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Articles -
Tantra
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Wednesday, 27 February 2008 00:00 |
By Gregorian Bivolaru
Of course, we have to agree that there is nothing we can achieve by egotistically imposing our will; because as soon as we want something in this way, the gates close for us.
This is the reason why the mainly ascetic paths, mortifications, voluntaristic yoga, the indisputable dogmatic ultimatums of religious and moralist traditions, as well as the systematic practice of standardized and encoded virtues, seem rather a kind of reprehensible mystification then a path leading to spiritual liberation. They have at their base an egotistical desire, an egotistical will and an egotistical hope of obtaining a fruit or a profit which are all only obvious manifestations of the ego (appearing as such only for those who are lucid and detached).
In order to act really spontaneously, without any egotistic act of will, it is necessary to use an artifice. We could call it a trick or a game. Because there is always something ludic in this attitude that resembles LILA (divine cosmic game) which we spoke about before, the great divine cosmic game of folding and unfolding. Now the only imperative is vigilance, full and permanent attention, but not towards something particular: in order to eventually remove forever the lack of attention and unconsciousness from our being we must first be vigilant in the wakeful state, then little by little in the dream state and then in the state of profound sleep. For this it is necessary to have attention without any anxiety and emotivity (thus the emotivity disappears but not the emotion). Therefore, this attention will be without a precise object and will not expect any result; consequently, it is a kind of suspension, able to create a certain superior state of availability. This means we need to learn to become profoundly observant, without criticising, to simultaneously see the development of actions as if we were not connected to them, yet keeping unaltered the power to direct them impeccably, due to our senses being turned inwards and somehow disconnected from the mind.
When this withdrawal gesture becomes a habit for us or even an automatism, we can truly say that we “carry out”, and this does not make us lose the witness position. It is only then that we start to perceive concretely that the world which moves outside of us and our static consciousness no longer vex and oppose each other. Then, one can “act” as if one does not act. Then, one can speak about an effortless effort or a detached ardour, which for others may look like extraordinary nonchalance. At that moment, effervescence is maintained spontaneously, things continue to come and go; we are inside as well as outside. Soon, we will feel that there is almost no inside and outside, everything is something continuous, without hiatus.
The sense of possessiveness disappears, as well as feelings of self-affirmation, guilt, and love for one-self. We no longer ask questions, we no longer look for justifications and the ceaseless talk of the mind stops. Now, senses function freely, and life continues with its beauties and horrors, but it is no longer that agitated sea on the surface of which our fragile boat was rocking, at the risk of crashing it against the reef of exteriority. We could say that we perfectly integrated the sea within ourselves so that from now on it cannot sink us, because by now we are one with it.
Often, tantric thinking insists on non-doing deeds and the idea of non-doing the doing, explaining even that the experience of an action by the non-doing of it is a concrete divine reality and it is extremely amazing. Non-action, understood as such is neither denial nor the opposite of the action, neither a parody nor the insidious praise of laziness. Then, non-action is characterized by a complete transformation of the habit which, once brought into awareness, leads instantly to the continuity of the present or, in other words, beyond time.
Aiming to understand, some might ask themselves: is non-action a non-identification with everything that is part of the exterior reality, a kind of witness position? And this witness position is it the ultimate position accessible to man in search of his Self?
Tantic thinking often aims to make a clear distinction between “the non-doing of the doing” and the “non-doing of the deed”. For some, this formulation may not seem the most inspired one. Non-doing must be understood as a state of being; therefore, it is impracticable, so resorting to any kind of exercise, lessens its value and it even cancels it. In fact, the state of non-doing means anchoring into an abolished time (time which is cancelled?), into this continuous present, without any reference to past and future. This does not mean that acts do not continue to unfold, but due to the unconditional offering of their fruits to God, they no longer generate personal consequences in the future. Then, they are imprinted in the divine cosmic order and never bring over those effects which usually feed and later on condition man’s psycho mental life, thus weaving and chaining his future. In this moment, they have only one function: to maintain the world. They no longer bring us fruits, because we offer them to God and through this, they are impeccable.
For many “to not do” remains inaccessible, in the sphere of understanding and practice, we will again use a trick: we will practice, in anticipation, training ourselves systematically for non-doing the deeds. This is because all particular actions have their own non-doing and, the more they are, the more they have a greater variety of non-doing. To show this, tantric teachings offer many examples of activities which practiced against the stream, can direct us rapidly toward a permanent state of non-doing. In fact, all these give us a way to put ourselves in an extraordinary state of availability. Nothing else.
This ideal position, as well as that of the witness, of which we spoke of previously are very similar. In fact, under different forms and images, tantric thinking often refers to the same things.
Article taken from www.yogaesoteric.net
Published by Natha.net
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