(Western misreading of tantra as sex yoga)
Oscar Ichazo makes a comprehensible presentation about the misinterpretations of tantra in this book, A Commentary on Tantra.
This misunderstanding is widespread in Western culture, where tantra is mainly understood as the yoga of sex and also as a way that takes excesses of all sorts as a path toward liberation and Self–realization.
(Greek philosophical roots: Pyrrho, Plato, and the deconstruction of the relative mind)
This would be synthesized by Pyrrho with his Skeptic method of total deconstruction of the Relative Mind in order to attain the clarity and simplicity of the Absolute Mind.
Pyrrho of Elis, the founder of the Skeptics, whose main doctrines were the deconstruction of appearances of the Relative Mind by way of inquiring into the root of any knowledge about the phenomenal world in order to enter into epoche (Gk) or ‘suspension of judgment’ conducive to the Transcendental State of Ataraxia (Gk) or Emptiness of Mind.
was presented at Delphi in a statue by Phidias which was totally nude, signifying Zeus’ absolute Transcendence beyond all appearances. A similar relationship appears between Artemis the huntress or the Mind of Contemplation, and her twin brother, Apollo, who represents the Mind of Enlightenment and Pure Innate Awareness as the Buddha Vairocana of the Tantrics.
(Tumo, psychic heat, and the body pulsating with innate awareness)
It seems to me that they are missing the most important point of all Tantric practices, which is to produce in the body the spreading and expanding of the psychic heat, known as tumo (Tib) in the Tibetan Tradition, as tapas (Skt) in the Indian Tradition, and “Alpha Heat” in Arica Integralism. When the level of transformation appears by the force of concentration, meditation and visualization, and the Mind has entered into a State of Perfect Innate Awareness, the entire body pulsates in unison with the heart.
These two doctrines of the dual reality or truth and the ‘doctrine of emanation and return’ teach that by way of liberation and transcendence one is detached from the world through a process of purification, and finally becomes free from fetters, hindrances and obscurations of the mind in order to attain the Mind of Pure Light and enter into Divine Union with the Mind of Total Absolute or God.
(Kashmiri Shaivism and the three ways to liberation)
In the ninth century AD in Northern India, there appeared a large body of texts called “Agamas,” containing the oldest form of Shaivism, known as the “Pancaratras.” Also in the ninth century appeared the doctrines of Kashmiri Shaivism contained in the Shiva Sutras of Vasugupta, the Spanda–Karika of Kallata, and the Isvara Pratyabhijna Karika of Utpaladeva. These three doctrines are the three ways or points of view toward liberation—first from the side of Shiva, or the Absolute Mind in Integral Philosophy; second from the side of the Shakti, or the Relative Mind in Integral Philosophy; and third from the point of view of Knowledge or the recognition of the Mind as Pure Light. In Integral terms, in one line we can say that the total objective of the tantras is to realize the Unity of our own Absolute Mind of Non– conceptualization, and to recognize that the Relative Mind of Concepts and Language and the Absolute Mind are both like two sides of the same coin or the same substance.
followed by Plato, Plotinus, Porphyry, and Virgil. Padmasambhava also introduced the ‘doctrine of the Great Completeness of the Mind or Great Perfection,’ known as “Atiyoga” in Sanskrit and “Dzogchen” in Tibetan.
Thus, during the pujas and sadhanas, the sadhakas give to Lord Shiva all that pertains to the ego—all the material attachments to wealth, fame, power, and so on. Once the ego has been sacrificed in its totality, it is replaced by the essence of Lord Shiva himself in the form of total Awareness that sustains its permanent equilibrium and quietude by way of perfect movement in the form of a dance, and this is the highest manifestation of Shiva as Lord Nataraja.
whatever the sadhaka is experiencing is Lord Shiva, who is actually looking, hearing, smelling, tasting, enjoying, laughing, and in general, living as a witness of the Lord. This is entering into the State of the Lila (Skt) or the Cosmic Game of the Lord.
The Vaishnava way of tantra is centered in the devotion to God Vishnu in the form of his avatar, Lord Krishna, who is absorbed into the heart and accepted as being the Essential Self of the sadhaka, replacing the old ego or the material old Adam of the Gnostics.
(The Vaishnava and Shaiva forms of tantra and the ego-sacrifice to Shiva)
Christian theology, beginning with the Apostle Paul who claimed that celibacy was the only real state for a Christian, made sex synonymous with sin.
(Sexual energy as creative power and the divine union of opposites)
but for the orgasm as pure sexual pleasure which is unattached and anonymous, we come to a situation where the pleasure becomes just the pure energy of sex which, in fact, is the purest and strongest creative energy in our ordinary world. It is unnecessary to say that all life—plants, insects, animals, and humans—comes through the procreative energy of sex.
This theory continues to say that once the orgasmic sexual energy has been discovered, its universality is disclosed, and the Divine Mother is revealed as the Eternal Feminine who has the power of life. At this point, the female partner understands her orgasmic pleasure as a pure manifestation from the State of the Cosmic Creative Goddess, and it is this identification that has the transformative power in this type of tantric practice.
is then in this primordial act—which is pure and which does not have the contamination of the ego with its attendant passions, degrading sentiments, and subjective emotions—that the couple attains the union of the male and female energies in a pure and spiritualized act of Divine Union, and the god and the goddess become one unified field of Universal Light and Love.
implicitly dangerous in Western culture. The outcome of these activities, even presuming that the practitioners attain the ecstatic, pure Divine Union of the goddess and the god, soon will become one of dreadful, destructive effects with the darkest of sexual passions, running amuck through all the centers and levels of psychic existence. In modern times, this type of tantra was taught in New Age ashrams in India and also in workshops in the United States and Europe.
(The subtle body, telesmatta practices, and the integral tantric path)
In order to produce this effect, the practitioner has to discover inside of their own gross body another body, a subtle body not composed of matter and flesh, but completely of non–material psychic elements, belonging entirely to our consciousness and psychic life.
Chapter Two Divine Nature STAGES OF COMPLETION OF THE TELESMATTA OF TRUTH This internal, subtle, psychic body has to be created by the energy of mental visualizations, meditation, contemplation, and vision as found in the Integral tantric practice of Divine Nature, Stages of Completion of the Telesmatta of Truth.
Innate Awareness, and Enlightenment. It is almost futile to say that this practice is immensely difficult to master. Making matters worse, it requires that both partners have the same level of training, mastery and control of a seriously complex meditation and, because of this, it is prone to failure. When the orgasm cannot be retained by one of the partners, it will automatically trigger the other’s orgasm.
The consequence of this is that our entire psychic, mental and spiritual planes of existence in their nine centers of awareness and perception become permeated by sexual motives and fixed thematics that damage our spiritual life profoundly, because they pollute and cloud the Spiritual Pole with the most dreadful obscurations that are turned toward fanaticism, superstition and wrecked spirituality.
A third form of tantra I propose is developed in the Integral Tradition in different sets of intensity, namely the ‘Form as the Body in itself ’; “Traspaso of Consciousness”; the different Rituals of Completion of the Telesmatta of Truth; the special meditations of the Telesmatta of Grace with the Divine Forms; the Telesmatta of Wisdom with Alpha Heat and the Transcendental Virtues; the Telesmatta of Divine Life with the Divine Principles; and the Great Telesmatta with the Divine Gnoses.
The ‘Form in itself ’ avoids contact with the sexual organs or with what are known in psychology as erogenous zones of the body, and it is practiced by the contact of five body points between the two practitioners. These points are the knees, the elbows, and the forehead.
that is felt and envisioned as the Innate Awareness of Pure Light in the head; Infinite Bliss and Universal Love in the heart; and joy, happiness, warmth, and well–being in the solar plexus, the Kath, and throughout the entire body. Similar effects are experienced by practicing the special meditations of the other Telesmattas.
(Transmutation of lower energies into innate awareness and the ornamental mind)
Tantra is the science of transmutation of the energy of the lower centers of attention into the final unifying and spiritual attention that is resting upon Pure Attention, or that which has become ‘Innate Awareness in itself,’ or the Mind looking at itself.
It means the actual liberation of all the levels of the Relative Mind that become transformed into a Pure Spirit of Innate Awareness and Divine Realization in the Absolute Mind, giving rise to the Ornamental Mind.
(Taoist tantra: water, fire, alpha heat, and the circulation of vital energy)
This can only be corrected by reversing the position of the elements with Water above and Fire below. In this position, the elements attract each other, and the Water descends into the Fire and the Fire ascends into the Water, transforming both into Pure Spirit. In Taoist Tantra, the Water means the sexual energy in the form of pure vitality and the Fire means the energy of the Spirit in the form of Pure Attention.
Thus, by putting the Fire at the level of the Kath, it will attract and reverse the position of the vitality, which will ascend to the top of the head and produce a circulation of reversed vital energy that has been spiritualized by the power of concentration and attention. This is precisely the result of the meditations of Alpha Heat in the Arica Integral System.
(The enlightened sage as crazy wisdom and the dangers of misapplication)
At this point, the process of attention, concentration, meditation, contemplation, and vision (Enlightenment/Theosis) becomes a permanent State of Innate Awareness that uses life itself with all its variety as a fuel for abiding constantly in the highest Ornamental Mind. This State has been characterized in the ancient Mysteries as the “Enlightened Being” who, after the long journey into the higher spheres of Knowledge, comes back from isolation into the ordinary life of society.
This State is also characterized as the “Wise man,” constantly laughing, carrying on, and imparting their teachings only to those who recognize their wisdom and consequently listen. The Sage did not follow any rules at this point and there is no activity that would seem too small or coarse for them. These intermingling elements of good cheer, laughter and continuous enjoyment seem paradoxical to the minds that equate Enlightenment with asceticism and its suppression of any mundane behavior, desire or possession.
In the Oriental traditions, this State of the perfected Sage, who mingles with ordinary people and does not avoid the pleasures of life, is known as “Crazy Wisdom.” In the Taoist Tradition, it is represented
But this sense of being immune and incorruptible and taking the pleasure and activities of life as fuel for spirituality can be dangerously misinterpreted if this “crazy wisdom” is practiced without having the State which can transmute the pleasures of life, or the vitality of life, into the Spirit of Innate Awareness, and it is very clear that it can only be successful in a State of Perfect Unity. This is to say that all the experiences of pleasure are being instantly liberated into Pure Innate Awareness because there is no duality or difference between subject and object, the knower and the known.
This ability to unite the ordinariness of life, the content of the Relative Mind, with the Absolute Mind or the insight into Ultimate Reality, will transform us and will constantly sustain the pure spiritualized Ornamental Mind.