Control Your Energies Through Tantric Spirituality

"Worldly matters will carry on, but don't delay meditation!" Milarepa

      The spiritual root of successful living is very simple: it implies taking control of your energies. If you can control your energies, to then you automatically move towards successful living. You spontaneously move towards a situation where you become deeply dynamic, deeply calm and silent, deeply disciplined, and capable of realizing the highest potential that you have been born with. The lives of the greatest tantric masters and Mahasiddhas was utterly simple. Such a luminously simple or 'sahaj' attitude is the most powerful antidote to material confusion or anxieties. It holds the key to powerful, dynamic, and clear action during times of crisis.

Energy in Tantra

      Ultimately, the question of success has to be a mind-body-spirit question, and that is the way Tantra and Buddhism talk of. They always talk about mind, body, and spirit together. It is not just about the spiritual aspect of life, it is the totality of life. In Buddhism we have many offshoots, such as the martial arts, such as the Zen techniques and so on, which are all meant to create a mind-body-spirit harmonization of energies, a mind-body-spirit control of energies. So, too, teaches Tantra.

      Tantra goes deep into the physical, psychological, and spiritual disciplines. The popular conception of Tantra is the physical aspect, but of course that is because it is apparent. The real thing is control of energies. How do we do that? Controlling of energies is not a repression of energies; in fact, it is the opposite. It is about taking your energies into a higher state of consciousness, into bringing them into a harmonization, so that you don't harm yourself or others. It is about creating a unity within your being, about realizing yourself to be a spiritual entity. When you do that, automatically a harmonization of energy starts happening.

      Without realizing your own spiritual reality, you are split. Your body wants one thing: it has its desires. The mind is thinking a thousand thoughts: it is split and scattered, and it too has its own desires. And the spirit can never be understood in this situation. The key, therefore, is to look at yourself as an unbounded, infinite, spiritual being; and from there you realize that whatever you do at the physical level, at the mental level, and at the spiritual level is to create huge energy within yourself. It is to penetrate the higher potential of yourself. In this very attitude, you come onto the right track of living and move towards success in a spontaneous manner. It is all about being in a state where you are about to transform all that you have been doing through consciousness of yourself as a spiritual entity. You do the same. things: you write, you read, you communicate, you speak, you reach out and relate to others, and so on: but all this happens in a far more, concerted and harmonized manner. When that harmonized manner starts becoming more enhanced in your life, you automatically move towards higher quality of living.

      Higher quality of living by itself means that you have started living more successfully. By itself it means that you have started living with a greater vigour within yourself, with a greater realization of yourself as a being full of spiritual light. You are able to appreciate the energies that are vibrating within you! With this appreciation, you no longer move in a scatterbrained or half-hearted manner, but instead in a very dynamic and integrated manner. Hence, your evolution becomes natural, spontaneous, and powerful! At the same time, you are at peace within yourself. And at the worldly material level, you are able to bring a far greater consciousness to whatever you create and work at. You become charismatic, you start becoming a person who becomes spontaneously a leader, because you are not afraid anymore. You are harmonized within yourself. You are vigorous in your energy. Seeing that, other people naturally want to follow you.

Harmonize Your Energies

      So, the ultimate goal of Tantric Spirituality is to harmonize your energies. It is to control your energies to a degree where you can be blissful, where you can get rid of your repressions. Where you can forget about all the societal conditioning. Where you can cleanse yourself deeply. And when you cleanse yourself deeply, you are getting rid of all the nonsense and all that is not needed in life. Hence, in a sense, you are coming to a state of your self-truth, and from this state you act! Whatever you do becomes meditative; whatever you do, becomes reflective of your Buddha nature. If you can do that, the energy of the Divine starts functioning through you more and more, and you start becoming more and more meditative in whatever you do. Hence, the inner conflict disappears. You are no longer anxiety-ridden, and not being anxiety-ridden enables you to move towards a more awakened state of being!

      From within and without you are transforming yourself. You are allowing the energies to flow through you in a much more rich and powerful manner. When you do this, your inner richness is enhanced as well as the outer richness in the world. With regard to all your activities in the world, you are able to pour more creativity into your work, more sensitivity into your work, more vigour into your work! And people respond to you far more deeply. It is all a question of reaching a wisdom state, where you are able to transcend those things which have been keeping you feeling limited! And the essential thing which keeps us limited is this non-harmonization of energies. We are constantly feeling tired, dull, depressed, anxiety-ridden. That does not allow us to function naturally.

      Spirituality is in the end all about being able to function in a balanced and natural manner, in a spontaneous and integrated manner. If you can do that, there is nothing else to do! Your destiny will unfold as it's meant to unfold. You become part of eternity itself, you become part of the cosmic low, the universal flow. You become part of the meditative flow of all things. And you become joined with the creative power behind the cosmos. That is the end goal of Tantra and esoteric Buddhism: to take you to that state of being. It is an intensely creative state, but it is also an intensely calm state. It is an intensely energetic state because it brings you in contact with the energy field of the infinite and makes you dynamic. But at the same time, it is utterly relaxing and utterly rewarding. It allows you to be your highest self.

"To become a Buddha, throw life's common goals to the wind!" Milarepa