Tantra

Tantra is closely related to the Vedas and shows a pronounced influence of the Upanishads as well as of yoga.

Reality according to the Tantra is Chit, or Pure Consciousness, which is identical with Sat, or Pure Being and Ananda, or pure Bliss. Thus both Vedanta and Tantra show a general agreement about the nature of Reality, with an important difference.

According to the Vedas, Satchitananda, or Brahman, is in Its true nature Pure Spirit; maya, which is inherent in It, functions only on the relative plane at the time of creation, preservation and dissolution of the universe, neither is the creation ultimately real, nor is created beings, for true knowledge reveals only an undifferentiated Consciousness.

According to Tantra on the other hand, Satchitananda is called Shiva-Shakti, the word suggests that Siva, or the Absolute, and Shakti, or the created power are eternally conjoined like a word and its meaning: the one cannot be thought without the other. A conception of Pure Consciousness or Being which denies Shakti, or its creative power to become, is, according to Tantra, only half of the truth.

Satchitananda is essentially endowed with the power of self-evolution and self-involution. Therefore, the perfect experience is the experience of the whole – that is to say, of Consciousness of Being and Consciousness of power to become.

It is only on the relative world that Shiva and Shakti are thought of as separate entities. Furthermore, Tantra affirms that both the world process and the jiva, or individual soul, are real, and not mere illusory superimposition upon Brahman. In declaring that java becomes finally one with reality, Tantra differs from Dualism.

Maya, according to Tantra, veils Reality and polarizes it into what is conscious and what is unconscious, what is existent and what is non-existent, what is pleasant and what is unpleasant. Through polarization, the Infinite becomes finite, the Undifferentiated differentiated, the immeasurable measured.

Though Reality evolves by its own power into animate and inanimate entities, yet at its core it always remains pure consciousness, Being and Bliss. In the state of evolution, Reality does not cease to be Itself, though neither the act nor the fact of evolution is denied by Tantra.

Thus the finite centre in any position in the process of evolution never ceases to be a point of Pure Reality through which the Infinite opens itself and through which It can be reached. When the jiva reaches this point, it is none other than Reality, and when it faces the veil of maya, it is finite, conditioned and bound. Thus in every jiva centre there are elements of individuality and infinitude, phenomenality and reality. One direction of the functioning of maya, called the “outgoing current” creates the jive centre with its fetters; a reversal of this direction, called the “return current,” reveals the Infinite.

The various impulses and desires associated with the outgoing current forms, as it was the net of the phenomenal world in which the jive has been caught.

Some of these impulses appear to be cardinal or primary knots in the net. The only question is how to transform these cardinal impulses for the material enjoyment into spiritual experiences (yoga); how to bring about the sublimation of desires. If this can be done, what now binds will be reversed in its working, and the finite jiva realizes its identity with Infinite Reality.

The jiva, caught in the outgoing current, perceives duality and cherishes the notion of pleasure and pain, acceptance and rejection, body and soul, spirit and matter, and so on. But if the non-duality of Shiva-Shakti alone exists, as asserted by Tantra, all these distinctions must be relative. Thus the distinction between man and women, the desire for each other which is one of the cardinal desires and the physical union between them all belong to the relative plane, where a perennial conflict between flesh and the spirit is assumed, and where the jiva acts like an animal bound by the fetters of common convention.

The distinction is a valid one and may even be valuable as long as the jiva remains on the relative plane. The observance of moral and social conventions, however desirable on that plane, does not make the jiva other than an animal.

In order that the jive may know, that it is really Siva (the Absolute), it must resolve every kind of duality and realize the fact that whatever exists and functions on the physical and moral level is Shiva-Shakti, the ever inseparable Reality and its Power. When one realizes that the whole process of creation, preservation and dissolution is but the manifestation of Lila, of Shakti-Shiva, one does not see anything carnal or gross in the universe; for such a person everything becomes an expression of Shiva-Shakti.

The special technique of the Tantric discipline is to transform the outgoing current of diversification into the return current of gradual integration, to gather separation, polarity, and even opposition into identification, harmony and peace.

The two currents, however, do not operate singly, one excluding the other; they are concurrent, though the emphasis, which oscillates, is now laid on one and now on the other. Thus in all affirmations of duality and difference, the affirmation of non-duality an identity is immanent, and one sees unity, equalities and similarities and not a mere chaos of colliding particles, even when the outgoing current functions in the creation and preservation of the universe. Our ordinary experience, too shows system, though this system reveals to us limited and conditional identities. In brief, though differentiation is the prevailing feature of the outgoing current, identity is either implicit in or conditionally visible.

How to affirm an identity which is veiled

The method of Non-dualistic Vedanta as we have previously discussed is to negate all limiting injunctions which it calls unreal, until one sees nothing but Brahman, or pure consciousness, in the man and woman. In order to reach the affirmation of oneness, every part of duality must be discarded; in other words Vedanta asks to renounce the world of names and forms. But this is more easily said then done, for such renunciation is not for everyone.

Tantra, whose technique is different, prescribes the discipline of sublimation. Physical man and women, floating along the outgoing current of the cosmic process, are no doubt different from each other, but by means of the return current they can be sublimated into cosmic principles and realized as the one whole that is Shiva-Shakti.

In reversing the outgoing current, the aspirant has to bring together the compliments or poles so as to realize their identity; thus the physical union of man and woman is sublimated into the creative union of Shiva-Shakti.

The Tantric method of sublimation consists of three steps: purification, elevation and reaffirmation of identity on the plane of Pure Consciousness. First the aspirant must rid himself of dross of grossness by reversing the outgoing current into the return current. According to Tantra, in the process of evolution, the pure cosmic principles at a certain stage cross the line and pass into impure principles, the later constituting the realm of nature, which is like a coiled curve, in which the jive is held prisoner and where it wanders, caught in a net of natural determinism from which there is no escape unless the coiled curve can be made to uncoil itself and open a channel for its release and ascend into the realm of pure cosmic principles. Until this is done the jiva remains afloat on the outgoing current, moves with it, and cherishes desires which are gross and carnal. Whether yielding pleasure or pain , these desires fasten the chain upon it with additional links. Its hope lies in uncoiling the coil of nature that has closed upon it. This is called in the technical language of Tantra the ‘awaking of the Kundalini, or the coiled up serpent power, by which one moves from the plane impure principles to that of pure principles. The head of this serpent is turned downward; it must be turned upward. This change of direction of the serpent power, which after evolving the jiva remains involved in it, is called purification.

The next step is called elevation: the order in which the cosmic principles move along the outgoing current must be reversed with the starting of the return current. Ascend is to be made in the order that is the reverse in which the descent was made. The aspirant must raise himself from the grosser and more impure elements to the subtler and purer ones until he attain to the realization of Shakti-Shiva.

The last step is reaffirmation in consciousness of his identity with Shiva-Shakti. This is the general framework of the method of sublimation into which all the methods of sublimation can be fitted that are followed by the Dualistic, Non Dualistic and other systems of thought.

The spiritual awakening of the practitioner id described in Tantra by means of symbols of the awakening and rising Kundalini Power.

What is this Kundalini?

Properly understood it is not something mystical or esoteric, peculiar to Tantra, but the basis of the experience described by all religious faith. Every genuine spiritual experience, such as the seeing of light or a vision, or communion with the Deity, is only a manifestation of the ascent of the Kundalini.

Let us understand the Kundalini with the help of physical science. There are two kinds of energy in a particle of matter: potential and kinetic, the sum total of which is a constant. The kinetic energy, which is only a fraction of the total energy, is responsible for the movement or action of the particle. There exists a particular ratio between the kinetic and the total energy; when this ratio is changed by intermolecular action, the nature of the particle changes: one element is transferred into another.

According to Tantra, the Kundalini, in the form of cosmic energy, is present in everything, even in a particle of matter. Only a fraction of it, like the kinetic energy, is operative, while an unmeasured presidium is left, like the potential energy, coiled up and untapped at the base of the spine. It is a vast potential of power, of which the operative energy, like the kinetic energy of the particle, is only a fraction.

In the jiva centre there is also this potential energy of the Kundalini, which is the storehouse of the energy of the body (physical, subtle and causal), and also the active energy of the Kundalini, which accounts for the action and movement of the jiva.

The coiled up Kundalini is the central pivot upon which the whole complex apparatus of the body and mind moves and turns. A specific ration between the active and total energy of the Kundalini determines the present condition and behaviour of the bodily apparatus. A change in the ratio is necessary to effect a change in its present working efficiency by transforming the grosser bodily elements into finer. A transformation, and sublimation of the physical, mental and vital apparatus is only possible through what is called the rousing of the Kundalini and it re-orientation from downward facing to upward facing.

By the former the physical body has been made a coiled curve limited in character, restricted in functions possibilities.

By the force of the latter it breaks its fetters and transcends its limitations. This is the general principle. But there are different forms of spiritual principles by which this latent power can be acted upon.

Faith, love act as a most powerful lever to raise the coiled up Kundalini; so also does the discipline of rajas and jnana yoga, as well as the repetition of the Lord’s name or a holy mantra and even music help in the process.

Tantra recognizes all this. The student of Tantra should bear in mind the psychological aspect of the process of the raising of the Kundalini, which is more of an unfoldment, expansion, and elevation of consciousness than a mechanical accession to an increased and higher power.

The aim of waking the Kundalini is not the acquisition of greater power for the purpose of performing miracles or the enjoyment of material pleasure; it is the realization of Satchitananda.

The passage of the awakening of the Kundalini lies through the Sushumna, which is the central nerve in the nervous system. A kind of hollow canal, the Sushumna passes through the spinal column connecting the base centre chakra at the bottom of the spine with the centre in the cerebrum.

Tantra speaks of six centres through which the sushumna passes; these centres are so many spheres or planes, described in Tantra as different colored lotuses with varying numbers of petals. In the ordinary worldly person these pedals are closed and the lotuses drop down like buds. As the Kundalini rises through the sushumna canal and touches the centres, these buds turn upward as fully opened flowers and the student attains spiritual experiences. The goal of spiritual practice is to make the Kundalini rise from the lower and grosser centres to those which are higher and more conscious. During this upward journey of the Kundalini, the jiva is not quite released from the relative state until it reaches the sixth centre or plane, which is the opening for the experience of Ultimate Reality. At the sixth centre (the two-pedalled white lotus located the junction of the eyebrows) the jiva sheds its ego and burns the seed of duality, and its higher Self rise from the ashes of its lower self. It now dies physically, as it were, in order to be able to live in Pure Consciousness. The sixth centre is the key by which the power in the thousand pedalled lotus in the cerebrum, which is like the limitless ocean, is switched on to the little reservoir which is the individual self, filling the latter and making it overflow and cease to be the little reservoir. Finally the Kundalini rises to the lotus at the cerebrum and becomes united with Shiva, or the Absolute; and the student realizes, in the transcendental consciousness, his union with Shiva-Shakti.