Tantr(a)
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What is tantr?
A Path To Enlightenment
Kamal Jain, Tantra As A Path To Enlightenment , May 13, 2017: The Times of India
Tantra literally means “to weave“. In a way, it implies “interweaving of traditions and teachings as threads“ into a text, technique or practice. On many spiritual and religious paths we encounter a choice: sexuality or spirituality. Tantra gives a different invitation: choose both simultaneously and bring the two together to create wholeness and fullness in your life.
Tantra also provides methods and techniques to attain enlightenment. As a technique to get enlightened, tantra has gained ground in Hinduism, Buddhism and to some extent in Jainism also. Three major streams of influence over time have been Kashmir Shaivism, Tibetan tantra and Taoism. Kashmir Shaivism is often thought of as the true root of tantra.
In Kashmir Shaivism, Vigyan Bhairav Tantra, a popular scripture, is the conversation between Devi and Bhairava, containing 112 tantric meditation techniques. Devi is the creative energy permeating the Universe and her nature is power, strength, and might. Bhairava is the infinite consciousness that embraces her.
Spirituality and religion are mainly associated with the path of renunciation and suffering and embrace many methods including meditation, yoga, prayer, devotion and penance. These focus more on detachment from the materialistic world. The tantric approach is the path of transformation of our desires into divine bliss.
Tantra utilises all mundane things including breathing, tasting, sleeping and even making love, for realising our nature. Yantras, mantras and mudras (postures), are used for preparation and practice of tantra sadhana on the path of liberation.
Tantra uses deep awareness as one of its methods. Even sexual activity ought to be engaged with whole awareness and meditatively , and continued practice would liberate one from it over a period of time and raise one's base energy connected to swadhishthana chakra to a higher level of consciousness related to other chakras. Swadhishthana chakra is connected to sex energy and physical pleasures. These chakras are seven spinning whirlpools of energy points located along the spine.
The aim of tantra is to reach the highest one, that is, the Sahasrara for enlightenment.
Tantra is one of the rare spiritual paths that does not leave sexuality out but teaches that sexuality also can be a door to personal illumination. Awareness king is the important thing during the practice.
Over a period of time, tantra earned a bad name as it has been reduced to a ritualised form of sex in which tantric bliss is confused with sensual and orgasmic pleasure. Tantra is really about expanding our life's inner horizon, not about narrowing it down to the level of salaciousness; it is not about equating the lust for multiple orgasms with spiritual bliss.
Vajranatha has divided all teachings and practices of Buddhism into triyana, the three vehicles to enlightenment. To understand the difference between them, the example of deadly poison is used.When a Hinayana practitioner encounters on his path the poison of passions, he simply avoids contact with it, so he renounces worldly life and has no contact with pleasures. A Mahayana practitioner does not avoid contact with the poison, because he has the antidote in the form of meditation. A Vajrayana practitioner while encountering the poison does not avoid it, nor apply the antidote as he is not afraid of contact with that poison, because he knows how to transform energy through tantric sadhanas and uses it to obtain spiritual attainment.
An Expansion Of the Mind, Ideas and Human Spirit
Practical spiritual endeavour and practice is called Tantra, that liberates the spiritual aspirant by helping him expand his mind and spirit. Tantra is “liberation through expansion”.
This expansion, of mind, ideas, and human spirit, is the only sadhana. And when a sadhaka, spiritual aspirant, tries to enlarge his mind, naturally, debasing forces become very active. The sadhaka is to enlarge his mind and spirit by fighting at each and every step, and stage of life. In his mind, there will be those two opposing forces; that is, the spiritual force and the debasing material force that will be in conflict with each other, in the mind.
In family, social and national life, in each and every stratum of life, there will be a fight. That is, those two fundamental, belligerent forces, will become active. One force will try to exalt you towards the Supreme Self, and the other force will want to degrade you, goad you towards crude materialism.
Now, a Tantric sadhaka is called, sadhana samara, a soldier in the battle of sadhana. Samara means war, battle, fight. The sadhaka is engaged in fight. It is for the brave, courageous people. And this cult is the cult of Tantra. Each and every sadhak should be ready for fight – fight in the mental stratum, fight in the family stratum, fight in each and every stratum of life. This is Tantra.
Now, in the realm of spirituality, there is little scope for theoreticians. It is 99% practical. Sadhaka means a practical man. Sadhana is a yoga, not theory. This is subjective movement through objective adjustment ... that is, your movement is towards that Supreme Subject, not towards bookish knowledge. Not to aggrandise yourself, but to lead yourself unto the path of beatitude, towards the Supreme Subject. Yours is a subjective approach.
But while moving towards the Supreme Subject, while moving the culminating point of your life, you have to pass through the world of objectivities. The things of this physical earth are all objectivities; but your march is towards the Supreme Subjectivity. So, within you, there must be equilibrium, balance, an equipoise, between subjective approach and objective adjustment. You must pass through this world of objects keeping close contact and balance with this objective world; you must not ignore this world.
Don’t neglect this world; don’t cheat yourself by saying that everything is illusory, that it is nothing. No, it is not nothing; it is something. When you are speaking these words with the help of physical energy, and when you say, “It is nothing,” then that “It is nothing” is also nothing. Because you are speaking with the help of energy. But if energy is nothing, vocal cord is nothing, sound is nothing, your utterance is also nothing. So, a sadhaka must have a clear-cut approach, a subjective approach through objective adjustment.
You must not neglect the world, but serve each and every object of this universe by ascribing Consciousness to them. You are in the midst of so many minute expressions of Narayana, Consciousness.
Each and every expression is Narayana in a particular form, Consciousness in a particular shape, Narayana in a particular style. You are to serve them, and serving Narayana in human form is your objective adjustment, and your movement towards the non-attributional Supreme Purusha is your subjective approach.
History
How Tantra spread from India to Tibet
August 15, 2021: The Times of India
Tibetan Buddhism is called Vajrayana Buddhism, which is sometimes also called Tantrik Buddhism. Here, women play an important role, which is why the symbols of Vajrayana Buddhism are a double-sided dagger (vajra) and the bell (ghanta), representing male and female principles, which in turn represent the spiritual and material realm. Another symbol of Vajrayana Buddhism is the use of a skull. Teachers hold skull mounted staff (khatvanga) in their hands. If the presence of female represents sex and life, the presence of skull represents violence and death. If Theravada Buddhism valued the solitary pursuit of meditation in caves, if Mahayana Buddhism spoke of Bodhisattva as a saviour of the suffering, Vajrayana Buddhism speaks of magical powers or siddha that allows the practitioner to fly in the air, walk on water, enter and animate corpses, fight demons, have knowledge of every dimension of space and time.
The Buddhist schools were reactions to Hindu schools and vice versa. The nirvana-seeking Theravada, or the old school of Sakyamuni Buddha, countered the Vedic school that invoked gods like Indra for wealth, power and success. Vedism then adapted itself by valouring the householder’s life over the hermit’s. And so Puranic tales emerged where Shiva, the hermit, marries and becomes householder in order to uplift humanity spiritually. And Vishnu, the householder, manifests in various avatars to solve humanity’s many problems. In response, Buddhism transformed into Mahayana Buddhism, with multiple Buddhas and Buddha worlds, and Bodhisattvas, who are compassionate and listen to the cries of the suffering.
Theravada spread in the southern direction towards Burma, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Mahayana spread in the northern direction towards Central Asia, China and Japan. Both were patronised by kings. Protectors of Theravada Buddhism were seen as kings, while Mahyana Buddhism saw kings as manifestations of the Bodhisattva. Likewise, Vedic rituals such as Ashwamedha were designed to transform warlords into kings, while Shiva and Vishnu provided kings with the framework of social responsibility or dharma. With the rise of Tantra, in Buddhism and Hinduism, things changed once again. These changes happened over 1,500 years from 500 BCE onwards.
Both Tantrik Buddhism and Tantrik Hinduism spoke of magical powers — Siddha. Sex was no longer a threat to the hermit; sex was a tool that a hermit could use to become more powerful. In Puranic Hinduism, apsaras like Menaka enchanted tapasvis like Vishwamitra. Shakti forces Shiva to lead the domestic life. But in Tantrik Hinduism, the aspsara become the yogini. Sex was not for pleasure or for children: it was to harness spiritual power. The point was to satisfy the woman without feeling the need to spill the semen (virya). Such control is what made the monk, a hero (hero). Instead of losing bodily fluids into the female, the male would absorb bodily fluids and regenerate tissues, and regain power over elements, plants, animals and the mind.
Tantrik Hindu stories now survive mostly in the oral traditions of Nath-jogis who rejected household life and wandered the countryside singing tales of how Goraknath liberated Matsyendranath from ‘the kingdom of women’, and so triumphed over life and death. This was overshadowed by Bhakti Hinduism, where erotic energy is tranformed into emotional energy. The Tantrik Gita Govinda is toned down and a greater focus is given to delight and love. This Bhakti Hinduism prevails over Tantrik Hinduism in much of India. Pre-Bhakti Tantrik Hinduism once thrived in Southeast Asia and now survives in few places such as Nepal and in certain rituals of Kerala. But in Buddhism, Tantra was not overshadowed by Bhakti. It remained, almost frozen in time, in the Himalayan regions from Bhutan to Ladakh.
Padmasambhava took Tantrik Buddhism from India to Tantra in the seventh or eighth century. He was a contemporary of Adi Shankaracharya. If the latter is credited with removing Buddhism from India, then the former is credited with taking Buddhism to the Himalayas. Adi Shankaracharya was a celibate monk, who was familiar with Tantrik practices. By contrast, Padmasambhava had two wives, an Indian and a Tibetan, who were also his students and partners in sex rites that opened the gateway to Siddha powers. So the great leader of Vedanta Hinduism was a celibate monk like Buddhists of yore while the great leader of Tantrik Buddhists was a householder like Vedic Brahmins of yore. This shows how the two faiths influenced each other, in imagery as well as practice.
Padmasambhava’s birthplace, Oddiyana, was earlier identified with Swat valley in Pakistan. But now scholars are convinced Oddiyana was Odisha. The Hunas had destroyed most Buddhist centres in northwest India by the fifth century, and by the seventh century, the region was under Islamic influence. Muslims frowned on all idol worship and occult practices.
The word for ‘idol’ in Persian dialects is ‘but’ derived from ‘Buddha’. During this time, Tantrik Buddhism thrived in Bengal, Assam, Mithila, Odisha. Circular roofless temples were being built to 64 yoginis in Bhubaneswar. This thrived until the Islamic invasions of the 12th century after which Vaishnavism and Bhakti soared in popularity. This connection of eastern India with Tibet needs to be acknowledged.
Devdutt Pattanaik writes a fortnightly column that filters the voices on all sides
