Guilt Creates Fear in Tantric Practices

"It is not the outer objects that entangle us. It is the inner clinging that entangles us." Tilopa, the great master of Indian and Tibetan Tantra

      What makes Tantra and esoteric Buddhism so different from religious paths is that, generally, religion makes people feel entangled by making them feel guilty, whereas the Tantra vision is completely the opposite: it is all about getting rid of guilt. It is all about becoming completely liberated from the entanglement of guilt feelings, and hence getting rid of the root of fear. Because much of human fear has got to do with guilt. It is said in the old books of esoteric Buddhism and Tantra that guilt is the one factor which makes people shrink within their beings. It makes people forget their self-dignity. It makes people feel smaller than they actually are. The vision of Tantra, and of esoteric Buddhism, is that we are infinitely vast (this teaching is of key importance on the Kagyu and Kadampa paths of Tantric Buddhism). Knowing we are infinitely vast, we can manifest an infinite amount of compassion, we can feel an infinite amount of contentment, we can feel an infinite amount of creativity. And through such feeling and vibe deep within our being, comes a spontaneous empowerment and higher ability to tackle all tough times, all difficult situations. This teaching is key in Indian Tantra and various Tantric Buddhism traditions, including the Newar Vajrayana Buddhism of Nepal and the Zhenyan tradition of China (as founded there by the great Indian masters Vajrabodhi and others).

Guilt Create Fear in Tantra

      But the starting point is to completely unburden ourselves of the guilt feeling, and then you can go into the meditative state. Without dropping guilt, you cannot go into the meditative state. You cannot create the effortless grace required to become super-conscious and begin to find a greater happiness. Tantra says that bliss is ours, but only if we are able to move past the great wall of guilt which stands between us and greater truth, greater bliss, meditativeness, devotion, grace, beauty, and purity.

True Intelligence

      Intelligence is in becoming graceful; intelligence is in leaving the unhappiness of guilt behind. You cannot exist with one part of you as a guilty person and the other part of you trying to do something great. Greatness and guilt do not go together. Drop this duality and exist in your self-nature; exist in the peace of the heart. There you'll find that you have always been pure. There you will find that the silence within your being has always been vibrant with the divine. The inner Buddha quality within you is yours for you to enjoy as you feel, and there's no power on earth which can challenge that. So doing, you become integrated. So doing, your own spiritual evolution happens. And you are able to create a heaven not only within your own being, but around you, because all that you touch starts pulsating with the greater energy of your purity of being.

      Life is all about finding real value, which always exists within us. We just have to be attentive to it. The one factor which covers or hides the real value of ourselves is this constant hankering that we can do one thing and cannot do another thing. There is this feeling of guilt built into every aspect of our being, especially sex, and especially relationships, social norms, dogmas and so on. We are ruled by them. Once you get free of these rules from the outside, you find that there's an effortless discipline within you, which is that of the divine. That is of the meditative quality. And that is all that is needed.

      Through guilt, we have simply been destructive to our own self-nature. Through it society is destructive to the child; through it, religion and often education is also destructive to the child in many ways. Knowledge is one thing, but to try and inhibit the person's creativity out of the feeling of an imposed morality is contrary to what the vision of Tantra and esoteric Buddhism is. It is all about liberation within yourself. It is all about going into the unknown and taking the risk, and to do that requires us to be completely bold! Boldness is the one quality required for human transformation. Only through that, do you come to a relaxed state. Guilt will never allow you to be relaxed; which is why religions want you to feel guilty. They never want you to relax within your own being and realize that heaven exists within you (as Jesus says) or that bliss exists within you. They want you to be jumpy. They want you to have a feeling of insecurity, and out of this insecurity are born all the conflicts in the world, all the violence in the world.

      The root cause of anger and conflict in the world is the suppressed guilt which is playing out in man's consciousness. And it is really a very clever strategy of religions and politicians. What they do is constantly burden people with this guilty feeling, and therefore people never feel settled into their inner being. People consequently do not realize the infinite silence, the infinite peace and capacity for unlimited intelligence, which they can enjoy within their heart and mind. The only way to truly enjoy religion and understand it is in fact to be empty of all that is told to you from the outside: you are simply left with your own experience, and through that, you come to a situation where you are not manipulated and forced by outside doctrines and moralities. But, rather, you drop these! And you also drop all the concomitant tensions and anguish that they bring. You uproot the weeds of your guilt, and doing so the good foliage can start growing on the same soil. The sweetness of awareness comes to you, and you are able to be a great torchbearer of value within the world!

Flexibility

      The whole question of flexibility and elasticity of religion is a very essential one. Religions need to be flexible, but the problem is that they are not willing to compromise simply because they want a very tight grip on people. They want to suffocate people, they want to make people feel like they are having claustrophobia, because only through that is their power and dominance assured over others. But this does not allow you to climb to the highest parts of your own being. This keeps you limited. And limitation is actually antithetical to what the infinite capacity of spirituality should be. It keeps us confined to certain fears and anxieties.

      All of us need to realize that the real thing is to discover the flame of truth within ourselves. This flame of truth is to burn all the guilt (and hence the fear) that you have been carrying consciously of unconsciously. Now, we may think we are very evolved in the world, but all of us do carry this guilt in some measure. It is only the sage who is able to transcend it. It's not about literally being a sage, but it is the quality of the sage that you can bring into your life. It is the quality of becoming so aware and awake within yourself that you master yourself. No one outwardly is to be your master: don't make an outer religion your master, don't make an outer political doctrine your master. Be free to go against all doctrines because then you'd realize that at the heart of yourself, a deep creativity happens, one of self-mastery, and experiences that you thought possible have come to you. This is what youthfulness means. This is what rejuvenation of energy means.

      What is youthfulness? Youthfulness is the ability to be daring and bold! Youthfulness is the ability to rebel against accepted wisdom, and that is what is needed to walk the mystic path. If do you this, then new goals will be achieved by you. Otherwise you'll just be treading on other people's paths and not really finding the fundamental individuality of yourself. Your work is your own work, be original! Dis-identify with all the concepts you have been carrying in the past, for by dis-identifying you can move into deeper waters. Through that will come spontaneity, a great clarity, and individuality of expression within yourself. You see, guilt is all about pretension. It is all about following what somebody else has said is right (and hence is not coming out of, your own wisdom). It is something imposed upon you. lt is an imagining, and no outer imagining can do justice to your state of consciousness. That completely belongs to you.

      Your life is your own journey. It is your choice how you want to walk it. Don't walk it with a great burden of guilt upon your shoulders, don't walk it with a great burden of religion upon your shoulders. Follow the Tantra vision. Ironically, it asserts that there is in fact nothing to follow! That's the best part! Buddha's teachings have also been warped through popular paths, but in the esoteric Buddhist paths and on the Tantra path you will find that it's all about unburdening yourself of the unnecessary. Of that which you thought was important, but which has no real meaning.

Real Religion Implies Inner Transformation

      Religion is not about imagination and visualization of what others tell you. Religion is about finding a transformation within your being, through your self-movement into compassion and love. That requires a mind which is completely non-clinging to any moralistic concept. And that is what Tantra does: it takes you out of the dilemma of what is good and what is bad. It says everything is part of the same blissfulness. And coming out of this dilemma, you are able to come out of the robot-like behaviour that religions usually seek to instill into us.

      Reject all that has been given to you as wisdom, say Tantra and esoteric Buddhism. Find your individuality, and see that your happiness consists of your own own creativity, your own art of inner peacefulness, your own sense of inner silence, your own depths of realization. Then only are you able to leave the past behind and move into a situation where the future is encountered as something completely fresh. Move into the future with an ecstatic vision! And having an ecstatic vision requires us, first of all, to drop the sad and sombre feeling of guilt. Let the agony of guilt disappear, and then you find that your old identity can be dropped. Then you find that you are able to take life as it comes, moment to moment. And you're able to move into fresh spaces of being, and to nourish yourself with fresh experiences. As you experience them, and not through anybody else's eyes!

      The fundamental thing to remember is that each of us has a palace of inner consciousness, but we become beggars the moment we feel guilty. Guilt makes the human being a beggar, taking away his dignity. True enlightenment requires, as the first step, to drop all guilt completely. Then only does your energy function in an un-distorted manner. In a manner which is fresh, in a manner which is powerful, in a manner which is really in harmony with the infinite reality of the cosmos/universe. Hence, unite yourself in a togetherness of being, and that is only possible when you have not been split by the poison of guilt within your mind. The mind's one poison is the poison of guilt. Else, there is no sin in the world. Sex is natural, relationships are natural: it is guilt which is unnatural! Yet that is what has been eating away at mạn for centuries, leading to so much tumult within the individual and spilling over as jealousy, hate, intolerance, conflict within society.

      The greatest contribution of Tantra and of esoteric Buddhism is the sense of transformation about dropping guilt entirely. Through that, you can move on to the divine dimensions of life and start living completely free of fear!