YOGA
The purpose of Yoga practice is to become one with sacred objects or God. What is a sacred object? Examples are chakras, mantras, mandalas, etc. as in Tantra Yoga teaching. It is simply to concentrate (deep concentration) on a sacred object or God and to become one with it. In order to be one with God or a sacred object, denial of "self" (egolessness) is necessary.
Oneness with an object happens upon complete denial of the existence of "self" (subject), which is opposed to the object. At that moment, the practitioner will transcend subjective/objective understanding or knowledge. Subjective understanding is just subjective understanding and objective understanding is just objective understanding and not complete understanding. Subjective/objective understanding is the dimension of our modern science. Scientists (subject) study or observe objects. The scientist never becomes the object or tries to understand the object. No matter how much you observe and study, objective understanding is just objective understanding. In science, basic understanding of objectivity depends on sense organs which belong to the physical body which exists in the physical dimension.
One transcends the dimension of relativity (subjective/objective) by denying the self (subject) which is opposed to the object and therefore no longer depending on the senses. Consciousness that does not depend on the senses, consciousness of oneness, consciousness of the absolute (non-relative = unity of subject & object) and intuition is known as super consciousness in Tantra yoga.
TANTRA
What is Tantra? I'll try to explain Tantra. Explain Tantra? ... Tantra, Zen, Tao and/or God (absolute being) are dimensions of the non-relative. It is in the dimension of the non-relative (absolute, not in the realm of subjective/objective). "Explanation," as our communication tool, is within the realm of relativity---subjective/objective dimension. Therefore, explaining Tantra means trying to explain the inexplicable. It is something like this: when you want to know about God, you'll read some holy text or go to a priest, or these days, you might turn on your computer and google some websites. They'll tell you God is like this... it looks like this... it is also like this... And they'll use many different stories and metaphors and never say "this is this". Once you say "this is this", then this (God) becomes that, and limits it to "that". God is not "that" but, rather, it can be that but it is also this and it can be this and it is like this too and so on and so forth.
Therefore, I'll use many different stories and metaphors to explain Tantra. In the process you may find conflicts among those stories and metaphors. For example, when explaining one thing using five stories, these stories may conflict with each other but do not get confused, because again it's the "it is like this, but it also is this, and it is this way too" business. And it's this way also. So your understanding towards "it" should be like this and it's like this and this way also. Although stories conflict with each other, mix it together and understand it as a whole. Also, conflicts between metaphors (teachings) occur when the same subject is discussed on different levels. Expand your understanding and consciousness.
The word "understand" is very relative---you (subject) understanding God (object). Subjective understanding is just subjective understanding, not absolute understanding (non-relative). Therefore it is not complete, it is just your understanding and it is a head trip---the dimension of modern science. You'll know nothing this way. Real understanding comes from the absolute dimension only. Therefore actual practice (experience) is emphasized (such as meditation) rather than intellectual studies. In Tantra truth is not in a Bible, truth is within you. Buddha, Jesus, God are also not in the Bible. They are within you. Also they are not in the sky or anywhere else. They are really within you. The Bible, sutras change all the time---it is a matter of your understanding---it changes all the time. The experienced practitioner will read and understand very deeply. Beginning practitioner only read the surface of the word.
For thousand of years, these sacred practices have been transmitted on this planet. Among these practices, especially, is the awakening and developing of Kundalini Shakti and chakras to bring human beings to transcend the state of human being to absolute freedom, and evolve to eternal beings. This practice is called Tantra Yoga. You can also consider that any teachings that talk about chakras, Kundalini Shakti, microcosm and macrocosm is a category of Tantrism. There is Tantrism in Buddhism known as Vajrayana (Tibetan Buddhism is very much influenced by Tantrism). There is Hindu Tantrism (Tantra Yoga). There is Tantrism in Jainism. You can find Tantrism in almost any religion.
Everything has In ([-] or Yin) and Yo ([+] or Yang). Everything has its surface, visible area and internal, inside, not visible parts. Take a tree for example. The visible "Yo" part of the tree you can observe - trunk, branches and leaves. The "In", the not visible part of the tree, the hidden part of the tree, are its roots. There is no tree without root or trunk. So everything is In and Yo. There is no coin without head or tail so therefore the head and tail make a complete coin.
Yo (Yang) + In (Yin) -
Siva........................Shakti
man........................woman
light.......................darkness
high........................low
positive....................negative
sun.........................moon
good.......................bad
right.......................left
out.........................in
rock......and.............roll (oh, excuse me)
One day, when I was lecturing about Yin and Yang, one of my female students had gotten very upset and said "I understand the philosophy, but why are women equated with darkness, bad, negative and low?!!! This very discriminating and is a very man-oriented teaching!"
When the winter comes and all the leaves fall the tree looks dead. But when spring comes and starts to get warm, new leaves start to come out and it looks alive again because of the roots, the In (Yin) existence. You can not recognize "light" without "darkness". Bad does not mean bad. It is just the other end of good. Negative does not mean negative. A complete balance of negative and positive will create electricity. Human being is not man and woman, man and woman make human being.
Every religion has In and Yo parts.
Stay tuned for the next article of this blog: "Traditional Religion and Esoteric Religion"
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