Updated: August 25, 2024
Vigyan Bhairava Tantra. Hello, friends. I'm back. I was on a pilgrimage around
Guru Purnima in Ladakh, right next to the Chinese border and visiting many monasteries and experiencing stillness, silence, joy and oneness. So I'm on my way back to the United States
and right now I'm doing a couple of … doing a couple of events
in London, in England, on women empowerment and the Divine Feminine. But I thought I'd start resuming a bit of the Vigyan
Bhairava Tantra, and there are 112 techniques,
some of them, you know, a
little redundant, but each of us
responds differently.
So sometimes
the redundancy helps. Today, I want to share
with you a combination of techniques that takes us back to the source
of all experience, which is essentially
fundamental reality, which is the self,
the self of the individual, which is also
the self of the universe. Atman, Brahman And the universe, of course,
is referred to as Brahman. The vibration of Brahman,
almost like Brahman, supports string theory, where every particle in the universe is basically the vibration of a string that has infinite vibrations. But now let's
do a little exercise and see how we can experience that. Incidently,
I saw reported in Nature an article
that said that the debate between Christoph Koch and David Chalmers.
David Chalmers
won the first round as philosophy, giving us a better idea
about consciousness than neuroscience. But I disagree. Neither
philosophy nor neuroscience or any system of thought
can actually give us the experience of reality or even ourselves,
which is the only reality we have is the self. Because without the self there is no expense. It is the self
that modifies itself into all experiences. So let's try this combination
of techniques. Right now listen to the sound
of my voice.
Notice that the sound
is intermittent, that every time you hear my voice, it arises from silence. Then you hear the sound
and then it disappears back into silence. So the source of all sound
is silence. Okay, now notice colors and shapes and forms. So notice
the forms on your screen. Me in front of you, the door, minibar at the back
and so on. Notice
the colors, shapes and forms can only arise from that
which is formless. Every color. If you
trace it back to its source, it ends up into a
domain that is without color, The source of all color is that which is colorless. Touch your skin.
Just feel the sensation and trace back the sensation to its source. And that source
has no sensation. Smell something,
including your hands. Trace it back to its source and the source of all odor or fragrance has no odor and has no fragrance. Taste something, anything and notice and be aware that the origin of that taste or that flavor has no flavor. Create an image in your mind. Just now. Think of a star-lit sky or the full moon, or snow-clad mountains
or a red rose. Any image
you can create any image in your mind, just now,
just by thinking about it.
Think of the Empire State
Building. A rainbow,
a green meadow, red roses. And then go back to the
source of this imagination. And that which imagines cannot be imagined. Ask yourself, "What's my next thought going to be?"
Observe the thought coming. It comes out of emptiness. You observe the thought. It resolves into emptiness. So every sensation,
every perception, every thought, every feeling, every sound, every texture, every taste, every smell, everything that we can even
call an object, you know? Think of this as an object.
It is an object, right? But replace the word object
with the word experience. Then ask, Where is this experience
happening? Where is this sound happening? In silence. Where is this
sensation coming? From that
which is without sensation. Where are these colors
emerging from? From that
which is colorless, on and on. So any object, any form,
any sound, any perception, any image, any thought,
any feeling, in other words, any experience
can be traced back to that which is totally formless,
empty, without boundaries, without shape, shapeless, formless, infinite, boundary-less,
non-conceptualizable, unimaginable, irreducible, timeless. Spaceless. What is it that experiences space and time? You experience space and time. And you that experience space and time is an awareness that is obviously not
in space time because it is experiencing
space time. You, that experience
this theatre of space time and causality is independent and free of the experience
of space time and causality.
So that which we call "I" or "I AM" is
causeless, is spaceless, is timeless, is
infinite, is formless, and is not subject to birth or death
because birth and death are the fluctuations
and the alchemy of sensations,
images, feelings and thoughts that appear as the body and the universe, body
and the universe go together. But what about the ego? What about the mind? What about the intellect? Well, they too are the subtle objects on the screen
of consciousness. Therefore the subject of
all experience is one. Every experience arises
from that oneness returns to that oneness. Doesn't matter
what that experience is. It could be a galaxy. It could be the moon,
it could be the sun. It could be the stars. It could be the rocks,
it could be insects and mosquitoes
and human beings and doors and bottles, and furniture.
It could be anything
that you can even name or that appears as a form in some way
or the other, whether it's the mind,
the intellect, the ego, the subtle body,
the physical body, the physical universe, trace
them back to their source and we are left with the infinite You,
the divine presence in which the whole universe is arising,
appearing and subsiding. As soon as it raises,
the continuity comes because the arising
and the subsiding is extremely fast and one cannot see the gaps
between the frames of perceptions,
snapshots. So one cannot see the little or hear the little space
between sound. But that space, it's little. And it's also enormous because it's one,
the little space between my fingers, is one
with intergalactic space, and that which experiences, that experiences
that intergalactic space is baseless, incomprehensible,
unimaginable, irreducible, fundamental, infinite beyond space, time
and causality is the divine self, and everything is a modification
of that divine self.
There is no hard problem
of consciousness. Neuroscience is an activity
in consciousness. Philosophy is
an activity in consciousness and consciousness alone or awareness
alone is the divine self. And you are that. I am that, all this
is that or this or that. And that alone is that aloneness. But one must see the divine being that appears as all forms, all phenomena. The phenomena and forms are impermanent. And in time. And that includes
this part of mind, which is an activity,
a changing activity in that same oneness, in that divine oneness,
we are born. In that divine oneness
we are sustained and in that divine oneness, we submerge only to resurrect again. Creation, maintenance, destruction, concealment, revelation, resurrection. All is the one divine differentiating into infinite forms
and phenomena. Every form is a phenomenon and every phenomenon
is a fluctuation of the self. Focus on this, Be aware of this, be aware of the formless in every experience,
every expense. Look at your body
and experience it as formless.
Look at this and trace it back
to its formless source. Hear sounds. Trace them back to the formless
absence of sound and soon let that become your your internal reference point. And when that internal
reference point is infinite, you will see the infinite in every direction. The divine
will not be difficult to find. The divine is impossible to avoid, because in that divine
presence, the whole universe is arising
and subsiding in timeless Now. I don't know if this makes
any sense to you, but as I experience
the divine, everywhere I go, there is only one word to describe it.
It is love. Love is the ultimate truth and the heart of creation. It is joy. It is bliss. It is deathless divinity. So a little bit of this exercise can liberate you. More soon and happy trails..
