by P.T. Mistlberger
"Tantra" is one of those words that most people on some sort of personal growth journey have at least heard of, but usually know next to nothing about. The word is often loosely associated with sexuality and certain mystical states of consciousness. The truth, as always, is far more involved and vast, and, at the same time, remarkably ordinary and down to earth. When iron birds shall fly and people shall ride horses with wheels, armies from the north will crush Tibet, and these teachings will travel west to the land of the Red man.
All this can be seen as a metaphor for appropriate timing, in that the Tantric approach is well suited to a particular cultural milieu, namely Western civilization under its current conditions. ********************************
The word tantra derives from the Sanskrit language, and translates as "weave," as in a thread or tapestry. This is significant inasmuch as the essence of the Tantric vision involves an embracing and accepting of all the energies in the universe, much like a thread that weaves its way through the entire cosmos, ultimately making contact with everything, rejecting nothing in its journey.
Historically, the roots of Tantra were birthed in north India around 500 AD in the Hindu religion. About a hundred years after that the Buddhist version appeared, though the facts are not clear, and some suspect that Buddhist Tantra originates with Gautama Buddha himself, around 550 BC. Despite its mysterious origins, it is generally accepted that Tantra as a unique form of spirituality was established by the 6th century AD throughout the area that was the cradle of the Indo-Aryan civilization.
Esoteric Hinduism, which is essentially all forms of yoga, was influenced by Tantra, as were the cults of Vishnu and Shiva (two-thirds of the Hindu Trinity). In Buddhism it resulted in an entire new school of lineage, generally referred to as the "Vajrayana" (Way of the Diamond Thunderbolt). This teaching was taken by the Indian master Padmasambhava north over the Himalayas into Tibet during the 8th or 9th century AD, where after an initial struggle with the entrenched shamanistic tradition known as "Bon," it took hold and established itself. It is in Tibet, it is generally accepted, that the Tantric path became most highly evolved, and it was only after the 1959 Chinese invasion that these teachings were dispersed to the West, following the destruction of thousands of Tibetan monasteries by the Red Army, and the subsequent exodus of many advanced Tibetan teachers (lamas) of Tantric Buddhism.
In a nutshell, Tantra has certain characteristics that mark it apart from more conventional forms of spirituality. For one, it is not really a philosophy at all it is more a way of life based on direct experience and acceptance, thus bearing similarities with existentialism and Zen, though far more effective and practical than the former, and more colorful than the latter. Like Zen, Tantra is not interested in intellectuality, nor mere contemplation. It also has no use for hollow ritualism, and this applies to everything from religion to forms of behavior based on fear of change masquerading as convention. In short, a hallmark of the Tantric vision has to do with a non-intellectual intelligence that sees things as they are and moves with the flow of life, rather than how we think things should be according to our conditioning, training, etc.
This idea of working with the energies of life, rather than against them, or trying to avoid, control, or modulate them, has become particularly relevant for contemporary society, and for the general state of our planet. In fact, there are prophecies from both ancient Hinduism and Buddhism that refer to this. The Hindu Vedic texts of old specify four distinct ages spanning our history. The last and current one is known as Kali Yuga, or the "dark age," and it is in this age that the Tantric teachings are considered most appropriate, largely because the negative energies on the planet have, in one sense, gotten so out of hand that the only possible way to understand them is to work with them, rather than attempt to control, deny, or suppress them. From the Buddhist tradition comes Padmasambhavas prophecy, recorded over twelve hundred years ago:
When we refer to Tantra as being a path of acceptance, not rejection, what exactly is meant by that? For one, Tantra does not require abstention of any kind, or loyalty to a particular form of a teaching, such as a book, for example. We are not required to give up anything, including meat, sex, alcohol, cigarettes, or even watching wrestling on T.V. All that is required is awareness, and the willingness to feel, on all levels, what exactly is happening within us when we are engaged in a particular activity. The activity itself is only a teaching device; the real teaching is what is going on inside. Thus, everything is a teaching device, in potential, depending on how awake we are at that moment in time. And, moreover, as this approach is applied, all life situations become welcomed, seen as an opportunity for awareness and learning, rather than things to be shunned, avoided, condemned, etc.
This approach is most effective when applied to the realm of emotions and feelings, and the energies of the body. There is a Tibetan parable of three people who are walking a forest path and come across a poisonous bush that completely blocks their way. The first, the so-called arhat or solitary seeker of truth, simply turns around and heads back the way he came, to look for a different if longer approach. The second, the bodhisattva, "Light worker," or spiritual healer working for the sake of the planet, hesitates for a moment, then risks his or her well-being by plunging straight through the bush, coming out on the other side. The third, the Tantric practitioner, sizes up the poisonous bush, and then dives straight into it.
The "poison" in this parable is symbolic of negative emotion. The idea of diving straight into the poison links up with the concept of totality, which, interestingly enough, is very strongly associated with the ability to let-go, or release the past - a condition referred to in more Western forms of spirituality as forgiveness. Why would this be so? For the simple reason that all manner of stuckness in present time is related to some sort of energy blockage, whether psychic, emotional, or physiological. The natural condition of energy is free-flow - the less the flow, the more densified energy becomes, the lower its vibration, and ultimately, the more separative.
To be with a given experience totally is something every young child understands and lives, moment by moment. To watch the face of a baby can be a revealing contrast with our own state of semi-aliveness. If the baby is happy, she is totally happy, sad, totally sad - angry, and the little face becomes a screwed up ball of fire - but usually, not for very long. That is because the experience is generally total, and hence there is little chance for residue to remain.
Eventually, of course, children learn to inhibit their natural response system, owing to the various forms of disapproval, punishments and controls inflicted by the family and societal conditionings. In addition, our educational institutions are based largely on mnemonic techniques and information processing, with very little offered in the way of interpersonal development, particularly in relation to the emotional body. Thus, by young adulthood the average person functions much as a semi-automaton, seeking to find their role within the societal machine, with the voices of early-year conditioning clamoring in their minds as to what they should and should not do, etc.
Somewhere, under all these layers of conditioning, lies the spark of true individuality - what could be called the Soul. This Soul, in a sense, is itself still learning (although, paradoxically, it is already at One with the ultimate Source of consciousness, and imbued with infinite freedom and love), and part of its learning process is to clear away enough of the layers of personality conditioning so that it can "shine through." When the Soul shines through we have a moment of authenticity, the sense that we are being absolutely real, with little or no attachment to outcome. The more total one is with what one is experiencing, the more readily this is achieved.
Most of us are familiar with the Sanskrit word karma, though the real meaning of this word is probably only slightly better understood than Tantra. Generally karma is thought to refer to "as you sow, so shall you reap", and in one sense this is accurate. However, the subtle meaning behind the word is much more involved. All the deeper spiritual teachings, such as Tantra, A Course in Miracles, Zen, the Vedas, etc., speak of the illusory nature of time, in the ultimate sense. They all agree that God, Enlightenment, Awakening, or whatever label we want to give to that final condition, can occur only in the Present Moment - that in fact it is an inherent aspect of the Present Moment -and our natural relationship with it when free of mental distortion, but that we are fast asleep in our dream world of past, future, inner dialogue, projections, etc.
The relationship between totality and karma becomes more clear if we understand the relationship between totality and the Present Moment. Essentially, the more totally we allow ourselves to experience what life presents us with, the less karmic residue we accumulate. In other words, if we describe karma as unfinished business, then it follows that being total with our experience in the moment means completion, or no unfinished business. Hence, no karma, or put another way, no unpleasant surprises in the future. This is one of the profound understandings that the Tantric vision exemplifies.
Now obviously, such an approach could be double edged, in that being "total" with ones experience can easily become being totally in ones ego. This teaching is not a license to indulge in foolishness. The unique power of Tantra lies in its ability to go beyond good and bad, black and white, moral and immoral. So, it can be an extremely potent avenue for awakening to ultimate truth, or it can be a risky dance with powerful energies, if used by an immature mind, or a heart lacking in compassion.
This said, the ultimate truth behind the "disappearance" of time in proportion to the more total we are with a given experience in the here-and-now, lies in the realization of the illusory nature of separate will. The more open we are to each moment, the more multidimensional and vast the universe becomes, and thus the more absurd it becomes to see ourselves as separate from the greater whole. Hence, there is less and less any solid separate entity inside to accumulate personal debts (karma). The gradual awakening to this results in tremendous freedom, because we begin to get a glimpse of just how infinite the Being of Totality (or Spirit, or God) really is, and how small we are in the cosmic scheme of things, even though we are a unique reflection of the infinite. This gives freedom from the dense, heavy energy of the ego, which would have us believe that we are immensely important and influential, or that we are so insignificant and worthless that we need not be responsible for our actions.
In many ways Tantra is the science of understanding negative energy. For example, looked at honestly and dispassionately, the planet is currently polluted with negativity. The same enormous energy that has been used in the name of industry, and has severely eroded the earths ecosystem, could in theory be harnessed for pure creativity. For instance, if all world funds allocated for military expenditures were redirected toward research into viable alternate energy sources, the fact that the planets supply of fossil fuels (coal, oil, gas, etc.) is gradually running out probably wouldnt matter. The earth could be a healthy, functional world within twenty years.
However, without severe wake-up calls, such as natural disasters, war, famine, serious concrete repercussions from ozone layer or rainforest depletion, etc., this probably wont happen, for the simple reason that human ego tends to resist change, preferring to remain mechanical and unconscious in its habits, until it finally is forced to confront its own self made nightmare.
It is here where the profound understanding of Tantra can come to the rescue (and perhaps why, according to the ancient Hindu texts, it is so relevant for this time). Negativity will remain unconscious, mechanical, and dangerous until it is penetrated with awareness. Carl Jung termed this hidden element within all of us the "Shadow". It is the polar opposite of our cultivated surface personality, what he called the persona, after the Greek word for "mask". His brilliant insight into the relationship between the Shadow and the persona, understood by the Tantric mystics of long ago, is that they are inversely related to each other - in other words, the more powerful one is, the weaker the other. Thus, a well developed "mask" means a badly neglected Shadow, a highly risky and explosive situation that is usually the cause behind most deranged behavior. Conversely, an overcharged Shadow results in a weak boundary system, and an inability or unwillingness to cope with every-day life.
Bringing awareness into our "darker" natures as a way to owning the energies at their source is basically the transmutation of lead into gold. When the material of our hidden sides is experienced with consciousness, acceptance, and even compassion, it simply becomes welcomed and understood as the fuel that fires the drive of our being toward Awakening. Lightening and thunder are no less Divine than sunshine, nor is the black and silence of the night any less sublime than the warmth and the blueness of the day. In fact, it is this eternal dance of opposites that the vision of Tantra accepts and embraces, thus going beyond the smaller duality of aversion and attraction, into the greater unity of Love via acceptance.
Copyright 1994 by P.T. Mistlberger, All Rights Reserved.
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