Cool two-part article from Yoga+ Joyful Living.
Watch clips of Pandit Rajmani Tigunait lecturing on mantra.
Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, PhD, is the spiritual head of the Himalayan Institute. A teacher, lecturer, Sanskrit scholar, and author, he has practiced yoga and tantra for more than 30 years.
Read the rest of this post. And here is the beginning of part two.Living Tantra (Part 1)
Sex, drugs, and black magic? Tantra is infinitely more powerful than that. A modern master reveals the truth about this complex and controversial path.
I was born and raised in the part of North India that has long been a stronghold of tantric practices. My birthplace, Amargarh, lies in a triangle formed by three of India’s holiest cities: Varanasi, Allahabad, and Ayodhya. Varanasi, the city of light, embodies the spiritual traditions of ancient India, including all forms of tantra: Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain tantras; left-hand tantra; right-hand tantra; forbidden tantra; and tantric practices of a purely yogic nature. Allahabad, the city of gods, experiences a big congregation of saints, yogis, and tantrics from every tradition every January and February, and an even larger congregation every 12 years during the Kumbha Mela. Ayodhya, the invincible city of Lord Rama, is the most mysterious of all, for thousands of saints and yogis, mostly practicing right-hand tantra, are hidden behind the walls of hundreds of monasteries and ashrams.
There was a monastery a little more than a mile from my childhood home that was a magnet for wandering sadhus, novice seekers, and adepts. The nearby palace had its own circle of tantrics, pandits, and astrologers. My father was one of them. Growing up in this land I saw pandits debating their views, astrologers making their predictions, and tantrics performing their magical rituals. I saw my father spend hours every day reciting scriptures, meditating on mantra, and worshipping the Divine Mother through rituals and fire offerings.
My own spiritual quest began in an extremely simple way. I was afraid of the ghosts who live in dust devils. Inspired by my mother, I started meditating on Hanuman by reciting 40 couplets dedicated to him to protect myself from these ghosts. But it was only when I heard an amazing story that I became intensely interested in spirituality and understood that tantric practice could help me discover the best in myself and in the world around me.
The raja of Amargarh was fond of the number 24. He had 24 horses, 24 wrestlers, and 24 pandits. One of the pandits was an accomplished left-hand tantric who worshipped Divinity with alcohol and meat. In those days, palace politics were dominated by right-hand tantrics, who condemned using these articles in rituals. Under pressure from them, the raja demanded that the left-hand tantric clarify whether or not he was using these “impure” articles in his rituals. Instead of answering directly, the tantric said, “I do not indulge in liquor. I worship the Divine Mother in a manner prescribed in the scriptures.” This statement annoyed the right-hand tantrics even more. They conspired with the raja to raid the temple at midnight, the time the tantric performed his rituals. They pounded on the door when the tantric was in the middle of his chakra puja, a practice forbidden to non-initiates. Not knowing what else to do, the tantric interrupted his practice and, before opening the door, prayed, “Oh Divine Mother, do whatever you wish.” The crowd stormed in, only to find a chalice filled with milk instead of wine. The tantric, saddened that the Divine Mother had to go out of her way to protect him, resigned from the raja’s court. Many other tantrics followed suit. Soon all kinds of calamities—disease, accidents, and death—began to befall the raja’s family. The royal elephants became deranged and portions of the palace collapsed.
To me everything about this incident—a ritual so potent and sacred it is forbidden to non-initiates, wine turning into milk, and a chain of calamities ensuing from the disruption of a tantric practice—was both fascinating and bewildering. When I asked my father what tantra is and who these tantrics were, he only said, “Tantra is the way to discover the infinite potential of your body, the power of your mind, and the beauty of your soul. Tantrics are the blessed children of the Divine Mother.” Although I was too young to understand the meaning of this answer, the incident at the palace temple was so compelling that it pulled me deeper into the world of tantra.
I began to actively seek out tantrics who practiced special techniques and possessed unique powers. Miracles held a particular fascination so I was thrilled when I met a tantric with an amazing metal bowl. When a theft occurred he would invoke his bowl. The bowl would come to life, rise in the air, float to the place where the stolen objects were hidden, and hover over that spot until the objects were exposed and the recovery acknowledged. I met another tantric who cured cobra bites. Yet another tantric would draw a mandala known as chakra vyuha, show it to a woman in labor, and within minutes the baby would be delivered. I met a sadhu who specialized in the tantric use of herbs. He would invoke the energy of prickly chaff, for example, and give it to a client whose house was infested with cobras. As soon as the client deposited the herb in his house, the cobras would slither out unharmed. A Sufi fakir specialized in the science of jantar (yantra/mandala). He cured nightmares, phobias, and infertility by tying the jantar to a patient’s arm. Experiences with these and other tantrics convinced me tantra was as profound, useful, and rewarding as any other science known to man. But when I went to Allahabad and enrolled in the university, I witnessed events that made me wonder if tantra were merely a combination of trickery and superstition.
Read the rest of this post.Living Tantra, (Part 2)
Harness prana shakti—the inner divinity—with a potent tantric practice that will charge your mind with vitality, insight, and the power to heal.
Let’s begin by reminding ourselves of the distinctive nature of tantra as encapsulated at the end of my last article:
For ages people have been fighting an unending war—the war of good and bad, right and wrong, virtue and sin, heaven and hell, sacred and mundane, freedom and bondage. Everyone caught in this war—monks and householders, clergy and laymen, politicians and philosophers, men and women, poor and rich, businessmen and those fully committed to inner life—are equally miserable. Tantra has a remedy for this misery. This remedy works because a tantric seeks freedom in the world, not from the world. In tantra, the sacred and the mundane are held together in harmonious balance. Worldly success and spiritual development go hand in hand. This is a joy-driven path, a path of active participation in life. It is not a path for those who seek salvation after death but a path for those who seek health, wealth, peace, and happiness here and now.
The events I shared with you in the last issue show that the range of tantra is as vast as life itself. Within tantra there are numerous paths—each leading to unique experiences. Some tantric practices are trivial and shallow. Others are profound and deeply meaningful. Some focus on the acquisition of worldly possessions and power. Others have spiritual enlightenment as their central goal. Some tantric paths place exclusive emphasis on rituals and others employ yogic techniques to awaken the kundalini shakti and chakras in one’s own body. Some use yantras and mandalas to awaken and gain mastery over the healing power. Other paths employ unique internal visualizations and concentration techniques to awaken and acquire that same healing power. Some tantrics use herbs to accelerate their practice and others use unique breathing techniques. Some go as far as to use drugs and sex while others abstain from both. But all tantric paths and practices have one common theme: the acquisition of power.
The power to be and the power to become, the power to grow and the power to blossom, the power to explore limitless possibilities and the power to materialize those possibilities—these are the hallmarks of tantric spirituality. Rising above our limitations and gaining access to the limitless domain of the power of will, the power of knowledge, and the power of action is the ultimate goal of tantric wisdom and practice. The term tantra itself tells how to gain access to this boundless field of power.
Tantra is a compound of two verbs, tan and tra. The verb tan has two sets of meanings. The first is “to expand, to grow, to expound, to give meaning.” Tan also means “to weave, to intertwine, to integrate, to connect, to breathe newness into the old, to pull the present out of the past and give it a meaningful future.” The second verb in this compound, tra, means “to protect, to free from sorrow, to help one move away from the domain of afflictions.” Thus tantra refers to the path of health and healing, science and spirituality, that holds our full expansion and development as its main objective. It shows us how we can grow and blossom. It shows us how to find purpose in life and how to weave the tapestry of life in the most meaningful manner, how to protect and nurture ourselves, and how to protect and nurture others. The principle of integration lies at the core of tantric philosophy and practice. This principle refers to the integration of our worldly endeavors with our spiritual pursuits, the integration of personal empowerment with the empowerment of others and the empowerment of the natural world. Good and evil, sacred and mundane, coexist harmoniously in this tantric world of integration. Following the principle of integration, a tantric practitioner attempts to find freedom while living in the world and aspires to experience the fullness of life.
To a tantric, life is not bondage but the gateway to freedom. To be born as a human is an opportunity to experience our oneness with Absolute Consciousness—our own inner divinity. God, Absolute Consciousness, deposited Her limitless power of creativity in each of us. Gaining access to that limitless creativity fulfills the purpose of life. And dying without knowing and experiencing that power defeats the purpose of human birth.
Inner Temple
A tantric begins his spiritual quest by changing his worldview and his attitude toward his own body, mind, and senses. For ages, people have been living with a self-defeating philosophy that condemns the world and thereby promotes the idea of finding freedom from it. According to that philosophy, the body is the focal point of misery: pleasure is the doorway to hell; worldly objects are a burden to the soul. In the view of tantra, this philosophy is deeply flawed.
According to tantra, the world is beautiful. Life in the world is beautiful. Our inability to see the beauty within and without is bondage for it forces us to live in this world purposelessly. The quest for freedom here and now begins with understanding the sacred nature of our body, mind, and senses. According to tantra, the body is the living temple of divinity. The center of consciousness (soul, atman, jiva) is the highest divinity within us. A vast portion of the powers, potentials, and privileges of this divinity remain dormant. This dormant power is called kundalini shakti. Only a fraction of its potentials are available in their awakened form. The power and potential of the soul that is awakened and active in us is called prana. Prana, the force that keeps us alive, is the intrinsic and vibrant attribute of this inner divinity. For all practical purposes, this prana shakti is the highest god in us, for it is this particular aspect of divine power that helps us gain access to the infinite dormant potentials within.
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