Transmission Through Love: Radiance Sutras Verses 158-159

So today we are reading from the Radiant Sutras and the Radiant Sutras is a beautiful interpretation of an ancient tantric text called the Vijnana Bhairava Tantra and the goal of the text is to help us live in a state where we are living in the world but within every cell of our body we also remember the wonder that we are the divine self the divinity the spark of light whatever it is we are that we live in this constant remembering of that while we have conversations and drive to work and go to the movies you know there's three parts of this book the first are the banter verses where it's a conversation between Devi and Bhairava or the human and the divine within each of us our own human self and our divine self and then there are 112 verses that are practices some are contemplations some are meditations and some are just practices for life and the idea is that you could do any one of these practices for a time and they would transform you they aren't just something that we intellectually learn that if we truly do the practice we change and we change in the way that our personality becomes infused with wisdom we expand ourselves and this is really important especially for what we're going to talk about today and then after the 112 practices are the insight verses where they're sort of bringing it all together it's sort of like that okay so now we've studied all of the practices how do we bring them out into the world or should we bring them out into the world or how do we integrate them into our own lives and that's where we are now today we're doing verses 158 and 159 and even if you're new it's all good because it's still all applicable to whatever spiritual path you're on whatever healing empowerment path you're on it's all still applicable but we do have a playlist here on insight timer under my profile called the radiant sutras where you can go back and listen to previous classes and today is recorded so it will be uploaded in a few days as well okay you guys ready let's close our eyes for a moment let's just breathe deeply and just allowing ourselves to come into this moment just releasing our wonderful conversation whatever it is we were thinking about 10 minutes ago let's just let that go let new oxygen come into the body new prana new ideas a new presence and tap into that part of you that is eternal that knows share these teachings with all generous hearted people who come your way and ask when you meet someone whose heart is vibrating with the flow of love let your words and energies be free as you're breathing and so this is part of a bigger conversation about do you share this with other people and the previous sutra essentially said don't go out and share this with everybody it's not for everyone sometimes our personal journey is just for us it's just a personal path this is what we talked about last week and sometimes sharing it with others can belittle our true experience so then this sutra comes on next and says however share these teachings with all generous hearted people who come your way and ask when you meet someone whose heart is vibrating with the flow of love let your words and energies be free as you're breathing what does that feel like to you you know have you had experiences like that where it's so wondrous to talk about and share what you're experiencing what you're learning you know what does that feel like say versus trying to explain it to somebody who doesn't really care or is super judgmental about it it's different eh so this is an interesting sutra it makes for a very rich conversation if you're on the same vibration i've experienced both totally so these sutras there's about five of them that all go together that we're we're looking at over the course of three different talks and lauren roche who wrote radiant sutras who i have immense respect for he made a decision it seems to expand in a very modern way about what the original sutra said because the original sutra which i'll read in a moment was very rooted in the ancient times and maybe doesn't necessarily apply today especially in 2025 and so i'm just going to read a literal translation of these two sutras because this is very different and so we're going to look at the different one and talk about it for a little bit and then i think it makes a lot of sense why lauren interpreted the way that he did so here's 158 these teachings should not be disclosed to other disciples to those who are evil and cruel or to those who have not surrendered to the feet of a guru they should only be revealed to advanced souls who are self-controlled and whose minds are free of the kalpas a vikalpa is a thought form in this instance it actually means more like to someone whose mind is flip-flopping all the time oscillating from one belief to another that's actually what it means in this context i'm actually going to shift to another translation because these are these particular verses are kind of uh kind of interesting okay this translation the reason i'm jumping around is because every different literal translation groups all of these in different groupings they say oh you should read 157 to 160 altogether oh no no you should read 158 to 159 they all are jumping all around and they all have their own intentions so now i'm going to read to you the in the literal translation of 157 which we did last week all the way to 159 of today oh goddess i have explained to you this teaching which leads to the highest immortal state this should never be revealed to anyone and everyone particularly to those pupils who belong to another tradition who are mischievous cruel and wanting in devotion to their spiritual teachers teachers on the contrary this teaching should be imparted without the least hesitation to those whose minds are free from oscillating opinions to veras to magnanimous ones and to those who are devoted to the line of spiritual teachers vera is often interpreted as hero but in this translation they actually mean they should be taught to people who have self-control so again this is very different than than lauren's interpretation he basically didn't say don't teach it to those people don't teach it to cruel and bad people and mischievous people he didn't even go there he just said teach it to gentle people teach it to people who want to know but i do want to address the literal translation of this because sometimes we feel like you know that when when in ancient traditions when they would hide teachings sometimes we can think and i and i have certainly thought this in the past oh wow it's just you know the powers that be hiding it from the common people like how wrong is that they can't just hide things they can't keep things to themselves that's not okay but i have to say that as i have studied and practiced and and and explored the tantric traditions the yogic traditions the spiritual traditions i'm starting to understand that they weren't hiding them they were sharing them with people as they were ready and there's a really good reason for this when spiritual teachings are simply shared with everyone which today in 2025 is common it's on youtube it's here on insight timer the books are available to everybody spiritual teachings from yogis and gurus from centuries ago i mean you can still watch them on you know very bad video but you can hear all the teachings ancient teachings are being pulled out of reserves and being translated into english those teachings in the wrong hands cause trouble and that's why they're saying no don't just keep it from the common man they're saying keep it from mischievous and wrong people and i know that sounds judgmental but it's something that i'm sure everyone here has seen you know there's a wonderful teaching you know non-violent communication nvc i i personally have not studied it but i know a lot of people who teach it and love it and essentially i understand the spirit of it to be we have lived in such a combative time for so long every word out of our mouth ends up being an accusation and it causes us to be to push away from each other how can we have conversation from a heart space how can i say things like instead of saying you're such a jerk i can say i really feel abandoned when you say that it's a very beautiful teaching in the right hands many people have felt this non-violent communication teaching in the hands of people with narcissistic tendencies now all of a sudden if you really want to control someone you use something like nvc you can use it against them so suddenly like this happened to me i had a a friend who he he had some unconscious issues he was pretty angry and he did some really rotten things to me and i said to him i said this is not okay and so what i did is i distanced myself from him and he was like why are you distancing yourself from him from me and i said because that was really rotten what you did well he was like you can't say that you have to use an i statement you have to talk about how it affected you because if you see it in me then it's obviously in you and i looked at him and i said no you were rude that was rude this isn't about me and oh he's like it's probably because of your dad and your debt you're feeling judged because you were judged by your father and everything then it was really interesting to kind of sit with him and say it isn't about me it was rude what you did and he couldn't you know it became a huge fight between us it was a really or a huge distance between us that lasted for a long time but this is where and you hear it all the time where people have have heard a teaching like well if i see it in someone else it has to be inside of me that is not the way the teaching goes that's been twisted if i am walking around the world and seeing i believe that everyone is angry or everyone is doing something that is that they feel guilty about after a while i may notice a pattern and think i wonder if this is my filter these spiritual teachings always come from within but given to the wrong people they can wield them to control people and there's something about tapping into someone's spirituality that makes people very vulnerable and to noni's point it can create like a cult following and i i've seen it in so many communities intentional communities tantric communities yogic communities where it becomes weird the literal reminds me of don't cast your pearls before swine i always got stuck with that phrase but i like the thought that when you share with those of like vibration your conversation is so much richer and you will dive deeper into it the other is a push to hurt and so there is something interesting about the original translation and of course i think one of the reasons that i don't know this but one thing that strikes me with lauren's interpretation of just going after you know share it with people who are of like mind is we live in the world of the internet now it's out there like it's out there but to carla's point now let's take this into a very personal place where we say don't share your journey with cruel and mean people don't share your intimate self with people who you already know from experience aren't on that path and this is really important and you know they talk about only share with people who are not of oscillating mind or who have how who have surrendered to the guru and again historically you only learned this stuff through a guru there was no internet there were no books in libraries and things that you could just pick up a book and study something we weren't listening to alan watts and all these interesting modern philosophers you only learned it through a guru well if you imagine this just like let's just imagine you've decided for some reason that you want to study a spiritual path because something in you has opened up and you're like there's more to life there's more to life than just money and success and relationships and fitness and politics and whatever it is that we fill our minds with all the time i know that there's more so i'm going to start on a spiritual journey and i'm going to be single-minded about it as well i want to know the truth i want to expand into this vast majority of people around you may not have that desire they haven't placed themselves at the foot of a guru whether it's their inner guru a teaching of a philosophy or anything for whatever reason with no judgment they're living their life and they're happy about it why would we try to tell them about our path what is this weird desire to then go and share it with those people they're not interested in it is it an ego thing that we now want to be the teacher because we think we know something more than them and so now we want to go and convince everybody and like what is that because the reality is it's taking us off our path we're not climbing our mountain anymore very often people seek spiritual paths when they come out of very difficult home lives if our family of origin was very harsh or distant or cruel this is often when we will seek another way because this way doesn't work it's not nice very often these are the last people you want to come and share the teachings with you know of course they're going to beat you down of course they're going to say it's silly of course they are why would we do that now all that being said what is the real way that we share something with others we share it through our presence we share it through our kindness we share it through who we are we don't have to share teachings teachings come to us that whole thing that the when the student is ready the teacher appears very often the most profound teachings are only for us they have nothing to do with anyone else and so then this brings me to the second part when we actually apply this teaching to us not the mean people out there not the judgmental people out there not the oscillating people out there but we look at ourselves about this because we also can do the same thing we might learn a teaching or discover yoga or discover tantra or discover something like this and then all of a sudden we find ourselves becoming more judgmental suddenly it's like oh i can't even tolerate these people anymore they're so impossible as soon as we start actually becoming more judgmental while we're studying we must know that we need to practice in all spiritual teachings we it's like in because the modern world the western world loves being intellectual we think that just learning the practices are enough this is very dangerous because the brain oscillates the mind is filled with fears and judgments and teachings the practices heal the heart the practices change us the practices change how we see the world and very often we will get ahead of ourselves because we get so caught up in the philosophy of it and then all of a sudden we become all high and mighty around other people and i will guarantee that if we feel high and mighty out in the world we are definitely not closer to god we are definitely not closer to our most expansive self because god brahman shiva shakti oneness includes everything the good the bad the ugly it includes everything and when we truly practice the meditations when we practice the kundalini yoga the kriya yoga when we really practice the yoga that changes us that challenges us that heals us that transforms us we start to see people differently suddenly we start to understand who we once considered our oppressors whether they're our parents our partners our children our neighbors whoever bit by bit the more we unpack our own stuff the more compassionate we are for everybody and we suddenly understand mean people and we understand people who attack and we understand people who are defensive and we understand people who are thoughtless because we are no longer a victim of it in our own hearts we're not carrying that karmic story any longer this is really really important like it's easy to look outside and say those people are not ready for this teaching but are we ready for the teaching like are we willing to actually do the practice because if we do the practice we change i teach yoga teacher trainings and it's interesting because sometimes people come like we meet every week you know and people come and they'll say oh i'm just really wrestling with this one thing and you know maybe it's a their husband or something you know it's ah he's driving me crazy and then he just he says these cruel things and he you know i just i just feel so beaten down and okay that's what's going on if that person goes away and does the kriya the yoga kriya every every day by the next week they'll say wow you know this week i'm realizing things about my partner and i'm really i'm really suddenly able to watch myself interacting with them and i'm noticing some really interesting things and then the second week they continue doing the kriya and by the time they come back they're like you know it was interesting you know they he came at me with the same kind of thing he always does but i was able to respond differently and it changed the whole conversation do you know what i mean it's through the practice that we change it's never about changing anyone else ever and if we find ourselves telling a story over and over and over again about that person then that person and that person and that person we have to ask ourselves i think there's something inside of me that i need to look at or open up or something because i'm really emotionally bound here this is what yoga is this is what yoga practice is this is what tantric practice is this is what meditation practice is it's meant to transform us and heal us so that we can feel that expanse of compassion for ourselves and other people and again this is where when when they are saying do not share this with people who are not in a state of oneness with the guru and the guru here can be your highest self can be god divinity whatever that is for you because this is exactly what happened with hatha yoga you take this ancient teaching of transformation the reason the yo the gurus only gave you one practice at a time was because you were meant to do it until you were healed until we had a new perspective and instead yoga became calisthenics it became a stretching program it became acrobatics it became competitive it became leveled that you're a beginner oh you can do a handstand oh you can do full lotus oh you can do this and somehow this got twisted in our minds that this is what yoga is and it ended up bastardizing the true spiritual tradition because there wasn't the proper context there wasn't the proper intention and again hatha yoga can be a beautiful practice you're breathing you're calm you're in a community of beautiful people maybe there's gentle you know lovely kirtan going in the background you're conscious it can be an absolutely wonderful practice you can take hatha yoga with a beautiful yogi who imparts like a transmission of love into the class it can be beautiful but the danger of a tradition like yoga or tantra being shared by people who have an intention outside of a spiritual intention is that the tradition could be minimalized and not passed on to future generations in its wholeness any longer look at tantra tantra is a is is one of my great passions in life this is why we're studying the radiant sutras but most people who have ever heard of tantra what do we think it's about sex long orgasms kinky weird retreats that you go on and do crazy stuff and jump around naked and in some tantric communities it means polyamory and kink and so to the point that i wrote a book once called tales of the tinderverse it was all about dating on tinder and my subtitle was a tantric journey in the world of online dating and a man in europe a friend of mine actually said to me he goes you really shouldn't have said tantrica in the title because everyone's gonna think you're a hooker it's like why would anyone think i'm a hooker but that's the crazy thing that happens if we aren't careful and so the reason i'm saying this and and the the really beautiful takeaway here to me for all of us on a personal path is that if we find ourself on a spiritual journey which i assume everybody here is because we're on insight timer listening to a talk about the radiant sutras so i'm assuming we're all on that path to always go within and access our inner guru our bright light that every single one of us has and remember why we're doing this what is the real context of our practice what is the real context of why we want to study this why do we do yoga why do we meditate really yes it's amazing for healing 100 in our modern day world it's wonderful for regulating the nervous system and opening us up and allowing us to you know calm for sure but it's really more powerful when we tap into that deeper sense of self and when we tap into that deeper sense of self we won't fall prey to allowing this to just be an intellectual exercise that we then want to share with the masses and can and convert and change people's opinions and we'll remember that oh no i want to connect with god i want to connect with my most expansive self i know that there is more here possible and then we will say look through the radiant sutras or do a kind of transformative yoga like kundalini yoga kriya yoga these kinds of things do pranayama there's so much beautiful pranayama here on insight timer i am going to do this every day with the idea that i do want to let go of the things that are limiting me so that i can feel whole so that i can access that divine self inside you know this changes everything that we are not the ones oscillating because this is the other really hard thing that when we share this path with people who really aren't into it doubt enters our mind and when doubt enters our mind it is so easy to get off track especially if we're tired especially if we're having a hard day it's really not worth it and we are not doing the practice and so what i'm going to do because i know some people have joined us a little later i'm going to reread the literal translation just for context of this for this conversation i'm just going to reread the literal translation for a moment okay and you can take it however you want you can interpret it in terms of other sharing with other people you can look at it in sharing it within ourselves in our own personal journey however feels right to you and again this is a literal translation it's not poetic in any way oh goddess i have explained to you this teaching which leads to the highest immortal state this should never be revealed to any and everyone particularly to those pupils who belong to another tradition who are mischievous cruel and wanting in devotion to their spiritual teachers on the contrary this teaching should be imparted without the least hesitation to those whose minds are free from oscillating opinions to viras to magnanimous ones and to those who are devoted to the line of spiritual teachers i would love before i do the reading of ray of lauren's i would love to know your i don't know your summary thoughts on that because this is again very different than what lauren shared with us this week but i would love to know what your takeaway is on the literal translation in your own life you know what would you like to remember after this class awareness can i read it again sure keep the sacred sacred avira is someone who whose mind is self-controlled practice practice practice yes i was staying at a buddhist college retreat 20 years ago every weekend and or for weeks at a time the bikini in charge disclosed to her superior that she was failing falling in her practices and duties she had broken the lineage the whole college retreat was closed and people who had lived there for years lost their home wow sharing my experiences and mindfulness is a slippery slope okay i'm just going to read it one more time or i'm going to read the literal translation for a minute oh goddess i have explained to you this teaching which leads to the highest immortal state this should never be revealed to any and everyone particularly to those pupils who belong to another tradition who are mischievous cruel and wanting in devotion to their spiritual teachers teachers on the contrary this teaching should be imparted without the least hesitation to those whose minds are free from oscillating opinions to viras to magnanimous ones and to those who are devoted to the line of spiritual teachers keeping aware of our intention we should not share teachings with minds that are self-controlled no we should with the show the people with self-controlled we should only share with those who are magnanimous and you know so and who have minds that are self-controlled i'm so grateful to be here because i'm setting boundaries with an oblivious roommate oneness with all things and so then we shift to our wonderful friend lauren and i want to do a little meditation as i share what lauren shared with us okay so let's all close our eyes let's breathe deeply and in your mind's eye i would like you to visualize yourself walking down a peaceful street kind of like a suburban street with sidewalks and trees and houses and there's people every so often you might pass them on your sidewalk or they might see them on the other side and some people are engrossed in whatever their life is all about at that time they're thinking about things they're focused on work they're listening to podcasts they're doing whatever they're doing and you can just look at them and smile be thankful for these other humans around us but every so often you see someone who looks right at you there's kind of a lovely light in their eyes and you smile at them and they smile at you and something passes between you and your whole heart lights up and you feel warm inside and then you continue walking and you see lots of people and people walking their dogs and just living life and then again you see someone walking towards you on the path and they have a certain joy about them and you look at them and you smile at each other and something deepens in your heart um share these teachings with all generous-hearted people who come your way and ask when you meet someone whose heart is vibrating with the flow of love let your words and energies be free as you're breathing let's just breathe that in and in our mind's eye envision our whole community here on insight timer friends new friends and just feel the hearts of everyone here people that you can ask questions of and people who may ask you questions and you can have wonderful joyful discussions with that deepen everyone's understanding and practice and then in your mind's eye see yourself going into your home into your place your sacred place where you sit and you do your practice and you reconnect within and you breathe deeply remembering why you're here and let's come back together well thank you guys so much for being here hope you have a wonderful day