My last post focused on the way the introductory verses of this text celebrate the dialogue between that within us that asks the question and that within us that knows the answer. Another teaching we can glean from this text comes when we pay attention to the way Devi speaks to Bhairava. I spoke about this at length in my dharma talk on June 9. And while I titled this post “A Crash Course in Couple’s Communication,” the lessons apply across the board.

So much of our interaction with other people happens in a way I will call out of time. Out of the present moment. Out of the possibility of speaking and listening with Heart. It’s understandable. We’re a wounded culture, very much under the influence of an external value system that has little to do with our humanity and gifts. Many of us have never truly been seen or valued. So no big surprise much of our communication tends to be fear-based, shame-based, advice-based, distracted, etc.  How many times have you caught yourself thinking about what you’re going to say next, rather than actually listening to what the other person is saying. How many times have you found yourself self-referencing when talking with others, rather than just listening and giving them the space for their own experience?

Here’s my June 9 Dharma Talk on this topic. We had a new person at class so there’s also introductory material here, woven into a free-wheeling talk. Enjoy.

Here’s the text I quote in my talk. Regular visitors to this blog will note this text posted a few weeks ago. I’m including it again for those who like to read along while listening to the talk:

This is from Lorin Roche, The Radiance Sutras: A New Version of the Vijnana Bhaira Tantra:

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 hymns of creation,
Enchanted by the verses,
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?

I have been listening to the love songs of
Form longing for formless.

What are these energies
Undulating through our bodies,
Pulsing us into action?

And this “matter” out of which our forms are made –
What are these dancing particles of condensed radiance?
The Goddess then asks,

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,
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 luminous truth.

 

And here’s the wonderful parallel text from William Blake’s, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell:

The Voice of the Devil

 All Bibles or sacred codes have been the causes of the following Errors:

    1. That Man has two real existing principles: Viz: a Body & a Soul.

    2. That Energy, call’d Evil, is alone from the Body; & that Reason, call’d Good, is alone from the Soul.

    3. That God will torment Man in Eternity for following his energies.

 But the following Contraries to these are True:

   1. Man has no Body distinct from his Soul; for that call’d Body is a portion of Soul discerned by the five    Senses, the chief inlets of Soul in this age.

   2. Energy is the only life, and is from the Body; and Reason is the bound or outward circumference of Energy.

   3. Energy is Eternal Delight.

  Those who restrain desire, do so because theirs is weak enough to be restrained; and the restrainer or reason usurps its place and governs the unwilling.

 And being restrain’d, it by degrees becomes passive, till it is only the shadow of desire.

  ********

This post is too long for the template so I’ve broken it into two parts. Scroll down for Part 2.