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Archive for the 'Tantra' Category

Exposing our Deepest Feelings and Vulnerabilities Takes Great Trust

Published by admin on October 13, 2009 under Tantra, Uncategorized

To be willing to expose our deepest feelings and vulnerability takes great trust. It takes great inner strength, and courage.  Courage to know that even if the other betrays you, you will remain open. It is beautiful to trust.

Beautiful…and difficult.  But if you look deeply into the difficulty, you will see it is not exactly that you do not trust.  If you watch you will find it is simply a lack of courage.  Then things can be different.  When you know it is fear – not distrust – then you can decide to have courage.  And remember always, it is natural to feel this fear.  It exists in everybody. So don’t label yourself as a coward.  The fear of the unknown exists in everybody.  One simply has to go slowly and move beyond the known.  Having the courage to step forward…you can always come back (big smile!) (with a little knowledge and experience!)

Everyone is in this catch 22…without trust we feel fear..which again fuels our distrust and lack of courage. So the first thing we must do to be able to trust is accept yourself.  Accept yourself fully.  If you can come to accept yourself fully, you will not be concerned about respect, you will not need to worry about saving your face.   You can be trusting, just as an innocent child.  And what does it mean to be trusting as an innocent child?  It means you are showing the highest kind of love – trust.  It is the purest love.  It is uncontaminated love – uncontaminated by any desire.

But you can only do this if you are not thinking about consequences.  Do not bother about what will happen, just be willing to act according to your own being, to your own spontaneity.  You must have the courage to move beyond society and what they have told you what is ‘right’.   But if you trust someone with a motive, it is not trust…you will become fearful again. You are using the person. If you think by trusting someone you will attain happiness, then you will not be able to trust. You are using them. They have become a means to an end.  That is not very respectful. Just live moment to moment…with no outcome in mind.   Then not the outcome, but the trust is the bliss…just the act of trusting gives one a feeling of blissfullness.

With practice and experience, you will come to say anything and everything you feel, sincerely – with no concern of consequences.  Even if you feel the fear, the hesitation, all it takes is a little courage.  And you can also encourage the other person to be intimate.  Your openess will help the other person also to be open.

What you will come to find out is that not only were you feeling fear, so was the other..not only are you concerned about your weakness, but the other too has weaknesses -you will begin to feel more trusting, less as strangers.

And always remember that everything that is beautiful, precious is also only momentary.  We want to cling, hold on and make every precious moment permanent.  It simply cannot be.  Always know perfectly well that tomorrow cannot be promised.  What you know, what you share with someone is precious because it is momentary.  We become very frustrated when we try to cling.  And when we become frustrated, a distance grows between you, you begin fighting…and what was meant to be beautiful, to be moments of happiness just become one big long misery (laughing!).

But if you can become unafraid of being intimate with someone, it can become a great transformation.  You begin to become not only unafraid of the other, but most importantly, you become unafraid of yourself.  You begin to drop everything that you once were ashamed of.  You realize your own beauty.  You realize life…!

To become intimate and trust someone means that the doors of your heart are open.  It means that you welcome another to be a guest.  You are allowing each other to be innocent as children, no fear…just opening yourself to be seen, as you are.

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How Do We Experience Divine Union?

Published by shirley on December 18, 2008 under Tantra

The veil of our separate identity is removed when we experience the explosion at the sahasrar chakra and experience union with the divine.  The explotion of the divine union happens when two energies meet, the kundalini of the individual and the divine energy. Thus, the sleeping energy within the individual must rise up to the sahasrar, the crown, and then only is the union, the explosion, possible.  No union is possible except at the point of the sahasrar.  It is just as if your doors are closed and the sun is shining outside.  The light stays outside your door.  You move inside the house up to the door, but still you will not meet the light of the sun.  Only when the door opens do you come in contact with the sunlight. 

So the ultimate point of the kundalini is the sahasrar.  That is the door where grace awaits us.  The divine is always waiting at this door.  It is you who are not at the door; you are away within somewhere.  You have to come to the door.  There the union will take place, and that union will be in the form of an explosion.  It is called explosion because then you will immeditately disapear; you will no longer be.  In the happening you will be no more.  You will be lost; you will be broken and scattered; you will no longer be.  You will not be what you were behind the closed door.  All that was yours will be lost.  Only the one who waits outside the door will remain, and you will become a part, a part of the divine.  This cannot happen to you alone, by yourself.  For this explosion it is very necessary for you to reach up to the infiine cosmic energy.  The sleeping energy within has to be awakened and made to rise upwards to the sahasrar where the cosmic energy forever awaits.  The journey of the kundalini starts from your sleeping center and ends at the place, at the boundary, where you disappear. 

Your kundalini is your sleeping energy.  Its boundaries extend from the sex center to the center at the top of the head.  Rightly speaking, we have two boundaries.  One is the sex center and below this center the world of nature begins.  At the center of sex there is no difference between trees, birds, animals and ourself.  This center is the ultimate limit for them, whereas for man it is the first point, the starting line.  When we are based in the sex center we too are animals.  Our other limit is the intellect.  It is near our second boundary line beyond which is the divine.  Beyond this point we are no longer ourselves; then we are the divine.  These are our two frontier lines, and between these two our energy moves. 

Now, the reservoir where all our energy lies asleep is near the sex center.  That is why ninety-nine percent of man’s thoughts, dreams and activities are spend aorund this reservoir.  No matter how much culture may be displayed, whatever the false pretexts the society may bring out, man lives there and there alone.  He lives around the sex center.  If he earns money it is for sex; if he builds a house it is for sex; if he earns prestige he does so for sex.  At the root of it all we will find sex. 

It is interesting that between these two extremes you cannot rest anywhere, you cannot stop anywhere.  Many people find themselves in great difficulty as they have no desire for liberation, and if for some reason they become antagonistic towards sex they find themselves in a terrible predicatment.  They start staying away from the sex center, but they won’t go anywhere near the center for liberation.  They fall into doubt and uncertainty, and that is very difficult, very painful, and really a hell. Their lives are filled with inner turmoil. 

If the kundalini is at the lowest center a discharge of sexual energy is inevitable.  If it reaches the highest center explosion is certain. Both are explosions and both require the participation of the other.  In the discharge of sex the other is necessary, even if it is an imaginary other. But all your energy does not become scattered from here, because this is only the beginning point of your being.  You are much more than that, and you have progressed much from there.  The animal is fully satisfied at this point and therefore does not seek liberation.  In the realm of sex the presence of the other is required. If the other person is not present, even imagining the other produces the necessary effect. This is why is was thought that if God is present even in imagination, the explosion can take place.  If ejaculation is possible through the imagination, why cannot the energy explosion take place in the same way at the sahasrar?  Ejaculation is possible in imagination because it has actually been experienced; therefore it can be imagined.  But we have had no meeting with God, therefore He cannnot be imagined.  We can only imagine that which has been experienced by us. 

Explosion is not our experience; therefore, imagination does not work here.  We will actually have to go within and then the actual happening can take place.  So the sahasrar chakra is your ultimate boundary, where you end. 

We can experience this wonderful experience of sex.  Those who go deep into the expereince feel a flowering,  but it is a very fleeting experience.  Something within blossoms, but it closes again almost immeditately.  This is the difference between the two experiences.  In the sex experience the energy moves downwards; whereas in samadhi the energy moves upwards.   When we are unaware, the energy moves downwards.  Yet, when aware, the energy begins to ascend upwards towards the sahasrar.  

Thus, both these things are required.  You will travel up to the sahasrar and there someone is always awaiting you.  It is not correct to say that someone will come there when you reach; that someone is already there waiting for the happening to take place in you.   The bliss of sexuality pales as a candle to sun when compared to the bliss of union with the divine. 

So with all our efforts and work with the sexual energy, it’s purpose is to raise this energy with awareness till the body can no longer contain who we are, until we enter a union with the divine in what some call a cosmic orgasm, an explosion, liberation, divine union.

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Vajra Bhairava, The Defender and Protector of Those on the Path

Published by shirley on November 24, 2008 under Tantra, Uncategorized

Vajra Bhariava manifesting as a bronze vajra with lightning

I am the Vajra Bhairava, the leader of the Bhairava armies
I am a warrior, and I struggle against the forces of illusion and ignorance
I also command dakinis and herukas when necessary
I emanate clouds of bhairavas for the wars of the Buddhas.
While the ultimate goals of Buddhism are peace, freedom, and awareness
In the intermediate realms, we do not have emptiness
Beings suffer tragedy, or they attack others
Out of hatred, and greed, and lust, and delusion.

Though such beings are deluded,
they may still cause great harm
This is why we have defenders of the Vajra worlds
And protectors of those on the path.

There are many categories of threatening beings
There are angry ghosts, and spirits of the dark emotions
There are demons who personify pain and horror
And repeat tragedies in the victum’s mind endlessly,
until the person goes insane
There are spirits of temptation, who at first appear beautiful
But beneath the surface, they squirm, and grasp, and strangle
The high Creation Buddhas are themselves dangerous to the weak and uncertain
For their emanations are so powerful that a person may be overwhelmed
And be unable to stand against them.

There are many dangers on the spiritual path
Some come by accident, but most result from dark karma
Which is often unknown to the seeker
This is why it is important to have a protector
And also why the protector is a wrathful deity
And one who is able to chase away the powers of ignorance and desire.

This is why lineages are important
They can assign protectors
But if a person is worthy,
he or she will be protected regardless
A spiritual person shines with an inner light
Which is invisible to the physical world,
but is visible in the other worlds.

I may be visualized as a shining moon behind thunder clouds
As a sun whose rays are shooting vajra knives and spears
As a white lion in the mountains,
leaping and flying among the rocky peaks
As a guardian statue at the entrance of a temple.

Deities do not exist, yet I defend and command them
Souls do not exist, yet I protect them
Buddhas do not exist, yet I serve them
The Void does not exist, yet all of the worlds depend upon it.

I am an armed black warrior on a winged horse, slaying ignorance
I am a naked ascetic in a cave, slaying lust
I am a bodhisattva of light, slaying hatred and illusion.

Sincere seekers may call upon me for help
But those who seek to manipulate and gain power
Will be destroyed along with their desires.

 

 

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The Geography of Death

Published by shirley on August 10, 2008 under Tantra

The denial of death in the modern world is also a denial of transcendence. For science, death is an enemy- the ending of human life and creativity. For the fundamentalists, it is the call to extreme [or violent] behavior to dramatize their commitment, for they know that their thoughts are not worthy of God. Though faith is glorified, it is not really trusted. Nobody ever has enough of it. There are claims that make it seem almost universal, but really it is a scarce commodity. Death is a test and life is the time to cram for it. For the secularists, death is sleep and the negation of earthly life with nothing to take its place.

All of these understandings of death are limited – souls go to the place of death but then expect to stay there into eternity – perhaps with a god escort. But death involves travel, as does transcendent meditation. The greater the emphasis on the material world, the less emphasis there is on the places the soul may go after death.

Death is like an airport at night – there are many distant lights but their role is not explained. The soul finds itself out on the grass surrounded by runways. There are signals all around, but the individual cannot interpret them. And the soul is surrounded by the winds of flight, the karmic winds that determine the soul’s travel and next incarnation.

Whether the soul is on the lawn of the domestic or international flights is determined by karma, which weighs down the soul during its movement at death. Heavy karma, brings immediate reincarnation in unfortunate lives and unpleasant forms, and drops the person in the domestic area. So many poor choices were made, so much unnecessary suffering inflicted on others, that there is no chance for leisure travel or exploration. The mistakes must be atoned for as soon as possible, and the obligations fulfilled.

But for souls with less karmic obligation, the international terminal is not a terminal but a stopover. When the soul is not weighed down by obligation, there is more leisure time. One may call over a guide or even a travel agent, and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of various destinations.

Each culture has metaphors that work as living symbols in the afterlife. For some people, death is a caravanserai where groups of travelers meet and then journey. For some, it is an ocean where swimmers meet in their travels. There are inns, stables, and intermediate worlds. In the modern world, we have ports of call for ships, railroads, and bus stations. But I think the most apt metaphor is an airport.

For the unschooled traveler, it is a vast and chaotic darkness, with colored lights near and far, and no visible signs. But for one that knows the floor plan [and layout], it is clear and well organized.

At the domestic terminal, there is rapid transfer of souls based largely on heaviness and darkness of karma. Incarnation is based on viscosity and density. There are paths to incarnation from hundreds of levels – we could even say they are based on degrees of impurity. In the vast waves of souls, some rise and some fall, and at the end are thrown forth according to their karmic placement. It is an automatic process though there are guardians [to correct problems] in case of errors. The round of birth and death is fast in the realms of obligation and punishment.

The international terminal is less pressured and there are choices of destinations. Were one to look past the darkness [of the airport at night], the airport would appear as a great cosmic mandala with universes upon universes circling and spiraling. Here, will and intention can have as much influence as karma, and the soul has choice as well as necessity. Meditation upon mantras, visualizations, and calling upon guides and deities can determine one’s afterlife – or at least influence it. It depends on the weight of karma as to whether the person can follow his or her will.

The mandala shifts through time and space. It is the transformer of souls. There are many paths to the spiritual worlds.

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The Book of Secrets

Published by shirley on August 9, 2008 under Tantra

Welcome to Attainment!  Please join us as we explore the Tantra Sutras given in the Book of Secrets.  There are 112 Tantra Sutras given to center one’s being so you can experience Divine Presence, Self-Realization, Enlightenment!  Please join us as we learn the right understanding, right concentration, and the right practice of each one of these Tantras that will allow you to successfully experience the benefits of each technique!

This Wednesday we covered the Second Sutra from the Book of Secrets: 

 “As breath turns from down to up, and again as breath curves from up to down – through both these turns, realize.”

This technique deals with the breath.  People often think of the breath going in parallel lines.  But they do not.  Breath goes in a half circle; breath going out is the other half. 

Why is Shiva putting such emphasis on the turn?  Why are we watching the turn of the breath?  As it turns from up to down..and again from down to up?  I like how it is written in the tantra book.  It says: “If you know driving you know about gears.  Each time you change the gear, you have to pass through the neutral gear, which is not a gear at all! From the first gear you move to the second or from the second to the third, but alway you have to move through the neutral gear.  That neutral gear is a turning point.  In that turning point the first gear becomes the second and the second becomes the third.  When your breath goes in and turns out, it passes through the neutral gear!  In that neutral gear you are neither body or mind. It is here that you can “realize.”

When your breath is moving through the body, your mind is moving.  In class someone mentioned to me…”Shirley, it is difficult for me, because the breathing disturbs me.”  She made a good point.  It is not that the breathing disturbed her, so much as breathing IS the disturbance.  Breath connects body and mind, and when you are breathing..well, let’s say you are disturbed (big smile).  What I mean is there will be flucuations.  That is why we watch so carefully the turns.  It is here that there is no disturbance.  There is clarity.  You must watch with a very sensitive awareness, but it can happen.   And happen suddenly that you become aware of yourself.  Realize yourself without mind or body.  It is at these turns that it becomes possible. 

We spoke at length Wednesday about Enlightenment and what that is…and what it is not!  What being spiritual means…and what it does not mean.  Please feel free to give us your ideas on this, your understanding of enlightenment and spirituality. 

 

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