Tantra is a reconciliation, a joining together. In this universe there appears to be opposition. Opposition is a point of view. Everything is one. There is only one eternal reality. Yet there are two—man and woman, sun and moon, dark and light, morning and evening, day and night, forward and back, in and out. Tantra is the reconciliation of opposites, seeing that opposites are complements.
Mysticism is the experience of eternity. Beyond the body. In mysticism, a person experiences the spirit world, the alternate planes of reality. Mysticism also is the study of the physical world, but not from the physical perspective. The study is inside out. Everything is viewed from within.
In most studies we use our world, this Earth, this island in the middle of eternity, as our measuring point. The island is a certain length. So we use that length as our compilation factor for measuring the distance from here to the next star. On the island, a tree grows a certain way. So we will measure trees that we find elsewhere in the universe by the tree that grew on our home planet, on our island. People are a certain way, life is a certain way, death is a certain way.
Everything in this world is a template which we use for measuring, judging, quantifying, classifying and amalgamating everything else. When we extrapolate, we extrapolate our theories and our philosophies based upon our physical lives, including the physical life of the body; the life of the world that we perceive through the body and the senses; the subconscious workings of the mind and the conscious workings of the physical mind — thought analysis, abstraction, inductive, deductive methods of reasoning and logic, free association, the computer functions of the brain—memory, recall, projection of possible futures; emotion as regards the body, emotion measured by the body—my body wants, my body feels, my body feels love, my body feels self-pity, sorrow, courage. The body is the primary measuring unit; it’s the angstrom by which we quantify the physical world. All of our excursions are made through the body. Even our mental excursions are made through the body by using the body’s knowledge and the body’s experience, by drawing on the body’s resources.
Mysticism has nothing to do with the body from the body’s point of view. In mysticism, we have stepped beyond the body. Or it might be precise to say we never considered ourselves to have anything much to do with the body anyway. We were never really in the body. The body is another interesting piece of furniture in the house that we happen to be walking through. This gives us, not just a different perspective, but a series of different perspectives because our angstrom, our measuring unit, will not be the body or this world but all of the worlds, all of the planes of being. So rather than coming from one culture and viewing and measuring everything in our explorations of the world by our culture, we’re much more cosmopolitan. We have the views at our fingertips of all cultures.
We all know that when the white race came to America, they thought of the Indians as little more than animals; their religions were nothing—ritual dancing. The systematic extermination of the Native Americans was permissible because from the limited point of view of the white race it was impossible to understand what the Indians were all about, why they didn’t build cities, why they had no interest in building cities. The depth of their religion, their communication with the spirit world, their poetry, their culture, their legends, which are as complex and evolved as the legends and symbologies and systems of any other culture. Their religion is as complex as the religion of any culture in this world. But because they [the white race] were looking through a glass darkly, they didn’t see. What they saw were not Indians but animals, something worthy of extermination. Vermin. A pestilence.
This view is the view of people who have bodies. People who have bodies, who orient to the body culture, view existence with the same limitations. A person who had experienced cultures throughout the world, a Margaret Mead perhaps, an anthropologist, would have come here, had she come first, and discovered a delightful race and lived with them in peace. She would have shed her own skin, her own cultural milieu, to look inside the hearts and minds of the people without judgment, just to observe, using her experiences in different cultures, sort of a polyculturalism, to understand the culture in front of her. She could use the Samoans, the Egyptians, the Aborigines, people who live in the Netherlands, the British. Any group could be used as a frame of reference, using that frame of reference for understanding, giving you multiple possibilities. The computer doesn’t have to run on one language, it can run on many languages, many possibilities. She [Margaret Mead] would also be able to drop all of these ways of seeing and just look. Perhaps engage in the dance with the Indians, perhaps take part in their religion and be it.
This is mysticism. In mysticism, one has experienced billions of alternate planes of reality and brings them to bear and use in understanding. One is a world traveler, an intergalactic, inter-plane traveler. Tantra, then, is something that has to do with any plane of reality or any culture because it studies not the differences within a culture but the nature of cultures themselves. It observes that in any plane of reality, there is opposition, there’s contrast. And it is the study of this contrast, the ultimate reconciliation of opposites, accepting that opposites are opposites and they’re also complements, neither and both, and then something else. This leads to liberation.
Mysticism is the exploration and the direct experience of consciousness. In other words, tantra is theory. Tantra’s a theory, a philosophical way of seeing. It’s more of a mental or super-mental yoga. Mysticism is an experiential yoga. In mysticism we’re experiencing countless planes of reality, jumping in and out of cosmic doorways, having spiritual experiences, being filled with light, experiencing the ecstasy. Transmutation. Whirling through different vortexes, gyres of existence. Whereas tantra is a quieter, more philosophical understanding of existence. Tantra takes you to the very root of knowledge. In mysticism we’re out running around in the desert or in the mountains; we’re exploring; we’re experimenting, experiencing. We experience in tantra too, but it’s a different type of experience.
Tantra is the search for truth in the finite. Finding the infinite in the finite, seeing God in everything. Mysticism is the experience of God in everything. Tantra is seeing, feeling and ultimately becoming one with God and everything. Mysticism is experiencing, feeling and ultimately becoming one with everything.
Tantric mysticism is then the combination of these two practices. Or I could say, perhaps, is the culmination and is the particular art that I teach. I discussed in our tape about tantra, “Tantra and the Left-Handed Path,” quite a bit about tantra and how it works, particularly in everyday situations. In the tape on “The Yoga of Mysticism and Power,” I’ve discussed some of the more specific and practical aspects of mysticism—how it works, different planes of reality, the general, basic introductory rules to the study—as I have in the tape on tantra.
However, tantric mysticism is not just taking some tantra and some mysticism and putting it together. Because a synergistic effect occurs when we marry the two; they produce an offspring, which is greater than both. As you know, synergism is the combination of two radicals, two factors. And when the two are combined, they become stronger than they were as two separate cells. The sum of the parts is greater than the parts because the synergistic effect is to increase the power. The two atoms put together produce 10,000 atoms of power because they affect each other and cause a type of chain reaction. They create a new structure, kind of a new DNA.
Tantric mysticism is a very sophisticated form of spiritual practice and it is not intended for beginners. Beginners can practice it, think about it; it’s a nice perspectiveless perspective. Tantric mysticism is something that a person would practice, or any being would practice, after they had mastered most of the other yogas. As you are probably aware, I have classified the different yogas. There’s the yoga of love, the yoga of selfless giving, the yoga of discrimination and the yoga of mysticism and power. It’s my feeling that all of the pathways that we see in the world, the religions and so on, are combinations and recombinations of these four yogas, no matter what they call it—Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, Zen and so on. These are the four primary colors from which all the other colors come forth, in spirituality.
There is a fifth path that is a little bit different, that I don’t personally deal with. This is the path of austerity. I have practiced this path myself in other lifetimes, but I don’t particularly recommend it. It doesn’t go well with the era. And it’s a very difficult path. That’s the path of negation, whereby through excessive pain one breaks contact with the world. Self-inflicted pain, prolonged fasting, things like that, asceticism—to an extreme point. But it doesn’t bring realization. It can bring you very high. But finally to come to realization, as Buddha realized and many others, you can fast for 50 days and go through these powerful practices, the austerities, but ultimately they’re an extreme. They don’t lead to realization. You have to come back from them into the world to a broader-based yoga to achieve self-realization because of the fixation and attachment.
Tantric mysticism then is awareness itself. It combines the fun of mysticism, that beautiful joy and laughter that we experience in mysticism along with the tremendous discipline and precision in mysticism, with a broad-based, heart-oriented, love-oriented reconciliation that we find in tantra. In tantra we have this beautiful love, this Chaucerian acceptance that all is good, that there’s good in the hearts of all, that all are God’s creations, from the saint to the thief. God works through all. This is a very Christ-like compassion, yoga, whereas mysticism is discipline, precision, the precise use of power. Mysticism is a very practical form of spiritual discovery for a person who has to live and work in the world. Tantra is an internal realization that also works very well in the world.
Tantric mysticism is something that a person would practice after many, many lifetimes of spiritual discovery, after they had already mastered the four paths in other lifetimes. I saved my discussion of it for the last tape in this series. This is the 28th tape. After listening to “Introductory and Intermediate Meditation,” “Purity and Humility,” “The Yoga of Love,” “The Yoga of Selfless Giving,” “The Yoga of Discrimination,” “The Yoga of Mysticism and Power,” “Spiritual Absorption in Nirvana,” “Death and Reincarnation,” “Samadhi and the Superconscious States,” “The Caretaker Personality,” “The Tibetan Rebirth Process,” “Living and Working In The World,” “Pleasure, Pain and the Senses,” “How to Achieve Spiritual Balance,” “The Subtle Physical Body,” “Women, Men and Self-Realization,” “Inaccessibility and Attachment,” “Spiritual Experiences, Dreams and Visions,” “Zen, Taoism and Buddhism,” “The Occult Body, Auras and the Chakras,” “Spiritual Teachers and the Enlightenment Process,” “Advanced Meditation,” “Dreaming,” “Gods, Goddesses and Carrier Beings,” “Dharma and Karma,” “Tantra and the Left-Handed Path” and “Liberation and Self-Realization,” finally we come to the 28th tape. And as you know, the Buddha sat underneath the Bodhi tree for 28 days. His enlightenment took 28 days.
Twenty-eight is an interesting number: four sevens. There are seven higher and seven lower planes of consciousness, according to some systems. And of course, there are the four directions. Four is the number of mysticism. Seven is the number of yoga. Seven is the number of the superconscious. The seventh chakra is the chakra of liberation, the crown center. The fourth chakra is the heart center, three above and three below. The center of love.
Tantric mysticism is a surprise. It’s everything and nothing. It’s hide-and-go seek with yourself. It’s all of the tapes—everything that we’ve said, and then all the things that I could never say. Tantric mysticism is experiential and reflective. And to need it is life.
To try and bring about your own realization, to be liberated, to merge with light, to do all these things, all you have to do is to be yourself. Not the self that you necessarily know at the moment, but your eternal self. From the vegetable kingdom, we bring you the onion. Consider it. More vitamins and minerals in the onion than in any other vegetable. “Good Housekeeping” tip. The onion has layers, layer after layer after layer. We peel off one layer and there’s another one—tantric mysticism. In tantric mysticism, which is a rather exacting discipline, by the way, we peel the layers of our self back, one after another after another. We do this by using everything. Everything. And sometimes by using nothing.
Tantric mysticism is the practice in which we use all the other yogas. Because none of them contradict what tantric mysticism is. If you practice any of the other yogas or any of the other pathways, they won’t tell you to do everything, to practice all the other pathways, because you’re following theirs. Tantric mysticism accepts and endorses all the other pathways, yet it is a pathway too. In tantric mysticism we can use anything that will help us, either in our self-realization, aiding the self-realization of another, or just in generally having a good time, which is part of self-realization too.
Yet tantric mysticism is a study. It’s not a kind of unitarianism where we’re just clumping a lot of different things together and exploring them. It has its own set of—I wouldn’t call them rules—but I would say etiquette. There’s a spiritual etiquette to the practice. And it can’t be written down. It can’t be spoken. It’s up in a cave in the Himalayas somewhere engraved in the air.
To learn tantric mysticism, well, life teaches you tantric mysticism. All the time, if you’ll only watch. Watch the seasons change. Walk in nature. Watch the people change. Walk in the world. Watch yourself change. Look in the mirror of existence and look beyond it. It’s best, though, to learn tantric mysticism from a teacher. A teacher of tantric mysticism will use anything and everything to bring you to enlightenment: Zen techniques, koans, Hinduism, the Bhagavad-Gita, the wisdom of Krishna, the wisdom of the shopping mall and the valley girl, your own life, your own death, sex, money, negative emotions, positive emotions.
Yet there’s a purity that runs throughout tantric mysticism. The two fundamental building blocks of tantric mysticism are purity and humility. Meditation clears the way and makes the way possible. Selfless giving is the practice that burns away the layers of the onion. Meditation makes selfless giving possible. Purity and humility keep meditation and selfless giving clear. Love radiates through the entire practice because we do all of it only for love. Love is the fuel. Discrimination keeps us on our proper course. While purity and humility make sure that everything runs well, discrimination shows us the way. Mysticism and power enable us to do battle with existence, finally reaching to spiritual absorption in nirvana where we become absorbed in everything.
But do we stop there? Do we stop with absorption? No. Why? That’s why we have death and reincarnation. We can be absorbed in nirvana, but then we can come back into the world to play because we are reincarnation. Life isn’t bad. Death isn’t bad. Because we’re everything and beyond everything. But the difference is, while we’re in this world, we’re absorbed in samadhi, we experience the superconscious states, we’re in the world but not of the world.
To do this we use the caretaker personality. The caretaker personalities are the different forms, the different selves that we take on without a sense of being a specific person or a specific entity. We take on different personalities. We play with them like we do with clothes. This is what we call the Tibetan rebirth process. Using tantric mysticism, within this life we go through thousands of incarnations. Tantric mysticism is the fastest path of all the paths. It’s not better than any of the others, but it’s for the person who wants to, in one lifetime, go through thousands of births and deaths. That’s why we have to use everything to do that. It’s the yoga of totality.
We do all this, of course, while living and working in the world. We live and work in the world because we use that, because it’s part of our yoga. Naturally we have to accept our body, pleasure, pain and the senses. And we use them for realization because God exists in pleasure, God exists in pain and beyond both—God as She who experiences through the senses, God as the senses.
But still, pleasure, pain and the senses can take us away from all of that. We have to have a sense of spiritual balance. We have to achieve it because we can become so wrapped up in pleasure, pain and the senses, in our emotions, in our attachments and our entanglements, that we forget, that we get lost in the maya, in the illusion, in the shadows.
To do this we become conscious of the subtle physical body, which is beyond the physical body. The subtle physical body is our astral self, and in it we can go above the confines of the senses and pleasure and pain. Naturally we have to become aware of the differences. There are tremendous differences in the subtle bodies of men and women. Men and women really realize God in very different ways. It’s necessary to learn these differences, to become conscious of them, because when we learn them and know them, we not only can further our own realization, our own awareness, but we can also further the realization of others.
We live in a world with both men and women. All of us are actually men and women. We’re both. Yet we find in a particular incarnation that we have to deal with the society, with the history and with our own composure. But to live in the world, you must practice inaccessibility. Because while you may love spiritual light and be aware of it, there are those who would hurt you or you would sometimes hurt yourself. The world is not overly fond of light, I’m afraid, the people in the world, that is—parts of them. So to practice self-discovery, to live in this world, you must learn inaccessibility.
Attachment is the trap, of course. Attachment is to be bound, to think of ourselves as a finite self in a body and not to be the free sky. Unattachment is to be the sky. The birds come and go. We don’t fixate. Attachment is limitation. From attachment comes pain.
Spiritual experiences, dreams and visions carry us beyond all of this. It’s good to have a knowledge of the traditional ways—Zen, Taoism and Buddhism—to become conscious of the different layers and strata of reality, of your occult body; to know the workings of the machine, the auras and the chakras. And to know how to deal with an enlightened person, how to recognize one. Advanced meditation, of course, takes us beyond all these things. All the things we’ve discussed so far are words and ideas—ways. But in advanced meditation we move beyond all of this. Advanced meditation is dreaming—dreaming different dreams, different creations.
There are those who will help us with our advanced meditation and our dreaming. There are higher beings, gods, goddesses and carrier beings. There are also lower beings who can hinder us. We need to know who’s out on the street. And the system works through dharma and karma. Dharma is the truth, the shining, immutable existence. Karma is the mechanism, the way it all functions. Tantra is the reconciliation of dharma and karma. All leading, of course, to liberation and self-realization.
Which brings us finally to tantric mysticism. What is tantric mysticism? I can’t tell you. I hope you don’t feel that you’ve wasted your money on this tape. I definitely can’t tell you though. Oh, I can tell you everything that’s part of it, I just did. But tantric mysticism is a great mystery. I can’t tell you but I’d love to show you. I think I have. Maybe I haven’t. Tantric mysticism is all there is. Yet it has a lot of etiquette. And the way you learn the etiquette is first by wanting to, and then by trying. And as you try, don’t be afraid to make a fool out of yourself. If you fail a thousand times, try to fail a thousand and one times. Never give up. There’s no going back, and if you go back, go forward. Because there is no forward and there is no back. The way in is the way out. And the way out is the way in.
The way you really learn tantric mysticism, in other words, is by studying with a tantric mystic. You’re a budding tantric mystic. But you need to go and be with a tantric mystic because the way you teach tantric mysticism is etiquette. It’s nothing that you say. When I teach my students tantric mysticism, I do it in several ways. I do it closely, when I’m talking to an individual, spending time with them; I do it in a group sense, when one can disseminate information to many, and actually at that point, the closer experience would interfere with the process; and [I do it in] the more formal side of the training—books, tapes, talks. Naturally I do it mostly through meditating, by opening up that doorway and helping people walk through it. That’s the mysticism side.
Tantra is rebirth. It’s the reconciliation—how to deal with the fact that you’re all of reality and that you still have a body that has its demands. It seems silly, to be in nirvana for a while and then suddenly find yourself here again. That’s tantric mysticism. Tantra shows you how to do that. Mysticism shows you how to get out of it and still have fun with it all.
I teach a great deal through dreaming. Most tantric mystics do, since we’re really dreamers, we’re poets. I visit people constantly in dreams and explain things to them in dreams that I couldn’t explain in this world because in this world everybody’s so busy measuring by the angstrom of the body. But in the dream worlds, you’re used to that. Then I can come and show you interesting things. You won’t remember when you wake up. How could you? The physical mind can’t contain the things. But your inner being knows. Remember, you’re not just the physical mind that measures by the body. You’re eternity.
See, the tantric mystic sits at home a lot, because by sitting at home they can visit people more. They’re not bound by their body. They’re working through countless planes of being simultaneously both in the past, the present and the future. Because who’s bound by that? The tantric mystic is not bound by the past, present or future. They can slip into a past, move into the future and go beyond time, all at once. This is tantric mysticism. You’re dealing with the unlimited power of existence and with a happy, humble, sunshiny day that exists at the moment. There’s no end to it. Veil after veil will be pushed back. The onion will be peeled again and again. And as fast as you peel the layers, of course, there are more, until finally you get tired of peeling onions and you’re crying so much that you go do something else for a while. And then you come back to it. Tantric mysticism. Circles in circles and beyond.
The way I teach tantric mysticism is by doing it in front of people, in other words. That’s how it’s taught. I live it myself. It’s my practice. It’s my wayless way. I don’t think most people will be able to practice it, personally, in this world, because they won’t be interested. Those who are interested will find it very easy. And it leads very quickly to liberation. It’s the shortest path. Not the best. Some people like the longer route and that’s nice. What’s the rush? Of course, for those who follow the short path, there’s no rush either. There’s only the short path, which seems to get shorter every day.
What is tantric mysticism? Well you’ll have to tell me. I’d like to learn myself. That’s the fun about it. It’s self-exploration, without rules or convention, but with lots of etiquette. And if you’d like to learn the etiquette, then come see me. Meditate with me. Journey with me, in the body or out of it. While I’m alive or after I’m no longer here. It doesn’t really matter. I’m always glad to drop by and teach people tantric mysticism. Oh, if I’ve been dead for a thousand years, it doesn’t matter. How can I die? I was ahead of myself in time all the time anyway. I can easily dream myself back to teach the study to anyone. Or, go to someone else that teaches the same thing. You’ll find it’s me. And then you’ll find that I’m you, and that we’re one.
Tantric mysticism. It’s the study of everything. Yet it has a tremendous amount of etiquette. There’s a way to it, but it’s invisible. Yet you can feel it. And you know when you’re on course, and you know when you’re off. But, of course, you know that off course is on a different course.
The waves break on the beach. Why don’t you go listen to them and learn from them? See what they have to say. Stop trying to know everything and figure it all out. You can’t. Don’t you understand, silly? You can’t know it all! You can be it all. You are it all. But you can’t know it all. Who’d want to? A lot of clutter, if you ask me.
I’d rather meditate. Wouldn’t you? And be absorbed—in perfect light. Or find myself in the world, struggling away, or appearing to struggle. Working away while really not working. Giving everything. Knowing that there’s no one and nothing to give. It’s a feeling, an essence, an expressionless expression, this tantric mysticism, this life. Life is tantric mysticism. It’s the highest yoga without being too high. It’s the lowest yoga—well, somewhere it’s still in the middle. It pops in and out of different places, at unexpected moments. That’s what makes life an adventure.
Tantric mysticism is completely unpredictable. But then again, aren’t you? Aren’t you capable of doing it all at once, without knowing how or why? Of finding your way back to nirvana? I’m waiting for you there on the luminous edge of existence. You know, I’m always in the desert. I send my double back, my other self. I’m always waiting for you, hoping that you’ll be really interested, that you’ll try completely. In every life I wait for you. I’ve always been waiting and I always will. And then when you come and join me, you can wait for others. Or we can go have some adventures. I know a nice little world I think you’ll like. At the end of the cycle of birth and death you can go there, with me if you’d like to. Or choose your own company—Vishnu Properties. Choice view lots still available. Fine view of nirvana.
Don’t say that no one ever told you. Because no one just did. And if you want to succeed on the path, then for God’s sake, commit yourself to the path, with everything that you have and everything that you are. There are no rules, there’s spirit. That’s what matters. It’s heart. It’s not through stealth or through techniques. Oh, it’s good to have knowledge, but it’s heart that is the way. The way is love. The way of self-giving. The way is commitment to the highest ideal that you can perceive without fixating on that ideal. Giving everything that you have to what you think is right. And then tomorrow, if you find that something else is right, or righter, doing that. But it has to be—life has to be lived. You have to pull those layers down that block you. You have to give it your whole heart and your whole mind and your whole being. All the time. That’s tantric mysticism. If you do that, how could you fail, how could you have a problem?
Ultimately there’s only glory. As the poet [William Wordsworth] says, “Trailing clouds of glory do we come, from God who is our home.”
I always liked that stanza from the Roethke poem, “The Waking.” I think it really sums up tantric mysticism.
That’s the essence of tantric mysticism. It’s a field of light. It’s a moment in nature. It’s a moment with someone you love. It’s watching someone die. It’s watching someone be born. It’s going beyond all of this, through all the different planes, and not judging them by this world. It’s experience, it’s power, it’s light, it’s humility.
“I wake to sleep and take my waking slow. I feel my fate in what I cannot fear. I learn by going where I have to go.”
ॐ
That’s it. That’s tantric mysticism. I knew it was in here someplace. It had to be in the tape. I mean the tape does have the name, “Tantric Mysticism.” And I wouldn’t want you to get a tape that wasn’t right. So I guess I saw that in the future and came back in the present and changed the tapes after they’d gone to the manufacturer and been released, just so I could put this part in: “We learn by going where we have to go.” That’s tantric mysticism.
Nirvana is waiting! Don’t keep it waiting too long.