Open Secrets of Tantric Yoga

 

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,

1. only generates the guru or deity without realising that the guru and deity is oneself as fully liberated being, or

2. generates the guru or deity, while recognising partially that the guru and deity is oneself as fully liberated being, or

3. 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, 1^st October 2020

Pemako Buddhism,

www.pemakobuddhism.com

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That Was Emptiness!

That Was Emptiness!

There is little agreement between buddhist schools and lineages about what is what and the qualifications. Some have low standards, some high, some think they have high standards when in fact they have low standards. The point is that there is little consensus, so who can be considered an authority?

Anyway, buddhism is concerned with confusion and removing of it. That's all buddhism is meant to do and the way it is done, is through the emptiness principle. Emptiness or selflessness means that we come to perceive ourselves and all things in our mind, having no solidity, no entityness, no fixed existence. That's all. Everything else is just an elaboration of this core teaching. This very point removes all of our problems, because it removes all of our narrowminded selfing.

Stream entry is known by most schools of buddhism, although the names vary and the methods of getting there vary. For the sake of clarity and simplicity I'll call it awakening. What is awakening? What's the point of it?

We have basically two minds: 1. basic mind that is clear, pure, untainted and without confusion and 2. confused mind that is the construction of the self, in various forms. We are confused because we are stuck in the self-based mind, without knowing the basic mind and that the confused mind is actually also the basic mind. The purpose of vipashyana meditation, that is typical to buddhism, is to enable us to see that me, my thoughts, my emotions and my subtle body is actually the basic mind that is free and has no confilct. The purpose of buddhist meditation is to see and realise this simple fact. This realisation comes about through glimpses, awakening and integration. Awakening or stream entry is the first irreversible hit, or a blow, that causes the sharpest peak of our selfing to collapse, so that it won't reconstruct. This cannot be accomplished through calmning down meditation, although it is useful in the process.

An analogy of a glimpse, where a dog represents the basic mind that has no self. Imagine you are sitting in front of a small window, hoping to see the dog on the other side of it. If we haven't seen the dog, we don't know what to expect, even if we know other people's descriptions of it. Then, out of nowhere, the dog runs past the window. Swoosh! All we see is smudge run by. We are not completely sure how the dog looked because it went by so quickly but we saw it well enough to see that it had four legs, a tail, two ears and had the general appearance of a dog, just like the dog specialist said it would. This is a glimpse of the basic mind. It is something but it is not enough for us to see the dog well, so that we'd have certainty about the dog.

Awakening is different from glimpse. You sit behind the window again, hoping to see the dog, and then all of a sudden it comes, sits down, right behind the glass for a brief moment, during which you can see it perfectly for the first time ever, until it stands up and runs away again. Ah! That's it! That was the dog! Woohoo! Maybe you have such initial joy and wonder, many do. After the initial excitement passes, you realise that seeing the dog has somehow changed you. You no longer feel the same as before. Something is clearly different and its so much better now. You feel more you, freer, clearer, more natural, chest doesn't feel heavy and so on. It's all because you saw the dog, your true nature, without "you", the entity, in it. And because you did, it deconstructed your sense of self as an entity. That's why you feel different post-awakening. Now you gained unshakable certainty about the dog.

Whether we call this awakening, kensho, stream entry or anything else, is of no importance. The importance is on what it does to one's confusion and dissatisfaction, that, as I said above is the heart and soul of buddhism. What matters the most is how our confusion, or self, comes torn down, or seen through.

Now, some say that awakening is this or awakening is that, and are keen to deny if some single specific criterion is not checked. "You're still getting angry, huh? Well, that wasn't stream entry then". "You can't have your finger chopped off, without screaming on top of your lungs and becoming grudgeful against your abusers? Oh, you certainly didn't wake up!". As I said, there is little consensus but the way I see it, is like I explained above. What matters most is the selfless hole in the mind, that no longer has selfing in it, and that is also what is most meaningful for the person her- or himself. Whether one can read other peoples minds, walk on water, have light shining from one's heart, see past lives and so on, are just side dishes, somethign extra that you can do without. Emptiness is the main meal that fills the belly.

Amma, The Hugging Saint Explained

Amma, The Hugging Saint

Explained

"The power of Love is infinite. In true Love, one goes beyond the body, mind and all fears. Love is the breath of the soul. It is our life force. Pure, innocent Love makes everything possible. When your heart is filled with the pure energy of Love, even the most impossible task becomes as easy as picking up a flower. The more Love you give, the more divinity is expressed within you. Just as water from a perennial spring never dries up no matter how much water we draw from it, the more Love we give, the more it increases. Life and Love are not two. Pure Love can accomplish anything. Love is the ambrosia of life. If there is True Love, nothing else is needed." - Amma, the Hugging Saint

About this text 

This text is my personal explanation about Amma, the Hugging Saint, based on my experiences with her. The text contains both appreciation and criticism towards her. I have tried to express my criticism in a constructive way for the common benefit of all readers.  

Despite of my criticism, I have a lot of respect and appreciation to Amma. I wish to thank and bow to her in deep respect.

Note: The term "awakening" in this text has been used to describe a specific event on the spiritual path. Here awakening refers to the first irreversible spiritual insight. After this attainment, there are several other stages. See links below this text for sources on this.

Association

I met Amma for the first time in 2003. Since then I have met her many times in darshan (about several dozen times), have joined her programs in Finland and Germany, and have spent 2½ months altogether in her ashram in Kerala India, on two separate occasions in 2009 and 2015. I've spent roughly 100-200 hours in her physical presence during this time, have heard her giving speeches, giving darshans (hugs), blessing food and seen her meditating. I've also received a mantra from her back in 2006 and have learned IAM-meditation taught by her organisation. I have also ordered a couple of pujas (fire rituals) from her organisation's services to help me solve some specific problems a few years ago.



To me Ammachi has sort of been like a spiritual aunt who has been there to guide and support me, along with my own parents (masters) that I've worked with during the last decade and many lives before this one. I've received many blessings from her and seen visions of her and other masters together in meditation. I have also asked her questions in person during darshan. I have at times wondered if I should follow her as my guru and even though I sometimes really wanted to, it never happened. I felt that she always welcomed me to meet her but encouraged me to follow my own path and karmic links with other masters and their teachings instead. My association with her has lasted for over 12 years, pretty much the same time I have pursued the spiritual path.

Amma's status and her actions

Ammachi is the only spiritual master, or a mahasiddha, that I have physically met. And I have met quite a few teachers and masters from many traditions. To me she is a living buddha who has no arising of feeling and no cessation of perception. I have spent quite a bit of time with other mahasiddhas in non-physical form, practicing tantric guru yoga with them, so I feel I have a pretty clear idea what makes or what doesn't make one a living buddha. 

Amma's actions speak for themselves. Last November in 2015 she sat down giving hugs continuously for 26 hours. This was reported at the Facebook group of her ashram. An ordinary person or even a very experienced yogi would not be able to do this because the energetic charge would be too great to handle. Meeting, hugging and conversing with perhaps a few thousand people one-by-one during one day is extra-ordinary. This is something that she does on regular basis all over the world. To me this is a clear sign of her being a master. This is completely different than speaking to large crowds which is what many popular gurus do. Also charity work, even of great scale, would not solely indicate the mastership of a teacher. But charity work on vast scale is something that Amma has initiated in addition to her meeting over 35 million people one by one. This is something that hasn't been achieved by ordinary people or by charlatans. 

There are many miraculous stories of Amma but since I have personally never seen her do any supernatural miracles I do not wish to narrate these here. On the other hand, I have never seen anyone leave her arms looking as fearful or confused as they came, so again to me this, transforming the minds of people in just a few short seconds, is a greater miracle than demonstrating siddhis, special powers.

Criticism

One of the things I have critisized about hindu gurus and their teachings in general, is that usually their verbal teachings are vague and non-specific. Hindu gurus speak about "enlightenment", "awakening", "samadhi" and many such things but do not clarify these things in a way that would be understandable for their followers and the world society. This is also the case with Amma's verbal teachings.


"Dharma" or nondual spirituality has many definitions but if we are talking about what "spirituality" actually is, there is no other way to define it than as experience-based nondualism. Nondualism means seeing through the dualistic delusion of one's sense of self. This takes place in the mind.

It has been said that Amma's mission is in reinstating moral values, in addition to being an example of selflessness and love herself. I do not know if Amma would agree to this definition of her mission but in case she would, it should be questioned whether her mission of reinstating moral values is actually the sort of nondualistic spirituality and enlightenment that she often talks about. Being honest, sincere, kind and loving is of course better than being deceitful and hateful. Also doing good actions and charity is much better than doing bad things or just thinking of oneself over others. However, one can do good actions and be sort of loving while being deluded by one's sense of self. These things get easily mixed up.

It is the sense of self in the mind of man which creates dualistic positioning between "me and them" or between "me and my guru". As  teachings of Amma do not clarify this point and do not clearly point to the self-delusion imprinted in the mind of her many followers, which would help this illusion to vaporize, her followers stay bound by this dualistic chain. Considering how devoted many are to her, this is very unfortunate, I feel. Because of this simple flaw, people can never really understand her. As people stay fixed in the idea that they exist as separate entities, they can never really "get" Amma, who is without a self. 

I once asked Ammachi in person, that in case me and my family moved to her ashram, could I as my volunteer work, guide people to awaken from their self-delusion through self-inquiry (skt. atma vichara). "We don't do such practices here" was her reply. I didn't know what to expect but still after time this seems strange to me. 

It has been said by her that her devotees are "rusty steel" meaning perhaps something along the lines that they are not ready or fit to see through their self-delusion and should stick with the very basics. It has also been said by buddhist lamas that all people are not ready for emptiness teachings which in other words means seeing through the illusion of self. I agree with this to the extent that I don't think everyone is fit to awaken. But many are. So mostly I disagree on this point.

Seeing through the illusion of self and becoming awakened are the very basics of nondual spirituality. How could awakening possibly be something wrong, dangerous or undesired because the selfless nature is our true nature?

Based on my experience as a direct pointing teacher, I'd say that there are many people out there who are ready and fit for aiming directly at the central spoke of self-delusion. It makes no sense to decline this instruction from people, whether they are Amma's followers or others. The same problem is found in vajrayana buddhism. I have heard Amma speak of the "mistaken identity" and "awakening" but regarding this point, her direct pointing instructions are so scattered among long talks of Indian folklore, hindu classics and jokes that it is close to impossible for people to apply them in practice and actually get awakened.


Amma teaches tantric practices, like mantras, breathing practices and visualisation. These practices aim specifically for purification of mind. This is often called "gradual enlightenment". These practices are not meant to generate awakening  and only rarely and by chance they generate "sudden awakening". The great majority of people who do mind purification practices, don't get awakened because the practices are not designed to do that. The problem with this is that it is not possible to finish purification of the mind (gradual enlightenment) without sudden awakening. This is because the mind and it's mechanisms are the same with all men. This is a flaw in Amma's teachings, as well as most other hindu gurus. This problem is found in most hindu teachings and to an extent also in tantric buddhism which is very unfortunate.
 
So, with Amma, it is a strange mixture. The greatest master I've ever (physically) met surrounded by a huge mass of followers who constantly cultivate the selfless state of awareness through devotional practice but do not have the simplest instructions in consciously recognising their natural state. For this reason people keep seeking. It is the self or "me" who seeks so the situation is problematic.

I admit my inability to understand this. I can only assume that she knows what she is doing but at the same time I cannot help seeing these fundamental flaws in her teaching, as anyone with some understaning of jnana yoga or buddhist vipashyana meditation would. Fortunately, it has also been told by many people that Amma has somehow guided them to more fitting teachers and teachings.

Years with Amma

In Amma's presence, it is common for people to say things like, "Her energy is huge!", "I am embraced by her love!", "She is my Mother!" or something like that. People are very impressed by her. And I was too because I've kept going back to see her. I've heard buddhist practitioners tell about the same wow-factor of their own lamas.

This wow-factor happens both because of the powerful spiritual energy of the teacher but mainly because of the messy-ness of the mind (which translates to the energy body) of the person himself. It is because of the karmic grooves installed in the mind of a person why the presence of a particular teacher or a guru is felt to be powerful. The guru's energy of utmost spiritual clarity keeps meeting with the karmic knots while creating powerful sensations. Guru Yoga was like that for me for several years. But this changes when karmic patterns become purified. When one works with a guru for years the experience of his or her presence changes and neutralises because your own mind changes, becomes clearer.
 
For some time now, Amma's darshans have not had that powerful/energy/love/wow!-effect to me anymore. Instead what happens is that if one is in connection with a master like Amma or some other, the change happens in the clarity of the conscious experience and not in the energies of the bodymind. This is the change between the higher bhumis or grounds which are momentarily experienced because of the uplifting effect of the master's presence.

All in all

All in all, despite of the problems that I see in Amma's teaching, I have great respect for her.  In this time there is no other physical guru whose work is as vast, as Amma's. She has offered her arms to a huge number of people and has helped them, encouraging those who are sick, abused, abandoned and so on. She surely embodies love and clarity that we all can draw inspiration from.


Thank you for reading,

- Kim Katami, 4/2016.

Open Heart
www.openheart.fi

Links and sources 

• Guidance to Awakening: http://www.en.openheart.fi/101
• Here is how to become awakened: http://www.en.openheart.fi/113
• Awake! - freee ebook: http://www.en.openheart.fi/114
• Bhumi Study Series, Part 3, Hindu gurus, including Amma: http://openheartopenheart.blogspot.fi/2016/02/bhumi-study-series-part-3-hindu-gurus.html
• Stages of spiritual attainment: http://openheartopenheart.blogspot.fi/2016/02/stages-of-spiritual-attainment.html