Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Vijanabhairava Tantra




The Radiance Sutras:
a zesty life-affirming approach to meditation
Lorin Roche, Ph.D.




One day The Goddess sang to her lover Bhairava,
Beloved and radiant Lord of the space before birth,
Revealer of essence,
Slayer of the ignorance that binds us,
You, who in play have created this universe
and permeated all forms in it with never-ending truth.
I have been wondering . . .
I have been listening to the songs of creation,
I have heard the sacred sutras being sung,
and yet still I am curious.
What is this delight-filled universe
into which we find ourselves born?
What is this mysterious awareness shimmering
everywhere within it?
What are these instinctive energies
that undulate through our bodies,
moving us into action?
And this “matter” out of which our forms are made -
What are these dancing particles of condensed radiance,
Are they an illusionist’s projection?
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?
Beloved, my attention is ensnared by a myriad of forms,
the innumerable individual entities everywhere.
Lead me into the wholeness beyond all these parts.
You, who hold the mysteries in your hand -
of will, knowledge and action,
Reveal to me the path of illumined knowing.
Lead me into joyous union
with the life of the universe.
Teach me that I may know it fully,
realize it deeply,
and breathe in the truth of it.

1.


The One Who is Intimate to All Beings said,

Beloved, your questions require the answers that come

through direct living experience.



The way of experience begins with a breath

such as the breath you are breathing now.

Awakening into the luminous reality

may dawn in the momentary throb

between any two breaths.


The breath flows in and just before it turns

to flow out,

there is a flash of pure joy -

life is renewed.

Awaken into that.


As the breath is released and flows out,

there is a pulse as it turns to flow in.

In that turn, you are empty.

Enter that emptiness as the source of all life.


2.


Radiant one,


The life essence carries on its play

through the pulsing rhythm

of outward and inward movement.

This is the ceaseless throb, the rhythm of life -

terrifying in its eternity, exquisite in its constancy.


The inhalation, the return movement of breath,

sustains life.

The outgoing breath

purifies life.

We breathe out the old air, the old thoughts, the old feelings.


These are the two poles

between which respiration goes on unceasingly.

Between them is every quality you could ever desire.


As the breath turns from in to out,

and again as the breath

curves from out to in -

through both these turns, absorb intensity.


3.


Enter these turning points

In the play of respiration and expiration,

Where the rhythms of life transform

Into each other.


Breath flows in, then surrenders to flow out again.

In this moment, drink eternity.


Breath flows out, emptying, emptying,

Offering itself to infinity.


Cherishing these moments,

Mind dissolves into heart,

Heart dissolves into space,

Body becomes a shimmering field

Pulsating between emptiness and fullness..


4.


In any quiet moment when you are breathing,

the breath may flow out and pause of itself,

or flow in and pause of itself.

There experience opens into an exquisite vastness

with no beginning and no end.


Embrace that infinity without reservation.

Dive into it, drink deeply of it and emerge renewed.


5.


Follow the path of the radiant life force

as she flashes upward like lightning

through your body.


Attend simultaneously

to the perineum, that bright place between the legs,

to the crown of the skull,

and to that shining star-place above the head.


Notice how this living electricity becomes ever more subtle

as she rises, radiant as the morning sun

until she streams outward from

the top of the head into all-embracing gratitude.


Thus become intimate with the life of all beings.


6.


Or trace the river of life that flows through you,

the luxuriously rising energies,

Gradually kissing each of the centers along the spine,

Savor each particle of color along the way.


Enter each area tenderly, loving as you go

and then finally, gently

dissolving in the crown of the head.


7.


Let your attention glide

Through the centers of awareness along the spine

with adoring intent.


There is a song to each area of the body.

Listen to these sounds resonating in sweet vortexes,

long rhythmic vowels.


Ah . . . .

and Eee . . . .

Hummmm . . .


resonating on and on.


Listen to these as sounds,

then more subtly as an underlying hum,

eventually as most subtle feeling.


Then diving more deeply,

expand into freedom.


8.


Rest the attention easily in the forehead,

in the eye that is made of light.

Follow the flow of breath outward from there

into the spaciousness before you.

Tenderly permeate that spaciousness.


Awakening attention notices it is on a bridge,

outside the little house of the skull.

Extending not only outward, but upward,

into the radiant space above . . .


Set free to travel the bridge, the small self

enters a radiant omnipresence.

This it remembers, and knows as its truth.


Gradually the luminosity of that truth

fills the body to overflowing

as it rises through the crown of the head

into a shower of light.


9.


Embrace each of your senses in turn,


Seeing as being touched by light.

Hearing as immersion in an ocean of sound.

Tasting as enlightening.

Smelling as knowing.

Touching as electrifying.


Then leave all these behind,

and be intimate with the unknowable.


10.


Whenever the attention rests on anything -

on the emptiness of space,

looking at a vast blue sky,

when looking on a wall

or some wonderful person,

let that attention gradually be absorbed into itself,

so that the one who is paying attention be known.


11.


Inside the skull there is a place

where the essences of creation play and mingle -

the ecstatic light of awareness

and the awareness of that light.

The divine feminine and masculine

sport with one another in that place.

The light of their love-play illumines all space.


Rest in that light

ever present,

and gradually awaken into the steady joy of

that which is always everywhere.


12.


There is a current of love-energy that flows

between Earth below and the Sun above.


The central channel of the spine is the riverbed.

The streaming is as delicate and powerful

as the tingling touch of lovers.


Entering there,

radiance arches between the above and the below.


The whole attention resting in the nerve,

tingling delicately in the center of the spinal column,

tracing that current between earth and sun,

become magnetism relating all the worlds.


13.


Lift your hands, and with a thought, let the hands become

magical weapons, divine shields

that turn aside all the energies of the outer world.


Spread the fingers over the eyes,

covering the ears

the nostrils, the mouth,

and abandon yourself to the space inside you.

Enter the vital energies thus contained within.

As the charge builds,

lovingly and fiercely

plunge into the inner centers.


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.


14.


The light that sparks into being when the eyes blink

is witnessed by the single eye between the brows.

That eye is the place where the elements merge -

all the elements of your being.


Consider how lightly the eyelids touch the eyes

with each blink.

That lightly, place the fingers over the eyelids,

and become aware of the space between these two exquisite centers of seeing.

There is the singular eye, which sees into a different world.


With this eye, you can see very well

by the light of the inner fire.

The fire that is always flowing up the channel,

the medial channel of the spine.

Enter the core of any spark of that fire.


Be rooted in your heart, connect even to the tips of your hairs,

and attend the birthing of the light within you.


15.


Bathe deeply in that ocean of sound

which is even now vibrating within you,

resonating softly,

permeating the space of the heart.


The ear that is tuned by rapt listening

learns to hear the song of creation.


First like a hand bell,

then subtler like a flute,

then subtler still as a stringed instrument,

eventually as the buzz of a bee.

Entering this current of sound, the Listening One

forgets the external world, and becomes

absorbed into internal sound,

and then absorbed in vastness

like the song of the stars as they shine.


16.


Hum a sound,

such as ahhhhh . . . uuuuuuu . . . mmmmmm,

or hreeeeemmmm, or eemmm,

or even the sound hum itself.

Bathe in the sound with infinite leisure . . .


As the sound fades

into an imperceptible hum,

it will carry you

into the hum of the universe.


17.


Think of any vowel, they are all delicious.

Savor that sound with reverence,

attend to where it comes from within you,

and where it goes to when it fades away.


Discover what gradualness is.


Learn to relish each minute variation.

As you feel the full range of sound, layer upon layer,

the power of sound

will teach you the power of being.


18.


Listen with total attention

to the sounds of stringed instruments.


When performed with grace,

each note appears to rise out of eternity

and disappear back into it.


When the music ends,

stay with the echo of the music

reverberating inside you,

and as the reverberation fades away into silence

go with it.


19.


Lightly begin a sound,

saying it audibly,

and then gradually, less and less audibly.


Continuing thus, it eventually sounds only internally.

Listening to the sound as it goes on resounding within,

let it continue as of itself.


Then it becomes just a thought, a remembered hum.


Then as even the echo of that hum fades away,

be intimate with the silence that is the home of all music.


20.



The emptiness of space permeates the body

and all directions simultaneously.

Space is always there,

already there before your noticing of it.

What we call space is a presence that is a more solid foundation than the firmest granite. Space is permission to exist and worlds within which to express.


Without thinking about it,

without forming mental images of it,

rest in this vast expanse

and become friends with infinity.



21.



Attend simultaneously

to the space below the body

and the space above the body,

as emptiness itself.


If you can tolerate the nothingness,

the ecstatic energy of that emptiness will surge

through you and carry you

into the world beyond all thought.


22



Consider vast spaciousness as permeating

above your head, below your tailbone,

and within your heart simultaneously.


In this, find complete freedom to exist.


23.


Forget all of your ideas about the body -

it's this way and it's that way.

And just be with any area of it,

this present body

as permeated with limitless space.

Drenched in freedom.


24.


Contemplate the constituents of the body -

muscles and blood and breath and bones

as made out of radiantly dancing emptiness.


Consider the body as permeated with

the essence of the universe, the unendingly generous givingness of space.


Practice this and life will reveal to you

the wonder of becoming steady

in the radiance that is consciousness.


25.


Attend to the skin

as a subtle boundary containing vastness.


Enter that shimmering and pulsing vastness,

discover that you are not separate from anything there,

and there is no other,

no object to meditate upon that is not you.


26


The One Who is at Play Everywhere said,


There is a place in the heart where everything meets.

Go there if you want to find me.

Mind, senses, soul, eternity, all are there.

Are you there?


Enter the bowl of vastness that is the heart.

Give yourself to it with total abandon.


Quiet ecstasy is there -

and a steady, regal sense of resting in a perfect spot.


Once you know the way

the nature of attention will call you

to return, again and again,

and be saturated with knowing,

“I belong here, I am at home here.”


Answer that call.


27.


Put the attention into the luminous connections

between each of the centers throughout the body.


The base of the spine and the top of the skull,

The genitals and the heart!

The heart and the throat,

the throat and the forehead,

the forehead to the top of the head . . .


Attend to the current of relationship

electrifying, ever-pulsating, richly textured,

between each of these and every other.


Then attend simultaneously to resonance of all with all.


Enter that glowing net of light

with the focus born of awe

and even your bones will know enlightenment.


28.


Return again and again to savoring

the space between breaths.

Learn to delight in each momentary turn.


Rest the attention in your blessed core

as you practice this,

and continually be born into a new and fresh world.



29.


Live continuously for a few days

in the meditation,

“I am immersed in the flame, the flame of Life.

The universal fire flows through me without resistance.”


Step into that fire fully, wholeheartedly,

starting with the toe of the right foot -

and then surrendering everywhere.


Only the not-self, which doesn't exist anyway, is burned.

Your essence will emerge renewed in the flame,

for it already is flame and knows itself as flame

since the dawn of time.


30.


See the entire world as being consumed by flames.

Stay steady and do not waver

as the flames devour everything.


As the objects of the world all dissolve into light,

the subjective world emerges as infinite.


31.


Experience the substance of the body and the world

as made up of vibrating particles,

and these particles made up of

even finer energy particles.


Drifting more deeply,

feel into each particle

as it condenses from infinity

and dissolves back into it

continuously.


Noticing this, breathe easily

with infinity dancing everywhere.


32.

 Lying in bed, with the gentlest of breaths

centered in the forehead,


fall in to the center of the heart

as you fall asleep.

Thus fall into freedom as you dream.





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