Open
Secrets of Tantric Yoga
This
is a short note about tantric yoga.
In
tantric yoga, there are three aspects of practice: external, internal
and secret.
External
External
aspect refers to techniques used, such as singing of mantras or
prayers, doing visualisations and mudras, or performing breathing
exercises. These are all ”ways to come in contact with” but with
what? With the internal and secret. External, as the name suggests,
is the most external aspect of tantric yoga. Without internal and
secret, tantric practice is entirely insufficient. External practice
should always be understood as a way to come in contact with the
internal and secret because then and then only it serves a purpose.
This
can be compared to learning how to use a machine or a gadget, like a
smart phone, for example. To be able to make calls with it, send
messages or use the social media, we first need to learn what to do,
where to go, what to press and what not to press. To use a phone, we
need to know the basics to be able to use it. When we know the
basics, we no longer need to keep studying the basics. We can make
phone calls, send messages and do whatever we like with this simple
knowledge. Knowing the technical basics allows us to use our phones
in a way that meets with our needs. We might see how our friend uses
his phone in a much more technically elaborate way, knows shortcuts
and whatnot. Fancy and more evolved tricks can be done but learning
of the basics meets with our needs perfectly.
This
is a perfect analogy of tantric yoga. In a similar way, we should
know from the beginning what is the primary purpose of tantric yoga.
That purpose always is to know ourselves without dualistic confusion.
This very point, by the way, always without exception, makes the
nonphysical bodies of ours, namely awareness and mind, more important
than the physical body, in the context of removing self-based
delusion.
The
way how tantric yoga accomplishes this is through various tantric
exercises that are always learned from a valid teacher, often with
empowerment. We learn how to pronounce the mantra, the meaning of the
mantra, mudras for different mantras, different visualisations, how
to use our breath and so on. Some tantric methods, such as Pemako
Buddhism, use relatively simple techniques. Our mantras,
visualisations, mudras and breathing exercises are all very simple.
However, these practices meet with our demand of clarifying the
natural state and becoming fully enlightened buddha in this life,
perfectly. Some other styles of tantra might use much more elaborate
techniques. Simple or elaborate, the main purpose is the same.
For
a beginner, who is still learning the basics, lots of repetition is
the way. Repeate the mantra a lot so that little by little you become
to know or to feel the guru or the deity behind the mantra (without
repetition). Through repetition, we learn the basics of tantric yoga.
We come to understand the principles, how it all works. It is
important to do as many repetitions that is necessary but mere
repetition as pastime has no purpose.
External
technique should always lead out of the technique, to felt sensation
which is the internal aspect of practice. If we keep repeating when
there is no need for it, we'll postpone undrstanding and relief
coming to us.
Internal
Internal
aspect of tantric yoga means to become aware and work with energy and
the energy body. External technique is like using a telephone and
typing in the number. After typing of the number, you wait for the
phone call to be answered. You don't keep typing the number over and
over, endlessly and pointlessly. So, after you type the number, guru
in guru yoga or deity in deity yoga, picks up the phone. You might
have been doing the external practice anything from one second to an
hour but eventually you are to stop making the call and shift into
receptive and attentive mode. You shift from talking and doing, to
being, feeling and receiving. At this point you drop the mantra, the
visualisation and so on. You begin to feel the energy of the guru or
deity. You feel it with your whole being and take it in. In this way,
you unify your whole mind and body that is marked with samsaric
traits with the energy or blessing of the tantric practice. Then you
simply keep feeling it, you ride the waves of blessings that come to
your samsaric body from the perfectly enlightened archetypes of the
mind, deities or nonphysical gurus. You take it all in, you feel it
in muscles and bones, in your whole body and aura.
When
practicing internal tantra, you mingle and blend with the guru or the
deity. You unify with it, so that not a trace of your habital self
remains. In order to accomplish this, you need to surrender. At
least, you need to relax. If you don't relax or are not in receptive
mode, you won't notice anything because the blessings stay outside of
yourself. Guru yoga is practiced in all major religions by hundreds
of millions of people everyday, so you don't need to worry or be
afraid. If you can't relax because you're scared or are traumatized
by bad human relationships, understand that the guru is not someone
who has bad intentions. The sole purpose of gurus is to offer their
assistance and help us out from existential pain and trauma. They are
healers and liberators, so don't worry. You can take all the time you
need to relaxing and opening up, no one forces you. If you have this
problem or are simply sceptic, you can simply be curious about it and
you'll feel something. If you stay shut, however, the guru cannot and
will not force in.
In
a way, you could say that you let yourself be embraced and held in
the presence of the guru or deity. When you do this it feels
magnificient. It is like you're healed and liberated on cellular
level. It feels like that because your usual sense of self that is
filled with dualistic distortions and habitual mistakes, becomes
illuminated and removed, and your true being comes forth.
That
is a crucial point to understand, that in tantra, the guru and
deities are practiced and worshipped, not for their sake but our own.
The meaning is always to know oneself but in tantra because there are
seemingly external beings involved, one can be confused if one
doesn't understand that it's all done to know oneself, to become
fully enlightened, for the sake of all sentient beings.
Guru
or deity yoga is a type of transmission or re-establisment of your
own completely wakeful being, in the place of your self-based
confusions with myriad expressions. Mingling or unifying with guru or
deity, reveals our true being and purifies the self-based notions
from our subtle body. Mingling with the object of the tantric
practice, removes dirt from our system, from the organs (chakras) and
channels (nadis) of our subtle body. This takes time and repetition
but each session brings a relief because it is so healing,
supportive, loving and liberating. Tantric practice is pleasant and
joyful by nature.
To
be succesful in this, one really needs to understand that tantra is a
lot about internal yoga, feeling
the guru or deity. External technique is just a way to generate and
to come in contact with the internal. For an advanced practitioner,
external technique can last only a second and then in an instant she
or he shifts to internal.
Depending
on one's stage of purification or bhumi perfections in our 13
Bhumi Model, one either,
only
generates the guru or deity without realising that the guru and
deity is oneself as fully liberated being, or
generates
the guru or deity, while recognising partially that the guru and
deity is oneself as fully liberated being, or
recognises
entirely that the guru and deity is oneself as fully liberated
being.
From
internal, the domain of the secret is entered.
Secret
Secret
aspect of tantra is one's basic nature. This basic nature is lucid
and aware in effortless manner. This basic nature that is also the
secret aspect of tantra, is effortless natural presence, clear
mindedness, sober, fresh and selfless existence. It is without
contraction or duality because it is not a thing, or a self. This
basic nature is the foundation of all existence. It is the bedrock of
goodness and only good things grow out of it, in the form of
thoughts, emotions and actions. Because it is entirely good and
without contracted selfing, it is a very different kind of existence
than samsaric existence. There is no contraction and thinking
processes in terms of me and other. Simultaneously it cannot express
itself in ways that hurt others. Our basic nature is liberating and
the very reason why existential liberation is possible in the first
place. Us humans and some other kinds of beings have the opportunity
to recognise this basic nature of ours and through doing so, we can
change. In this way we can become
enlightened, through the process of transformation.
The
purpose of yoga is to offer a way, techniques and methods, how
self-based contraction can be removed and natural condition of peace,
freedom and true selfless joy is re-established. The easiest way this
can be accomplished is through tantric yoga, whether in the form of
guru yoga or deity yoga. Again, guru or deity is not exercised for
any other purpose than our own knowledge.
So,
after external and internal comes secret, this basic nature, and in
that there is no duality. All dualities such as self and other, or
doing and being cease. We enter a world within us where there is no
self-based views at all. There is only equalness, that is seen to be
the same in everything. There is joy of deepest kind where there is
no me claiming or attaching to it. Neither in this natural condition,
there is pain or confusion. The whole samsaric engine that spits out
sorrow, envy, jealousy, anxiety, depression, hate, panic,
nervousness, dullness, fogginess, fear and distortion ceases to
exist. In tantric yoga, there is no guru, because you have become the
guru and there is no deity because you have become the deity. There
is no contracted self or subtle distortions because the samsaric mind
no longer exists, it has been released. Tantric practices enable this
momentarily and over a long period of time, self-based notions are
ground to disappearing dust.
In
this way tantric yogas make the natural state or ourselves as buddhas
appear. Our mind becomes clear like the sky, fresh like wild mint,
joyous like children playing, strong like a lion and caring like a
grandmother. This is who we are.
Kim
Katami, 1st October 2020
Pemako
Buddhism,
www.pemakobuddhism.com
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