pores of your skin and you're just like, This is like transcendent bliss, You know, Sitting under a waterfall. Or I remember one time I was in Florence, Italy and I was sitting in this restaurant and I had tiramisu. And I'd had tiramisu in Canada, But I'm going to put air quotes around that tiramisu because sitting in this restaurant in Florence, I ordered the tiramisu and I'm like, Yeah, Yeah, Whatever. Tiramisu. It's going to be great. And then I dip my spoon in and I put it in my mouth and I literally went, Oh, Oh. It was so beyond words, Like beyond, Like I'm like, Oh, These are transcendent moments. That's awesome. And as you say, Transcendence can be addiction, Right? It can be addictive. And then all of a sudden we become addicted to that transcendent reality. We only want the thrill. It almost becomes like a spiritual adrenaline junkie. And this is a curious thing and it causes an imbalance. So obviously I'm arguing a little bit on the side that it's both because that tends to be the tantric perspective. And on a very personal level, It's my personal experience. And then if we look at the physical world, We look at the joy of being attached to the world. And I don't mean unhealthy attachments. I don't mean attention to drama. I don't mean all that stuff. I just mean caring about people, Pouring your heart and soul into your work, Pouring your heart and soul into your physical day, Into your own body. Maybe you love to run, That you are fully running. You don't want to be transcendent and running. That may happen because you're so fully in your body. So there's the funny dance that is often by being fully immersed in the imminent, Fully immersed in the physical life that we achieve transcendence. But then we dance and then we have this transcendent experience. And if we're lucky, We bring that euphoria into our lives. We bring that into our relationships with people. We bring it into nature to actually have this incredible like, Wow, I can't believe I'm alive. This is so amazing. And we bring this gratitude into every single thing we do in the world. This, This is so beautiful to actually have this beautiful dance. Some of you guys know that I have recently put my name in my nomination in to become town counselor. Oh, This little town I live in, Which is quite a stretch for me because I kind of prefer the transcendent. I don't prefer the transcendent, But I like to be philosophical and I kind of like to live in that world. So to actually sit in town council meetings and be on committees and be so, So, So super involved in the community like that. Wow. That's that's a stretch for me. That's that's it. I mean, I can be pretty practical and pretty grounded. And, You know, I've been a parent and a business owner and all these things are pretty grounded. But wow, This is a whole other level of adulting. How do you ground it in the physical world? Oh, That's a great question. Grounding to me is very practical. Grounding is what do you do that contributes to the village? So if you imagine we all lived in a village and that could be work, It could be volunteering, It could be community events, It could be all kinds of things. Well, What do you do on a physical level in the world? Grounding isn't just walking barefoot in the grass or things like that. Or see what happens is if we don't feel grounded, If we don't feel on the earth, Then we do other things to ground. We eat excessively. Obviously, We eat because it's healthy or we smoke or we we do things like that because it's very grounding. It brings us into our bodies. Other ways of grounding is to do physical exercise. And I don't mean yoga. Yoga can be physically grounding as long as it's difficult. Like it and I don't mean damaging. I mean difficult. It has to actually require us to be in our bodies to do it. Like if you can do your yoga practice, But you're thinking about other things, You're not grounded. It has to be hard enough that you have to pay attention. It's like I love going for walks. But when I go for walks, I'm thinking about a million things, Thousand things I'm thinking about until I walk down to the beach. So, Here where I live, We're right on Lake Huron, Which is one of the Great Lakes in Ontario here. And we walk down to the beach and it's quite a ways down to the beach. When I have to return and either walk up the flight of stairs or up the big hill to get back home, I'm no longer thinking about anything because it's hard. It's a hard slug. Now I'm in my body. And that's what I mean by grounding. Like if you really want to get out of your head and get stuff into the earth, You have to do things that are challenging. I felt that unbalanced because the physical world has been so painful. Totally. And this is what happens, Right? So, When you think of the chakras, We basically, We normally focus on the seven chakras. And if you think of the bottom chakras, So the first chakra right at your perineum where you're sitting right now, This first chakra, This is our connection into the village. It's our connection with Mother Nature. It's where we live. It's our ultimate incarnation, Right? Our physical manifestation. Our second chakra just below the navel is how we interact with each other. How do we interact in duality with each other? Whether it's you and me or whether it's me and my dog or. . . But it's that interaction with each other. And then the third chakra just above the navel is my sense of self, My ego, My. . . Not in a bad way, But who am I? What is my mission here? Why was I created in this particular incarnation, This particular, I don't know, Set of challenges and gifts and stuff? So, This is what we would call the lower triangle of existence. Who I am in the third, How I interact with you in the second and how I fit into society or nature. So, This is my physical reality. And now if we pop up here, This is my crown chakra. This is my connection, My most expansive self connecting out into the universe. And then I have my third eye, Which I'm kind of listening. I'm super oversimplifying these chakras, Right? But I'm kind of listening for this reality. And then here in my throat chakra, I'm sharing what I hear. I'm sharing this divine vibration out into the world. So, This is what they would call the upper triangle. And one's not better than the other. It's just that's how they show up on our bodies. So, This is that divine non-physical transcendent reality. And what connects the upper triangle with the lower triangle? Our heart center, Anahat, Unstruck cord. That's what that means. So, If we want to live a fully divine, Spiritual, Transcendent life and a fully physical, Grounded, Imminent life, We have to be able to flow effortlessly through the heart chakra. And if we don't, We're going to get stuck in either this triangle or the lower triangle. If we get stuck in the lower triangle, It's like, You know what, I'm just going to put my head down and I'm just going to make enough money. And I'm just going to focus on, I don't know, Whatever, Money, Sex, Drugs, Rock and roll, Like, No, I'm just kidding. But you know what I mean? I'm just going to focus on that and to hell with everything else. Or we say, You know what, This is too hard. This is too, This isn't a judgment. This is just reality. These are adaptations to pain and difficulty and suffering. So, This isn't a judgment. This is just our body's way of surviving. So, Then sometimes things are really, Really hard down here. I don't fit in. I've been abused. I hate my, I don't understand who I am. I don't get it. I feel judged. My life is really hard because this world is hard. We're not doing some weird adaptation to utopia and just misreading it. Some of us have had a really, Really hard life. So, To the fact that we're like, I don't want it, But I don't want to not be here. Like, I still want to be alive. But to connect into this down here, That's too much. I can't do it. So, We still have all these other channels, Right? So, It's like, You know what? I'm just going to be philosophical. I'm just going to be a perpetual student. I'm just going to try to be here and just be super, That super spiritual, Super up here. Just have a million transcendent experiences and stay there and just stay out of my body. Because there's just too much trauma in it. I can't. I can't. It's too much, Right? And again, Of course, This makes sense. It's not a, Oh, Look at that person avoiding their issues. That's not it. Life is hard. It's silly to pretend it's not. So, Then if we look at our heart chakra, How do we sort this? So, We've been hurt. We've been shown that the world isn't safe. We've been shown that people aren't safe. How do we begin this movement of energy again through the higher and lower or the transcendent and the imminent? How do we get that flowing again? Well, The interesting thing about the heart chakra is it's not what we think. It's not that our heart chakra is blocked because we're in pain. The issues we have often with society is in the second chakra or the first chakra. The second chakra, You know, Really difficult interactions with people. Real pain, Real difficulty, Especially as children in relationships, Everything like real pain. Or in the first chakra where we don't feel safe. Maybe we were abused. Maybe we didn't have enough food. Maybe we live in a place where there's war and there's difficulty like that. These are real issues, But they're not in the heart center. They're actually just first, Second chakras. It's important to kind of allow them to be where they belong. The fourth chakra, It's like the divine center that touches the earth too. So, If you imagine the back of your heart chakra, This is our ability to receive love from the universe. This is our connection into the greater picture. So, The bigger challenge is because we've had so much pain in the first two chakras, We don't allow ourselves to receive love from the universe. Because maybe the people in our lives that were supposed to love us didn't. Or they did love us and they hurt us. Or maybe we just have never felt actual love. I remember talking to someone recently and they said deep down they always knew that their parents were sort of doing the best job they could. But they knew that this wasn't actually love they were experiencing. And that's really interesting because our parents, I mean, What did they know? Where did they come from? They came from maybe more difficult situations than we are. So, We haven't always learned what it feels like to just be in love, Like to be embraced by love. So, It becomes our journey in tantra, For example, To actually open that backside of our fourth chakra and learn how to receive love from the universe. How to receive love from nature, How to receive love from God, How to receive love from others, How to receive love from sunshine. Like this is a huge deal. And when we can receive love from the universe, Then now our heart chakra is activated and we now get to love. We give love and I'm not giving love to people, We're just loving. I love Tiramisu and I love the mountains and I love the blue jays and I love you and I love me and I love the universe. This has nothing to do with anyone else. It has nothing to do with being in a relationship. It has nothing to do with having money. It has nothing to do with anything. This is how to receive love from this amazing place we live in and just love. And then what happens when we start to actually, And this is not easy, Like what I'm saying, You know, My stepmother used to say that it's easy when you say it fast and that that's this a hundred percent. Because what happens is it's like this little gentle dance that happens through the chakras. Maybe we imagine, Can I receive love from the sun? Can I start there? That seems like a safe place to receive love. As you go outside, You close your eyes and you feel the sun permeating your skin. And the very idea of receiving love from the sun brings up stuff, Brings up issues out of our second chakra. The times that we wish we'd felt love or the times we wish we felt heard or the times we felt neglected or ignored. So now this starts to stimulate stuff in the second chakra. Or maybe it starts to stimulate questions out of the first. And so it becomes this very gentle dance. This isn't like an all or nothing thing. And then maybe you just go into this memory and you ponder that and you think, Well, What if I look at this experience through the consciousness that I have now? What does it look like then? What does it feel like then? And maybe you ponder this for a few weeks. And then one day you're ready to look at another way of receiving love. Like on Saturday night, We went walking in the rain. It was a beautiful warm rain and we went out walking in the rain. And to receive that rain onto our bodies, Into our hearts, Being loved by the rain. That's a thing. And if when we do that, It opens our heart, Right? It opens that and now all of a sudden things get to rise, Things get to heal. It's almost like we don't get to heal until we feel safe. So the heart isn't where we're hurt. The heart is pure. The heart is just this beautiful exchange between the universe or God and us sharing that love out into the world. What makes life hard? I've thought about this and I can't come up with an answer. I feel like when I try to add something or take away from an experience, This is where the suffering comes from. The happening then is just taking place. I guess I'm wondering if I'm assigning hard life or not hard. Is there any other way to think about this? All I can say, Because we all have such different perspectives, Is when I say that life is hard. What I mean is that this world that we live in, There's a lot of cruelty. There's a lot of unfairness. There's a lot of meanness. There's a lot of people who have grown up without love and with serious abuse. The simple caste system that exists over the whole world, This weird ordering of humans, That these people are more important than these people of these people of these people. I don't just mean in the Indian caste system. I mean all over the world. That these people are less important than those people. Because these people have money, These people are less. That racism exists. That homophobia exists. All these things, The horrors that religions have done around the world. This is a reality. This is real. This real suffering. The wars that have happened. This is real. A lot of our parents, Us, Our parents, Our grandparents, Really lived in difficult times. They lived in times where beating your children was normal or your partner or whoever. You know what I mean? This is what I mean. I don't mean that life has to be hard right now. I love my life. I have a great life. I really do. But the reality is I don't pretend that that is everyone's reality. It's not been my reality for most of my life. There were really, Really tough decades in my world. And it was a hard comeuppance to actually finally break my rose-colored glasses and actually look at what was really going on. And so that's what I mean. I don't mean about creating hardship where there isn't. I have no hardship in my life. I am so happy right now. That's not always the case. And it hasn't always been the case in my world. So that's what I mean by hard. And the challenge is sometimes if we don't admit that, If we don't admit that life is hard, We diminish our own experience of trauma. It's sort of like that problem where let's say you were abused by a parent, Like sexually abused by a parent. We have a habit of assuming it's our fault and we internalize it and it messes us up. Like the experience messes us up. But there's a bazillion more thoughts that come that really mess us up. Whereas if we just admit the world is hard and my parent is a pedophile, That changes things. So that's the only reason I say things like the world is hard because it allows us to put things in proper context and not internalize everything and think that we're messed up because we couldn't handle this. Do you know what I mean? Like this is important. It's kind of like if it's pouring rain, There's nothing wrong with me that I took an umbrella out. Do you know what I mean? And I'm not going to spend the rest of my life analyzing the fact that I use an umbrella. So that's what I mean by that. I don't mean it as a perpetual living in hardship. I just mean it's really important to be honest about what's going on in the world. And then when we can see things clearly, We can say, Oh, They were just really hurting people and they hurt me too. It's not personal. And then I have a chance to go on in my life. I have a chance to actually take steps forward. What's the one thing that took you a step forward? I mean the biggest thing that happened in my life was when I got sick. Like in 1999, I had breast lumps. My mom had just died of breast cancer. And now I was sick and I had little kids. And that was the scare. That was the thing that knocked me out of my pretend crystal palace where I was pretending that I was happy in my life and pretending that everything was okay. Because I thought that was the right thing to do, Right? Look for a silver lining, Be an optimist, Always see the positive, You know, All that kind of thing. But I was actually dying inside. It's like I was pretending I was well fed but not eating, You know what I mean? But I wanted everyone else to think I was well fed and I was starving to death. And then from there, It's like a million tiny things happened. You have this great revelation. I had this miraculous healing. If you ever want to read about it, It's in my book, What If You Could Skip the Cancer? And then I fell again. You know, You fall back into all the old patterns. But you're never quite the same because you've had the realization and then you kind of start to come back up again. And you go, Aha, I understand, I remember. And then you kind of circle. You keep. . . But I genuinely believe it's not a circle. I do believe it's a spiral. Even though it seems like we're in the same place, We're slightly different. Just slightly different all the time. And then one day you wake up and you never do that again. I feel I should be happier. And I've gotten so many things I've worked out. And now it's arrived and I still feel very sad inside and upset about things I feel I should be grateful for. Yeah, I really feel like that there's more going on then. That's all. Like there's just another chapter and maybe it's not time yet. Maybe there's dials that have to turn in the universe yet to unpack that other thing. Or maybe there's a particular topic that you just cannot broach for whatever reason. There's a lot of topics that are really hard. And it could be our parents on result issues with parents. It could be current relationships that I just can't upset this apple cart. And that's okay. It's kind of like Carolyn Mace. She used to say that dark nights of the soul often come because we've asked for guidance. And we got the answer but we didn't like it. So we're kind of waiting for a second choice. Which there isn't one. But we wait for it and that kind of causes a kind of limbo. And I'm not saying that's your situation but there's a lot of sacred cows. There's a lot of, Not just sacred cows, But there's a lot of really loaded difficult things that we're like, I can't open that Pandora's box right now. I don't have the energy. I'm not well slept enough. And that's okay. So basically humans have created concepts and then act as if they're real. Like when people think less of someone because they're poor. It's just something humans have come up with and then it becomes the norm. Like with any ism it's not real. I guess it's only real if we believe it. I just can't seem to grasp anything now because it's all only relatively real based on idea circle steps. Right? So that's great. Like that, It reminds me, So I'm going to reread this sutra. Because what's really interesting is this great question. Is it real? Is it not real? And again, This is just my perspective. You know what your perspective is, Is all that really matters. I often ask myself this question because this is a philosophical question that can absolutely keep us navel gazing and not go to work anymore. You know what I mean? Money is an illusion. I shouldn't have to pay rent. I'm not saying that may not be our reality one day as a global enlightened society. But in the meantime, We're paying rent. This is what's going on. But in the end, And this is where the bliss of focusing on the real is for me. Because whether the world is a transcendent reality or a physical reality, The question is, What do I want to do today? Like let's get real. What do I want to do today? Well, I want to do this and I want to do that and I like to do this and I want to experience that. When I stop philosophizing about this and I dive into this day on the planet, In this body, In this incarnation, Does it matter whether the world is real, Is transcendent or physical? Does it matter? All that matters is not what I bring to it. So, If I bring this even this question that what if the world is actually an illusion or what if it's really physically real? What if I simply bring that question, I bring that wonder, I bring that possibility and then I just dive into my day. And I go and make some nice breakfast and I go and do this and I have a session, I teach a class and I do this, I do that. And everything I do is sort of permeated with this wonder. Because with that wonder becomes this, I wonder what's going to happen next. What if it doesn't matter what reality is? What if I don't care? What if it's like, Okay, It's an illusion, But there's tiramisu in this illusion. There's epic tantric sex in this illusion. There's sunshine and puppy dogs in this illusion. Awesome! And if it's just the physical world, Well then this is the journey also. So, It's an interesting thing, The balance, Because in the end it's only our experience. It's this consciousness' joy or lack of joy or sadness or happiness or difficulty, Whatever. You know, There are some people that say that that's why souls come to earth because we experience emotions here and it's really juicy and interesting. So, There's something amazing about simply pondering this. It's just a pondering and when we bring that pondering into our reality, Somehow it makes it juicier. We're going to read it one more time just as we close out. All right, Let's just close our eyes for a minute. Breathe deeply. And we're reading the banter verses five and six in the Radiant Sutras by Lauren Roche. What is this power we call life, Appearing as the play of flesh and breath? How may I know this mystery and enter it more deeply? My attention is enthralled by a myriad of forms, Innumerable individual entities everywhere, Flashing into existence and fading away again. Lead me into the wholeness beyond all these parts. Do me a favor, My love. Let me rest in your embrace. Refresh me with the elixir of your wisdom. Ravish me with your truth. So, As we close, What's one word or a phrase from that that rises inside of you that you want to take away into your day? This morning I was reading about, You know, We've all heard of Rumi. Oh, Rumi had a teacher named Sham. And I was reading about Sham when he was growing up and his parents didn't get him. They were very concerned about him because he would go into, He would hang out with the dervishes or he would hang out with the Sufi masters. And he sometimes he wouldn't eat for days because he was just in such ecstasy and his parents were very upset about this. And his dad would always say to him like, You know, I'm so concerned about you, I don't understand. And Sham Al Tabriz, I think his name is, He would say, My father is a good man, But he is not a lover. Only lovers understand the heart of other lovers.