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From: tyagi@shell.portal.com (Tyagi Morgoth NagaSiva)
Newsgroups: alt.magick.sex,talk.religion.newage
Subject: Re: TANTRA (LONG)
Date: 31 May 1994 18:15:58 GMT
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940531

This is a strange thread, since it ties together what are ancient
technologies, what are called 'New Age' things, "sex magick", and
general Eastern philosophy and religion.  Approach with caution. :>


dhummer@netcom.com (Joy Williams) and I continue our conversation:

|: |What exactly is Tantra.  ANd how does it relate to sexuality?

|[more Joy!:]
|
|Tantra is the essence of magick, in it's most transcendental ways.  It is 
|the magick of weaving together the elements within in ourselves and 
|attempting through magick to weave those elements of ourselves into the 
|greater elements of the universe, and thus achieve transcendance and 
|eventually enlightenment... 

I'm going to get very picayune and, since you've mentioned that there are
many who are not familiar with these concepts, ask you for clarification
on a number of your terms which I think are not at all clear, even within
the Eastern philosophy newsgroups. :>

First off, what do you mean by 'magick' here?  Are you talking about
a technology for change?  Do you mean to imply a wonder or awe (as in
"magick of weaving")?

By this 'weaving' you seem to be stating things which are comparable to
Maslow's 'self-actualization', in that personal elements are unified
into an integral whole.  I agree with your comments and think that this
is a difficult concept to grasp without many different approaches (i.e.
from the modern Psychological approach to the mystical characterizations
of many religious groups, which you bring in below).


|It is the means to self-liberation and to "Buddhahood".

Liberation in what sense?  From what?

Do you really think that Tantra is the same process as Buddhism's
8-fold Path or that it allows one to reach the identical goal?  I'm
not saying anything either way, but I'd like to know why you think
this, and your words below are not convincing to me that this is the
case, unless you mean: Tantra = Vajrayana.


|It is the means to become fully conscious of the 
|pure-self, which is the death of the ego, and the understanding that we 
|are all part of the "all."

One of the most important aspects of my posts within the subjects of
Satanism and Buddhism has to do with my attitude toward the ego.  I'm
not sure what you mean by this term (though I'd like to), but what you
are expressing here is what I think of as quite disempowering and of
the social mob.  I'd like to know why you make a distinction between
'ego' and 'pure-self' and why you think that this ego must 'die' or
vanish or whatever.

What do you mean by 'ego'?  I presume that this is not Jungian terminology,
which I tend to prefer.  In Jung, it seems the ego has a bit of a better
position within the psychological construct.  It is the nexus between the
conscious and unconscious minds.


|: |According to "Sexual Secrets",  Tantra is the sanskrit word for 
|: |"SPiritual method that takes into account both "inner' and "outer" 
|: |realities.  

|: [tyagi:]
|: Weaves the 'spiritual' and 'material' into the 'experiential'.
|
|Yes, but also helps to weave the experiential into the spiritual and 
|material.  

I'll guess that you mean here to compare finding the divine experience
within what are called 'mundane' activities with engaging specific actions
in order to manifest this experience.

I tend to ignore or reinterpret the terms 'spiritual' and 'material' or
'physical' in ways which are unorthodox.  I don't find two realms to which
these terms apply (not absolute ones anyway).  I think that continuing to
use them in this way without some clarification can be destructive of our
personal lives as well as the lives of those around us. <evil grin>
 

|Through experiencing we activate the divine into the life all 
|aroudn us...it excites the Lingham, or Shiva's energy into expression and 
|movement.  

I would restate this as 'actuating divinity within our lives', but I think
we mean the same thing - discovering the sacredness of our experience.


|It is the means to bring Shakti (the divine feminine) and 
|Shiva (the divine masculine) together in the act of creation.   

My impression is that the Shiva-Shakti pair extend beyond creation.
There is way too much focus on 'creationism' within our culture for
my tastes. :>


|...the hermetic
|principle, of as above, so below...Magick is the act of enacting 
|the act of divine cration, and sexual magick is the most potent means to 
|awaken our divinity and to recreate the hermetic principle.  

Well, this is rather jumbled, but I tend to think differently.  For
example, the way I look at it, magical techniques are tools we can
use to do many different things, usually involving change on some
level.  Again, I don't have the focus on generation that many within
the Christian and Neopagan groups seem to.

You seem to equate 'sex magick' with 'Tantra', and while I can see the
truth of this, I also think that it extends into DESTRUCTION.  'The
Hermetic Principle' that you mention above is understood in a myriad
of ways by its lonesome.  I like to think of it as the IDENTITY RELATION
between apparent elements of universal flux. :>


|It is also 
|the Vajrayana method to enlightenment...swallowing the elixir (which is 
|thought to be a poison) and transmuting it into the elixir of life.

I think this is marvellous, and yet my memory is that Shiva was famous
for doing this - swallowing poison and transmuting it into liberation.
Is Vajrayana more than a Tibetan practice?  If not, do you think that
the deities/yidam worshipped in Vajrayana practices are proto- or
post-Shiva?  How does the history of Tantric Buddhism relate to the
history of Tantric Hinduism?  


|Though Tyagi is all-too familiar (I'm sure) with this concept, I'll 
|expound.  

I am not an expert on these very difficult subjects.  I have studied
them, but I am only an egg (to coin a familiar phrase).  Below I shall
challenge you severely because of my own bias and inexact knowledge.


|There are three major methods in Buddhism to enlightenment.  

My understanding is that there is only one method in Buddhism, and that
this manifests in very many ways.  The method of which I speak is of
course the 8-fold Path to Nirvana, which is the last of the Four Noble
Truths taught by the Buddha.


|They are hinayana (lessor way), mahayana (greater way) and Vajrayana 
|(diamond way).  

Here you begin to speak of the major schools of Buddhism, which host
the many ways that the teachings of the Buddha have been carried through.
I still don't get the impression that there is any sort of uniformity
within any of these 'ways' or 'vehicles'.

The Theravada was the original Buddhist tradition, the 'Orthodoxy', as
I understand it.  When Nagarjuna and others posed a rival school,
the 'Mahayana' or 'Great Vehicle', they re-characterized the Theravada
or 'Old School', as the 'Small Vehicle' because they said that it only
served the individual, whereas the Mahayana supposedly set the stage
for Nirvana *en masse*.  Opinions differ as to the truth of this claim,
yet I'm not sure that 'Hinayana' is considered very complimentary to
the Old School.

The Vajrayana is, by my very small understanding, the Tibetan variation
of Mahayana Buddhism, and thus contains many elements of the original
in its design.

I think there is another vehicle (aside from my own 'Avidyana', which
has not caught on quite yet :>), but I don't remember its name.


|Neither of these methods are any better than the other, 
|it's just that some are faster than others...and the faster they are, the 
|more dangerous they are.  

There is a lot of debate about this kind of thing in newsgroups like
soc.religion.eastern.  Whether some disciplines or schools offer 'faster
roads to Nirvana' is questionable.  Indeed, the entire notion of Nirvana
as a 'place to get to' is disputed by respectable Buddhists.  Nagarjuna
himself, the founder of the Madhyamika - a major constituent of the
Mahayana - is said to have indicated that Nirvana and Samsara are one in
sunyata (emptiness/void/nonduality).

As to their 'danger', I think it may wisely be said that those who set
out on their own (as in the Theravada or solitary) have more to lose
and more to gain than those who participate in group disciplines, which
have the advantage of having been tested, yet have the disadvantage of
having possibly been corrupted to social ends.


|To give an apt analogy, let us say that one 
|monk from each method are all given a small cup of poison.  The monk on 
|the hinyana path will examine the cup but will decline to drink of the 
|cup, though he will study all of it's components.  

Theravadans differ as to their methods, as do all Buddhists, yet I think
I understand that you are saying that the Theravadans are more ascetic,
which is my understanding also.


|The monk on the 
|mahayan path will take small sips of the poison over a stretch of time, 
|until he has built up tolerance.  

This appears to indicate that the Mahayana Buddhists in general merge
their discipline with their 'lay lives'.  The analogy of 'poison' is
often used to illustrate the deluding qualities of the world, and that
the Mahayana are more connected to the world while attempting to integrate
with it is something I understand to be true also.

The aspect most touted by Mahayanists which illustrates this well is the
bodhisattva', a world-released being who is said to have reached the
brink of Nirvana but 'returned to the world' in order to be sure that
all sentient beings are so liberated.  Some Theravadans would say that
this concept is ludicrous and only through all beings coming to this
state will Nirvana every truly be reached anyway.

Some dispute the nature of 'Nirvana' as Mahayana Buddhists interpret it,
and I think the issue gets very complex very quickly.


|The monk on the Vajrayana path however, 
|will slug the whole dose down at once, and will discover that it is the 
|elixir of enlightenment.  

Vajrayana is also called, if I am not mistaken, 'Tibetan Buddhism' or
'Tantric Buddhism', and while I am not very familiar with it, I suspct
that it has closer ties to Hindu trads than do the other Buddhist paths.

My own preference in understanding this analogy is to say that the Tantric
does not reject the world (as do yogis, for example) in order to be free
of its deluding qualities, nor does she see the world as something that needs 
changing/adaptation (as do many mystics, including Mahayana Buddhists it 
seems), but accepts the world's qualities as manifestations of the 
buddha-nature ('the divine'?) and proceeds to interact with them.


|Some of the practices of Vajrayan are pretty 
|extreme...like sitting on a corpse and chanting on it for three whole 
|days.  

There is, of course, the infamous 'Chod' rite also, in which the monk
serves himself up to the demons! :>


|The vajrayana concept is to shock the spirit into enlightenment.  
|If you survive the trip, you wil become enlightened.  If not, you will 
|have to come back and do it again.

Similar talk can be found in Zen Buddhism, wherein the path is compared
to an ascent up a mountain and the Zen approach is considered a direct
assault.  Vajrayana as I understand it is similar in this way to Zen,
though the Tibetans use images as tools, proliferating them, while the
Zen approach is more often to rid oneself of imagery, similar in some
ways to Islam. 
 
 
|...put a little bit of the sacred in everything you do, even something 
|as base as a bowel movement.  (Cuz it is sacred, even if you don't 
|realize it!)

This last part ("it is sacred, even if you don't realize it") is what I
tend to think of as the central doctrinal element of Tantra, though this
is based on my instruction from Kali more than anything else.


|Interesting time that we live in, isnt' it?  (wasn't that a Chinese 
|curse?...may you live in interesting times?)  

So I've often heard, yes.


|However the Kali Yuga is 
|432,00 years, and 4,320,00 huamn years equals one great age, or 
|maha-yuga, or according to the "Encyclopedia of Eastern Religion:
|one Kalpa, which is "a day and a night in the life of ---> Brahma; 
|according to Vedic scripture...a term for an endlessly long period of 
|time which is the basis of Buddhis time reckoning.  

If 'Buddhis' means 'Buddhist', then you may have the Hindu trads mixed
up with the Buddhist trads, or, more likely, I have not understood the
thorough mixing established within the Vajrayana.  My impression is that
most Mahayana and Theravada Buddhists do not teach this 'Brahma time
stuff'.


|: ...Personally I think
|: the only liberation to be done is mental.  We are miracles of light and
|: darkness, form and essence, and we think we are but commonplace insects.

|...our liberation is 
|also our culpabiltiy, our responsibility for our actions.  

Please elaborate.  I have come to see the notion of 'responsibility' and
'culpability' as disempowering rhetorical tools used by the orthodox
establishment to crush the individual.  Of course I have my own variations
of meaning for the terms themselves, but these are unusual.


|...I disagree 
|that they only liberation to be done is mental.  That is too simplistic.  

Likely true.


|I cannot use words to describe the mysteries...the spirit is inherently 
|involved with it, and since all of the experiences I have that I am aware 
|of are while I am in material form, who is not to say that my body is not 
|involved as well...in the ultimate reality....we are nothing, but aspect 
|of consciousness.  And, when it some to sexuality, especially tantric 
|sex,, it is my material aspect which transports me to explore the more 
|transcendental aspects.

I'm confused slightly by the above.  Since I don't tend to understand
'the spirit' very often, perhaps I'll leave that off, though I'd appreciate
any elaboration you may have on it.

We are talking about 'liberation' here.  I did not say that the mental
aspects were the only ones involved.  I said that these were the only
ones which needed 'liberation'.  I don't see that my body is extremely
shackled (imprisonment), nor do I feel my emotions shackled (though I
know I have hurts which influence my behavior, so this could be a kind
of limitation).  

Let me put it more plainly.  I think we've been duped by our parents
and society into thinking that we are not divine, and so we don't
enjoy divine experience.  In order to reclaim this experience we must
reprogram our minds, somehow releasing this early formatting and
coming into our full power as individuals.  By 'power' here I don't
necessarily mean social power, but a kind of 'integrity'.
 

|[Re: Thangkas]
|
|...I think that it is important to 
|point out, however, that the mostrous images, which have been 
|misinterpreted by Xtian missionaries are demons, they are also, 
|ultimately the Boddhisatvas of knowledge and infinite compassion and the 
|like.  

The concept of 'demons/daemons/whatever' is a complex one and I'd
rather leave it for another thread.  Suffice it to say that I agree
that the wrathful energies of the universe have been seen by funda-
mentalists as in need of expulsion, and that I think this is an
approach which is doomed from the start.

That is part of the reason I am so fond of Kali. ;>


|They, no matter how frightening appear are meant to be an object 
|lesson that these demons are projections are merely the reflections of 
|our own problems and our own inner demons, and 

This reminds me greatly of those who call our gods 'mere archetypes'.
It is sometimes reassuring to think in this way about the gods.  Yet,
I don't think this is completely true.  The gods, wrathful or benign,
are just as real as you or I.  They are people, and treating them
like projections doesn't change them much.


|that they way towards 
|*real* liberation is to recognize that and to tramsform them through 
|love, and through clearing away the illusion that they are separate from us.

My impression is that this is a limited and incomplete approach to the
wrathful deities if understood in a conventional sense.  Some of the gods
(I call them 'dakinis' when coming to speak of the various aspects of 
universal flux) can only be met with firm opposition, and this constitutes
a sort of 'mature love'.  It is what MLKing, Jr. wrote about with regard
to 'agape' - disinterested love, a kind of love which enables us to
defend ourselves from their wrath.


| : Yab-Yum is Father-Mother or something like that. 

|Tibetan (ibid as source): father mother; term to masculine and fem. 
|deities in sexual union, a frequent image in Tibetan art.  In the 
|sumbology of the  -->Vajrayan, this image expresses the unity of the 
|masculine principle (--upaya) and the feminine principle (--prajne_ .  
|The yab-yum motig, which appears in sculpted  images and painted 
|(thangkas) serves primarily as an aid to concentration in fusing the 
|masculine and feminne energies within the practitioner himself in sadhana 
|practice."

Ibid? :>  I think you are using the same source I just referenced:
_The Shambhala Dictionary of Buddhism and Zen_. :>

My impression is that some, more ascetic Buddhists don't tend to see the
Yab-Yum as anthropomorphic or sexual in this way.  Reference for example
the lingam-yoni, which some Buddhists might see as a more generic (and
therefore less threatening) symbol.


|: |Yoni?

|: Kteis, again, more than just vagina.

I tend to associate the Yoni/Kteis with the Receptive Feminine, and this
is quite importan within Buddhism, since often the Feminine and the
Receptive or Passive are, as in China, associated as well.


|Yes and if you concentrate on the Red Dakini during tantric sex, this 
|energy arises throughout your body and awakens the crown chakra, quite 
|remarkably.  My only way to really describe it is "WOW!"

I doubt that these images are universal.  What works for you may not 
have any effect for others.  Some of it is formatting.


|: |Chakras?

|I must recommend with full enthusiasm "Wheels of Life" by anodea Judith.  
|Increible book which "Tantras" (weaves) both Western and Eastern methods 
|and understandings of Chakras.

Yes, I've read that.  Nice for a sort of Neopagan version of Hindu
metaphysics, though it has some variations.  There are many books
on the subject and I tend to avoid discussing it online because it
is often like talking about Christianity with fundamentalists around
here (not suggesting anything about you, Joy).  Whatever people start
out with they presume is catholic (universal).  It gets tedious.


|Joy Williams

|Guard the mysteries, constantly reveal them!

I like this *very* much!  Your input would have been valuable in the recent
'Secrecy' debacle in alt.magick. :>
 
Share our water?  I say share our money.  Much faster enlightenment.


|Joy Williams
|dhummer@netcom.com

Tyagi

jobe%