So today we are reading from the Radiant Sutras and this is a translation and interpretation of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra which is an ancient tantric text.
And the intention of this book is to help us experience what they would call Bhairava which is the essence of life.
And the essence of life,
Well the truth is it's whatever whatever you feel that to be.
Like I could say the essence of life and you could feel yourself downhill skiing and what does that feel like?
It could be the feeling of sitting and watching a sunset.
It could be the feeling of watching dogs play.
It could be the feeling of a warm bath.
This essence of life is part of our infinite self.
It's part of our divine self.
And that divine self is meant to permeate every part of our physical lives.
It's not meant to be out there like something I experience when I'm you know meditating or when I'm chanting mantra or I'm doing interesting things.
You might experience it then but those practices of pranayama,
Chanting,
These are actually remedial exercises.
These are exercises that we do to heal our nervous system so that we can experience this essence in everyday life.
I would actually love to know when I say that the essence of life.
I would love if you would share when do you feel that?
That essence was the first thing that comes to your mind.
What is that?
I would love if you could share it in the chat.
Surfing and being in the sea.
Goosebumps.
My kids.
Stillness.
Nature.
When I'm twirling and juggling.
Dancing.
Can you feel that inside?
Surrender.
Twinkle lights.
I love twinkle lights.
Sunrise and sunsets.
Sunsets.
I love seeing other people get lost in it like when someone is so lost in a moment.
They love that it can be felt.
Focusing on the breath and allowing.
It's that edge of growth where I feel the sands in my soul shifting.
Moving.
Like skiing and running.
So can you feel?
Thank you guys so much.
Water and nature.
Can you feel like the essence of it is constant?
No matter what we're doing.
Like the feeling is the same.
That feeling is the divine.
It's God.
It's consciousness.
It's where we come from.
It's Aum.
My Gaia altar.
She is Mother Earth after all.
Presence.
Also connecting deeply with babies.
Stirring soup.
Riding a bike.
Walking the dog.
Throwing the ball.
But we forget.
We forget and we get caught in our day-to-day struggles.
We get caught in the money.
We get caught in the fitness.
We get caught in the politics.
We get caught in the dramas.
And we forget that every moment is imbued with the divine whether we pay attention to it or not.
This is the basis of all tantric philosophy.
Now imagine living in this way.
Imagine living in a way that at all times you're aware.
It's almost like you've always got this backdrop inside of you that knows every moment is precious.
Every moment is interesting.
Even when we're angry.
Even when we're sad.
Even when we're grieving.
Like this isn't about being aloof.
Right?
It's not about being above human emotions.
We are meant to be fully human.
We're meant to juice every single ounce out of this life for positive or negative.
We're supposed we're here incarnate on earth to have experiences.
But what happens if we have all those experiences and we start to remember who we really are?
Wouldn't that be even more enjoyable?
Like wouldn't every experience become so rich?
And that is this book.
The Radiant Sutras.
It has all these beautiful verses or sutras in it that each one is its own meditation.
And you can literally just pick it up and open it like a hookum and just read today's thoughts and sort of take that with you during the day.
And what we've been doing is every week we dive deeply into a particular sutra.
So what's going to happen is I'm going to read the sutra and then we're going to have a conversation about it.
And sometimes if there's time or it's appropriate we'll have a meditation at the end.
Losing myself in observer mode,
Connecting with the presence in the moment without doing anything,
Laughing,
Loving,
Dancing,
Connecting with nature,
People,
Animals,
Helping,
Meditating,
Stillness,
Living,
Appreciating all we are and have.
It's a very interesting life.
No matter where we're at.
All right,
You guys ready?
So let's all close our eyes for a moment.
Breathe deeply.
Even if you have the book,
Let's just let this sutra speak to our soul,
Our eternal self.
Breathing deeply,
Expanding the belly as we inhale.
Contracting as we exhale.
Find that part of you that is eternal.
And just breathe into that place.
All right,
Here we go.
Position yourself safely at the edge of a cliff or gorge.
Gaze into the abyss and see only depth.
Immediately doubts disappear.
Dilemmas dissolve.
Be steady as the mind releases itself into its natural freedom.
What comes to you when you hear that?
Thoughts or emotions or what's your first reaction to that?
I'm safe.
Wanting to repel.
Trust.
Letting our minds play instead of being tied to mental loops.
Release uncertainty.
Calm and safety.
Mind's natural freedom can be felt at places.
Being on the edge gets your attention.
Surrender.
Reminds me of a time I was staring at the gorge of the Virgin River as the sun was rising and just watching the sun fill the canyon and illuminate the river slowly.
When I stood up to walk away,
I have never felt that kind of elation,
That kind of high.
It was incredible.
Thank you,
Ward.
No resistance.
Natural freedom.
Not freedom from anything.
Just free to be.
Settling inside.
Clear.
My first thought was,
Hmm,
Minds are naturally in freedom.
I need to ponder that.
Life becomes the essence of what really matters.
Pure love.
Thank you,
Everybody.
So it's interesting,
Like,
When I first read this,
When I was prepping for our class,
I had this pushback in me,
Like,
Hey,
I don't want to let go of my thoughts.
But what's interesting is that that's really the point of this sutra.
So if you imagine,
So in the tantric world,
Everybody defines the mind differently,
But in the tantric world,
The mind has three main parts,
Manas,
Buddhi,
And citta.
So manas is the part of our brain that interprets sensory input.
We see something,
It goes into a part of our brain that says,
Ah,
That is red.
Ah,
That is light.
Or touch,
Oh,
That's soft.
Or oh,
That's a zipper or whatever,
You know,
It's a,
That's our manas.
And so you can imagine that manas exists to notice things,
To notice change in our environment.
So it's wired to look at four things.
Citta,
There's a lot of aspects of citta,
But one aspect of citta is that it is our repository of memory.
So these are all the things that have ever happened in our life.
And perhaps even beyond this life.
But if we just look at this life,
So you can imagine that I touch something and I think,
Oh,
That feels the same as this time when I was 20.
This is the interaction of manas and citta that says,
Ah,
Yes,
This is familiar,
Or you smell something,
And like,
Oh,
That smells like home,
Or that smells like whatever.
This is the connection between manas and citta,
All dependent on things in our environment.
And then there's buddhi.
Buddhi is like Buddha,
Only with an I.
And this is the intellect.
This is the one that says,
This is right,
This is wrong,
This is useful to me,
This isn't useful to me.
Again,
Its whole focus is based on external stimulus.
So all of a sudden,
You are asked to gaze into an infinite gorge.
The literal translation of this sutra actually asks you to gaze into a deep well where you cannot see the bottom.
So all of a sudden,
You look into the deep well.
And your mind doesn't know what to do,
Because it's designed to notice things.
It's not meant to embrace infinity.
It's meant to notice things.
In tantra,
They call our ego our ahamkara.
Not that that's important,
But some people really dig Sanskrit.
So our ego,
Our sense of self,
Is made up of the interaction between those three things.
That's why I can have an experience,
And you can have an experience,
And we're experiencing the exact same circumstances.
But we have completely different takeaways from it.
Even right now,
We're having this discussion about this sutra.
Every single person here is having a radically different experience of this sutra,
Because the sutra is speaking into chitta.
It's speaking into buddhi.
It's speaking,
And the mind is going,
Ah,
Ah.
And this is what makes us each unique.
If all of us release the mind,
This is where we are suddenly all the same.
It is our mind's perception of the world that makes me Katrina,
And Rose Rose,
And Chaya Chaya,
And Karen Karen.
That is it.
So all of a sudden,
The idea of having to gaze into a well or over a gorge where you can't see the bottom,
It's not just our mind that doesn't know what to do.
Our ego doesn't exist.
And this isn't like an evil ego.
This is just our sense of self,
Our third chakra.
It's just my definition of my role here in maya.
So that's a curious thing to do.
The idea,
Like imagine yourself actually doing this,
Sitting at the edge of a well and gazing down and allowing all normal thoughts to cease.
That's very likely a very uncommon,
Maybe even uncomfortable experience.
It feels frightening,
Like there's nothing to grasp at.
Exactly.
So it's interesting to simply be aware of that.
Let's say you chose to do this meditation once in a while,
Or maybe the next time you're out and about and you see some deep well or something,
Or the sky,
Or the ocean,
Whatever it is that has this infinite aspect to release thoughts and let yourself dissolve into the infinite space.
And if you have kind of pushback,
Like the brain wants to,
I wonder what's straight across there,
You know,
If it wants to do that,
It's okay.
Like to just sort of say to yourself,
That's okay.
I understand why my brain is fighting back.
I understand why fears are rising.
Uncomfortable for me,
In some ways,
The grasping is what makes it uncomfortable.
But as soon as we know,
Like as soon as we know that,
Ah,
I understand the pushback,
It's like we can kind of relax it and then release into the dissolution.
I want to read something to you.
So this is,
He's basically saying that when a yogi does this,
When you do this,
He feels giddiness and has a sense of fear.
In this state,
Spanda,
Or the inner dynamic reality,
Throws him off his normal consciousness.
Giddiness.
Can you guys relate to that?
There may be fear,
But there's also a giddiness.
And if giddiness isn't a word,
You know,
In English,
It's sort of like that.
You know,
It's kind of this silly little light,
Almost nervous happiness.
Excitement.
Like,
Imagine allowing ourselves to feel excitement and fear all at the same time.
But what's interesting is the next thing this guy says is,
If he has developed mati,
I'm not familiar with this word yet,
Or intuitive understanding by pure living,
And is freed of thought forms,
His normal consciousness is dissolved into a consciousness of higher dimension,
And he experiences surpassing peace.
If he has developed intuitive understanding by pure living,
He is freed of thought forms,
And in an instant,
His normal consciousness is dissolved in a consciousness of higher dimension,
And he experiences surpassing peace.
And this,
To me,
Is a definition of the Tantric path.
This is that everyone says,
Well,
I need to study Tantra.
I want to study Tantra.
How do I get started?
This is the path.
It is living in a way that clears your mind of the unnecessary,
Of the false,
Of the drama.
And they would say,
Like,
Pure living,
But it's not some weird judgment puritanical thing.
It's simply actually walking your road.
Clearing of all the other things.
And then,
The closer you are to living your truth,
The more your intuition will make sense.
Because suddenly,
The outside world starts to match up with your inner world,
And you start to have an intuitive understanding of the world.
If we're living someone else's life,
You know,
Imagine you've sort of got the base program here,
But I've got all these adaptations from living with my parents,
And I've got this adaptation from this partner,
And I've got these programs coming in from church,
Or school,
Or politics,
Or whatever,
So I'm not actually living my own life.
Well,
Suddenly,
It's very hard to have any kind of intuitive understanding of the world,
Because we're not in alignment.
So how could our inner truth match anything we experience in the world?
So our tantric path becomes whatever it is that helps kind of straighten our road.
And again,
What I mean is really deeply living our soul's path.
So now you imagine yourself right now,
And you are living your life.
You don't have to identify what isn't your life or anything right now,
Just you are truly living your path.
And now we come to the edge of the well,
And we gaze into the well.
Suddenly,
What do we experience?
Expansiveness?
Possibility?
One of the teachings around this sutra is that when we do this,
This is when our imagination comes alive.
So imagine imagination.
Imagination,
I understand to exist in our neoconfrontal cortex,
Right up here.
And this is our,
Like,
This is where we create everything.
This is where we create our future.
This is where we create new things.
Now,
If our lives are filled with other,
Other people's thoughts,
Other people's fears,
Other people's threats,
Other people's expectations,
Our imagination goes wild on that.
It's like our imagination is caught in a room,
And it's banging against the walls.
Like,
I can't do this,
And I can't do this.
And I can't do this,
And I can't do this,
And I can't do this,
And I can't do this.
And it's just,
Like,
Banging against these walls that have been created by other people.
Or maybe our own past.
Who knows who created the prison that we're banging against inside?
And again,
When we think of our mind,
The manas,
The citta,
And the buddhi,
How much of that citta is filled with painful memories,
And our buddhi is working overtime,
Blaming everyone,
And everything's wrong,
And how could that happen,
And this is wrong,
And that's wrong,
And da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
To the point that even our manas that interprets sensory input is off.
Everything hurts.
Everything's terrible.
Nothing tastes good.
Everything's a muck.
So as we find our practice,
Whatever it is,
Meditation,
Yoga,
Walking,
Journaling,
Whatever it is,
Chanting mantra,
That we slowly heal the mind.
I remember doing this one meditation once.
It was a kundalini meditation where you go sa-ta-na-ma with your fingers,
And I remember feeling like someone was taking like a gentle rake,
And raking through the forest of my brain,
And slowly teasing out clear pathways.
That's the goal.
So then all of a sudden,
Imagine your mind is this beautiful clear pathway.
Then what does your imagination do?
It's like,
Wow,
What else is possible?
And now suddenly,
Gazing into the gorge,
Gazing into the deep well,
That connection with infinity is comforting,
Because this is all the possibilities.
This is an eternity of possibilities.
Time doesn't even exist.
I have all the time in the world.
I have all the opportunities in the world.
How different is that?
So then suddenly,
We gaze into the gorge,
And we connect with infinite possibility.
And by doing that,
We connect with our own divinity.
And that's really the point of this sutra.
Let's do a meditation.
Wherever you are,
Sitting,
Lying down,
Pretending to work,
Wherever you are right now,
Let's just close our eyes.
Let's focus on the breath.
Expanding the belly as we inhale.
Contracting as we exhale.
And in your mind's eye,
I'd love you to imagine that you're walking down a peaceful country road.
The sun is shining.
The sky is blue.
There's trees here and there.
Beautiful green,
Brown.
There's grass.
As you walk,
You're breathing deeply.
You're breathing in this beautiful day.
And you're looking around,
Seeing the beauty around you.
You're hearing the birds' song.
Maybe it smells like spring.
You're feeling very thankful for everything in your life right now.
The blessings,
The challenges,
Everything.
Because right now,
You're walking down this beautiful road.
And then up ahead,
You see something curious just off the road.
A little brick wall that seems to be in a circle.
It's about four feet tall.
So you slowly walk towards these little bricks,
Wondering what it's all about.
And as you approach it,
You lean on the bricks and you look down the well.
And you cannot see the bottom.
It seems to go on forever.
And at first,
It kind of takes your breath away.
And there's almost like this weird feeling like you could be drawn into it.
But you connect with the bricks that you're leaning on.
And you connect with the ground under your feet.
And you're fine.
And then you allow your mind to release and gaze down the well.
Your breathing becomes longer and deeper.
As your mind starts to imagine how far does this well go.
What is in the darkness?
And a part of your body relaxes into this infinite feeling going through your body.
And your eyes continue to gently gaze down the well.
As this lovely peace flows through your body.
As you know that you are also part of that infinity.
That you are eternal.
That you are one with this mystery.
Ko padike maha garte sitva upari nirikshanat avipalpakalpa mate samyak sadhyacittalaya svutam Position yourself safely at the edge of a cliff or gorge.
Gaze into the abyss and see only depth.
Immediately doubts dissolve.
Dilemmas disappear.
Be steady as mind releases itself into natural freedom.
And let's take a deep breath in.
Feel this natural freedom flowing through your body.
Exhale.
And let's slowly come back to the group.
Thank you so much for being here and I hope you have a wonderful day.
