So today we are reading out of the Radiant Sutras which is a beautiful book written by Lauren Roche and it's a translation of the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra.
The Vijnana Bhairava Tantra.
Vijnana means wisdom.
It means many things but one of the things it means is wisdom and it's not just like here's what I know.
It's like our primal soul wisdom.
It's what we've always known.
It's almost like as a child even when we came in there was a deep reservoir of wisdom that perhaps we've carried through lifetimes.
Maybe it's how we connect with the collective consciousness but it's a wisdom that all of us hold even if the distractions of the world keep us spinning in circles thinking that oh my god like I just I can't make a good decision and I keep screwing up and I'll never get out of this hole I'm in.
Like we can easily get caught in all of this external these external thoughts or maybe we memorize something or we accumulate all this sort of three-dimensional knowledge about the world around us which can be really cool when you want to drive cars and speak Spanish but it's not deep wisdom.
This is Vijnana Bhairava.
Bhairava.
These words mean many many things.
This is just one interpretation of them but Bhairava one of the meanings is that it is the merging of two to become one to experience bliss.
It's when we we can live so fully in the world that all things blend together and we experience bliss all the time.
This is Bhairava.
It's almost being able to live in our oneness while we live in our duality and again even these words I'm using they're beyond our physical language so it's almost like something deep inside of you just has to say yes.
If the brain tries to analyze it it won't work because this is uniting with oneness and then Tantra.
Tantra actually just means a book or a set of teachings.
So the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra the journey of wisdom,
Oneness,
Bliss and the Radiant Sutras is a beautiful translation of this Tantra by Lauren Roche which I highly recommend.
It's a beautiful beautiful book just to open up and read and have as your daily meditation.
So how it's going to work is I'm going to read a sutra.
If you have the book we're reading number 13 of the Yukti verses page 48 but even whether you have a book or not I highly recommend going within,
Closing your eyes and just listening inside and allowing that soul part of us that part of us that has connection to Vijnana to hear this.
So we're going to read this we're going to ponder them and talk about them then we're going to have a discussion and then we're going to do a meditation and then we're going to read them again and then we'll close.
So that's our our journey for today.
All right let's close our eyes,
Breathe deeply,
Really feel your belly expand as you inhale,
Contract as you exhale,
Lift your hands and with a gesture turn aside all the forces of the outer world,
Attend to the vibrancy within.
Let the fingers lightly touch and bless eyes,
Ears,
Nostrils,
Mouth,
All the entrances to the head.
Invite attention to be within the skin and cherish the quiet shimmer of vital energies.
When you notice an inner gateway,
Enter with love as one coming home.
As the surge of light substance rises,
Follow it up into the space between the eyebrows where it breaks out as an orgasm of light.
What words float through your mind hearing that?
What feelings do you get?
Breath a tide of love,
I am home.
Quiet shimmer of energy as one coming home,
Releasing the powerful third eye energy.
Travel through third eye tunnel,
Going within,
I am.
Absorbing the shimmering vibrancy within and knowing I am home.
I'm curious why the energy comes out of the third eye and not the crown.
I have a couple of interpretations that we can play with.
Our senses are gateways.
Focus on sending this beautiful energy up and out to expand from the light of my soul out into the endless universe.
Energy is moving up from the spine to the third eye.
Well let's talk about the energy first and the light.
So I have another book called the Sri Vijnana Bhairava Tantra,
The Ascent by Swami Satya Sangananda Saraswati.
He has a much more literal translation of this.
He says,
By using the hands to block the entrances in all directions,
The eyebrow center is pierced and bindu or light is seen.
Being gradually absorbed within that,
The supreme state is realized.
So in a moment we're going to talk about what they mean about using the hands to block the entrances of the body.
But this is part of the journey,
Is actually blocking the senses from the outside world,
Bringing all of our attention within,
Experiencing the divine energy flowing through within us.
And then this energy rises up through the chakras,
The kundalini,
Up into the third eye.
Now what's interesting is they talk about this bindu.
And the bindu is actually a spot.
So if you imagine the crown chakra right on top of the head,
And if you follow your hands back,
Like almost if you were to put your hands on,
If you put your pinky finger on the crown chakra and kind of bring your hand,
Your fingers back around where your index finger would lie,
That's the bindu chakra.
It's not one of the normal chakras we talk about,
But it's another chakra.
And it's a spot where sometimes you might see Brahmin priests,
They shave their head,
But they'll just leave this little tuft of hair right there at the back,
At the top of the crown,
The back of the top of the head.
And this bindu is a place where the psychic experiences mix with the spiritual.
And the idea is that if we can bring this energy up to the third eye,
And we can release ourselves from the three-dimensional,
The duality of life,
Whatever it is that our mind is mixing and chewing on,
We will see this light emanating emanating at the bindu.
And at this bindu,
This light,
It begins as a point,
And then it starts to expand.
And then it literally,
This is this orgasm of light that Lauren Roche is talking about,
That when we can focus here in the third eye,
This light appears in the bindu,
And it just starts to shower,
It starts to flow out from all around us,
And it expands into all of eternity.
I'm actually going to read you a little piece about that,
Because I like the way they said it.
Actually,
I'll read the whole part that they say here.
Bindu is the twilight zone where psychic experience turns into spiritual experience.
From this level,
One gazes at both experiences,
But the focus here is spiritual.
And this is interesting.
As the awareness,
As us,
Our awareness,
Perceives bindu,
It is pulled toward the light emanating from it.
So just feel that for a second.
If you close your eyes,
And you imagine all the energy of your body flowing up the chakras,
Up the center shushmana,
Into the third eye,
And now your attention looks back towards the bindu on the back screen of the skull kind of idea.
And as you see this light,
Your attention is drawn toward it.
It's not effortful.
We're just drawn towards this light.
At first,
The light appears as a point,
And gradually,
It grows bigger until it absorbs and illumines everything.
In that absorption,
The supreme state is realized.
At first,
The light appears as a point,
And gradually,
It grows bigger until it absorbs and illumines everything.
In that absorption,
The supreme state is realized.
So if you imagine the psychic energies that they're talking about,
The psyche is normally considered to be the mind or the brain.
It's this incredible processing unit we've been given to navigate the world,
To navigate the senses.
So if you imagine,
If I see something,
The light bounces off of something,
Sends a frequency,
A wave of frequency into my eyes.
My eyes send a message to the brain,
The psyche.
It interprets the world around me.
Or if I hear things,
The frequency wave comes into my ear.
Those beautiful little mechanisms in our ear send a message to the brain,
And the brain translates to us,
Ah,
That is the sound of a dog.
That is the sound of walking on snow.
So the psyche helps us interpret the world around us.
The processing of the psyche,
I mean,
There's a lot of discussion about this,
Whether it happens in the third chakra in the gut or whether it happens through our whole body.
But in this instance,
When we talk about the energy in the third eye,
In this area in the brain,
The brain is heavily used to interpret the world around us through the senses.
So the journey of this sutra is to actually consciously block the senses so all of our energy goes within.
Our psyche is no longer needed to interpret the world around us.
So therefore,
The energies of our upper chakras can then be used to experience the subtle energies within us.
It's kind of like we hear the loudest thing first,
And if we're surrounded by loud things all the time,
Or bright lights,
Or really strong smells,
Or really strong tastes,
Or you know,
If we,
If our senses are very overloaded,
We easily will miss the subtleties of life.
And this is going to be part of our meditation,
Is actually blocking out all the senses so that our inner psyche can rest,
And all of this energy can then be focused on experiencing this inner light.
Do you think that might be the tunnel of light people with near death experiences describe?
Ooh,
Maybe,
I don't know.
That's interesting.
I am that same beautifully bright perfect energy.
I just have to tune into it and realize I'm not separate.
Exactly.
Katrina.
Having a revelation over here,
My practice has been eyelids closed,
Sitting facing the sun.
I feel the light penetrating my skin.
And as I dissolve,
I begin seeing through my eyelids from within.
It's like I see everything outside the window without the edges.
That's beautiful.
And before we begin,
Or before I talk about the meditation we're going to do,
I want to talk about the idea of self realization,
That many,
Many,
Many people in the world,
Easily the majority of people aren't living in a state of self realization.
We are super focused on what does that person think?
What does that person want of me?
What does that person expect?
You know,
What does that person believe?
What does society think?
What does the church believe?
What does the family want?
We're very focused externally.
And the biggest reason is that we are not connected to our true self.
You know,
Sometimes they'll talk about in tantric meditations,
They'll talk about,
You know,
If you observe a sunrise,
It's really easy to get completely absorbed in the sunrise,
We gaze upon the sunrise.
And this is a meditation technique unto itself,
But we gaze upon the sunrise,
And we become identified with the sunrise.
But we forget about the person watching the sunrise,
We become completely focused on the object of our senses,
And we forget the subject that's watching.
So imagine you can be absorbed in the sunrise,
But you can also observe the sunrise from your infinite experience,
And bring that awareness to you watching the sunrise that you don't get lost in it.
So now imagine us in life.
That's kind of a very romantic idea,
Right?
That that could be a meditation of becoming absorbed in a sunrise.
But now imagine us on a day to day basis,
That thing over there,
I am,
I am absorbed in my work.
I'm absorbed in taking care of the dog.
I'm absorbed in taking care of the children.
I'm absorbed in driving to work.
I'm absorbed in this show I'm watching on Netflix.
I'm absorbed in everything.
So my entire existence becomes object oriented.
I lose myself the same way as I lose myself gazing at the sunset.
So in many ways,
Because we are so absorbed in all the things we're observing out in the world,
We have no sense of self.
And so therefore,
All the things in the world control us.
I become obsessed with what my partner thinks.
I become obsessed with what my parents think.
I become obsessed with what the neighbors think.
And I forget that I'm a person.
I am an infinite being having an experience here.
I am observing the flower.
I am observing the dog.
I am observing the response of my parents.
I am observing the response of my partner.
This is self realization,
That I am a place of great wisdom.
I am having an experience here on earth.
And all these things are part of it.
And all these people are part of it.
But they're not me.
My mother is not me.
My partner is not me.
So therefore their opinions and thoughts are not mine.
And they don't override me.
And this is a very interesting thing.
And it's a huge part of this particular teaching,
That if we can shut down,
Even for a moment,
Even to do it for five minutes a day,
And practice one of the eight limbs of yoga,
Pratyahara,
To withdraw from the world,
Withdraw our senses from the world.
And it's not about escaping the world.
It's about remembering the infinite self that's inside,
Right?
It's about remembering the self.
So that when we go out in the world,
We remember that I am a self having this conversation with this other person.
I am a self driving my car.
The traffic doesn't own me.
This other person doesn't own me.
My work doesn't own me,
Because I am a person.
And once we have that self-realization,
Once we realize that,
We've talked about it,
Like in our talks about satya,
You know,
Once I have that I am moment,
People don't bother us the same.
And it's not that we become insensitive.
We just are very clear that,
Well,
They are on their path.
And these are their opinions and their perceptions.
I am on my path.
And these are my opinions and my perceptions.
We don't get overridden by other people,
Because we too are strong,
You know,
And then we have incredible peace inside.
And we all of a sudden,
All kinds of possibilities open up.
Because the world,
The sensory world out there,
Including all the people in it,
They're not us.
I'm not lost in the experience of the relationship of my parents.
I'm not lost in the need to go to work.
I'm not lost in the responsibilities of raising children.
I am an incarnate being raising children on planet Earth.
Isn't that interesting?
I am an incarnate being born into a very curious family with a lot of strong opinions and curious actions.
It doesn't take away from anybody.
It doesn't make anybody wrong.
It's not judgmental or anything like that.
It's just this awareness of this rich landscape inside of us puts everything into perspective.
So we're going to do a meditation.
And the meditation is,
It's in the Sutra.
When they talk about lifting the hands,
It's interesting.
The first line,
When I first read this,
I didn't know.
I hadn't done my research and things yet.
And it said,
Lift your hands and with a gesture,
Turn aside all the forces of the outer world.
Attend to the vibrancy within.
And when I read that,
I had this gone with the wind moment.
You know,
When Vivian Lee's character,
She puts her hand to her forehead and she says,
I shall think about that tomorrow.
And so when I read this,
Lift your hands and with a gesture,
Turn aside the forces of the outside world.
That's what I thought.
I was just like,
Enough with all of you with a sweeping arm.
And I still think this is valid,
Although upon further research,
That's not what they meant.
But the beautiful thing about hearing a Sutra is you get to interpret it however resonates with you.
Whatever brings you closer to your inner truth,
Your spiritual experience,
That is a correct interpretation.
And ironically,
When I go away from this class and this Sutra,
That is how I will interpret this Sutra.
Enough with all of you.
I am going within.
That's my inner interpretation of this,
Which is why I highly recommend whatever resonates with you is all that matters.
I will present many things about this,
But it's not what matters to you.
What they really meant was a very specific mudra called Shanmukhi mudra.
And Shanmukhi mudra uses all the fingers to block the senses in the head.
And so your pinkies,
If you hold your hands up and you put your pinkies under your lower lip,
And then you put your ring fingers on your upper lip,
And you put your middle finger on the bridge of your nose,
And then you put your index fingers on your eyes,
And then you put your thumbs on your ears.
This is called Shanmukhi mudra.
And this is what the meditation we're going to do.
And there's many ways to use this mudra.
And this is a,
It's an ancient,
Beautiful mudra.
And we don't have to use it to actually block out the world.
Like it's not like we're going to block out the world.
We're going to block out the world.
Like it's not like we're going to stop breathing.
And I recommend trying this later without the recording or without being here in class.
Because of course,
When you actually block your ears,
You can't hear and you can't hear me and you can't hear me guiding you and you can't hear the recording and all that.
But for you to actually sit quietly,
And maybe do this breath,
As I'll explain in a moment,
For maybe 10 breaths,
Or maybe just sit there until you don't want to sit there anymore.
Because you really can block out all the external world.
And this is a very powerful thing.
It's not just powerfully physically,
Because we're blocking our ears and blocking our closing our mouth and closing our eyes.
And you can stop the breath,
Which we'll talk about.
But there's something metaphysical about it.
When we have our hands in this mudra,
It's like we are sending a message to our body and mind that I can release the world for a while and attend to my inner self.
I can listen within,
I can listen to the subtleties within,
Even when the world is crazy,
Even when the world is like a hurricane or a tornado of chaos.
All of that is just part of my existence here,
But it is not me.
It's just the world around me.
And so the very act of placing,
And if you struggle with this,
If you struggle with a lot of external stimulus that just kind of drives you crazy and makes your mind fly on a million things,
This might be a beautiful meditation to do every day for a month,
Even for five minutes or for 10 breaths or for 20 breaths.
And just to reprogram the mind,
Because especially as children,
If we were raised that we had to be hypervigilant about the moods of our parents,
The moods of our siblings,
Maybe even the mood of the society or the town or the city we lived in,
We had to be so vigilant focusing externally.
This can really blow our empathic ability out of the water because we actually become hyper-focused on things that don't matter or that shouldn't matter.
So to actually practice sending a message to ourselves that I have a rich world inside of me,
Only my senses are picking up the outside world.
I can shut that down if I choose,
And I can swim in the ocean within,
And then I can return to the world.
So this is a very,
Very beautiful mudra,
And it will bring incredible peace inside.
Again,
It's more than just the breath,
It's more than just the electrical channels that the mudra creates.
It's a metaphysical shift inside that says,
I will release the world outside,
And I will dive into the depths within.
Depths within,
Right?
I'm not escaping the world into nothingness.
I'm escaping the very highly distractible world out there and coming in to the infinity that lives within the subtle realms inside of me.
So when you practice this on your own,
There's two different,
Well there's many different ways you can do it,
But two of the ways I'd like to mention.
The first way is the way we're going to do this in our practice today,
Where all we're going to do is actually listen to the breath inside of us.
We're just going to become aware of the subtleties going on within our bodies.
The second way,
Which is also very interesting,
What you would do is you would practice suspended breathing.
So you would take a deep breath in,
Expanding the belly as always,
And then at the top of the breath you would suspend the breath and hold it.
And you would hold it for as long as you can,
As is comfortable.
It's not like Olympics or something.
And then you would exhale.
Then you would inhale,
Suspend the breath,
And exhale.
If you do that,
You don't do this if you're pregnant.
If you have questions about cardiovascular health or heart problems or things like that,
Definitely maybe google Shanmukhi Mudra and just see if there's any contraindications.
So that's why in today I just want to do normal breathing.
It's a beautiful practice anyway.
All right,
So come to a comfortable seated position.
You could do this lying down,
As long as your lungs were open to breathe,
As long as your belly can expand and contract.
We're going to do the meditation and then I'm going to read the sutra in Sanskrit and then I'm going to read it in English.
And then we're going to sit quietly for a moment and then we're going to come back together.
So let's come to our comfortable position,
Maybe sitting cross-legged,
Sitting on your heels,
Sitting on a chair,
Lying on a bed or a floor,
Whatever is comfortable for you.
And let's just breathe for a moment.
When we breathe,
As we inhale,
We always want to expand the belly,
Expand the ribs,
Expand the upper chest,
Relaxing as we exhale,
Really coming into that breathing and allowing it to be easy.
You don't have to extend it or make it long or anything like that.
We just want to allow the belly to breathe and expand as we inhale,
Because sometimes we breathe opposite,
Which we definitely want to correct.
So then we're going to bring our hands up to our face and you're going to place your pinky finger below your lip,
Your ring finger above your upper lip,
Your middle finger at the bridge of the nose,
The index fingers on your eyes,
And your thumbs on your ears.
You're going to bring your elbows back and up,
Really straighten your spine,
Tuck your chin in a little bit.
Be very gentle touching the eyes,
You're not pressing,
Just gently touching,
Like a suggestion.
We're not plugging the nostrils or anything like that,
We're just touching the bridge of the nose.
And for now,
We're going to leave our ears a little bit open.
You can kind of plug them to muffle the sound a little bit,
And later when you practice on your own,
Plug your ears so that you actually get rid of all sound.
But for the ease of us doing this together and being able to hear instruction,
Just muffle the sound a little bit.
So sitting nice and tall,
I'm not going to talk too much,
But what I'd like you to do is just notice your breath.
Notice your breath moving inside of your body.
Notice any sensations in your body,
Even feelings of discomfort,
Warmth,
Coldness.
Maybe be aware of your heart beating.
Notice the movement of the lungs,
Expanding and contracting.
Notice the feeling in the back of the throat.
Visualize the blood flowing through your body,
The lymphatic fluid,
Prana,
The life force,
The oxygen flowing to every cell with every breath.
In some interpretations,
The word yoga means to put on armor.
Imagine we block the sensory organs,
The eyes,
Nose,
Ears,
Mouth,
And there's a gentle armor that protects our inner world.
Beginning in the first chakra,
Where you're sitting or at the base of your spine,
Feel the energy flowing there.
And even if you don't feel anything particular,
Imagine swirling energy in your pelvis,
The energy of life,
The village,
Family,
Community,
Nature.
Feel this energy swirling in the first chakra.
Feel it within.
Feel yourself experiencing this aspect of the world.
And then moving up a couple inches below the navel into the second chakra,
And witness yourself experiencing other people.
But they're all out there in the sensory world,
And you are in the center,
And you are experiencing them.
Then coming up a few inches above the navel,
This is who you are.
This is your soul's journey,
The reason you are here.
And even if you have no words for it,
Connect with it anyway.
Connect with that sense of self,
The things that bring you joy,
The things that are easy for you.
Coming up to the heart center in the chest,
Feel yourself at the center of all you love,
Whether you love enchiladas or coffee or sunshine or puppy dogs or climbing mountains or resting with a nice book.
Feel yourself in the center of all that love.
Moving up into the throat chakra,
Feel yourself sharing,
Expressing who you are through gentle words,
Through strong words,
Through art,
Through writing,
Through dance,
Through movement.
Feel yourself in the center.
And then flowing up to the third eye,
Allowing all of that duality to merge together into this oneness of who you are,
Your insight,
Your ability to see the universe,
To hear guidance.
Breathe deeply here.
If you feel any pressure,
Just breathe deeply and let it dissipate through the body,
Through the skull.
And then imagine from that third eye point,
You look into the back of your skull to the bindu,
Like a movie screen,
And you see a point of light and you're drawn to this light.
And every part of you wants to move towards this light,
Breathing deeply,
Feeling that light expanding,
Gently expanding through the skull,
Out into your aura,
Out into the room around you.
And feel yourself merging with this light.
Kara rudha drish astrena,
Bhru vidad dvara,
Rodhanat.
Dirshti bindau,
Kramat leni,
Tadmaya paramah sthiti.
Lift your hands and with a gesture,
Turn aside all the forces of the outer world.
Attend to the vibrancy within.
Let the fingers lightly touch and bless eyes,
Ears,
Nostrils,
Mouth,
All the entrances to the head.
Invite attention to be within the skin and cherish the quiet shimmer of vital energies.
When you notice an inner gateway,
Enter with love as one coming home.
As the surge of light substance rises,
Follow it up into the space between the eyebrows where it breaks out as an orgasm of light.
Gently with your eyes closed,
Release your hands down into your lap with your palms facing up.
And let's just breathe for a moment and allow this to flow through us.
And let's take a deep breath in together and exhale and let's come back together.
Thank you guys so much for being here.
We'll see you guys later.
