"Remain where you are and apply yourself, diligently to your tasks. lt is not life or wealth or a power that enslaves people, but the clinging to life and wealth and power." Gautam Buddha
Tantra and the secret (gupt) of occult Tantric Buddhist traditions say that we are not meant to look at things with a 'heavy' mind. The heavy head implies a closed, attached, clinging mind. It implies a non-wondrous, non-courageous, and non-joyful outlook upon life. And in that state of being, you are certain to miss the bliss that this universe affords us. You are certain to miss the adventurousness and boldness required to be your individual self. The heavy head - full of mental burdens makes you conform to society's rules, makes you conform to conditioning. It does not bestow an original awareness and fearlessness within you. The Tantric and Buddhist basis of all great concentration, higher achievement meditation (dhyana/jhanna), and accomplishments is unburdening of mind of its unnecessary load. This makes you far more capable of surmounting all obstacles and overcoming tough situations in life.
 |
| Mind in Tantra Sadhana |
The whole secret of Tantra philosophy and occultic Kagyu Buddhism is to be so cool and light within the mind that you are able to enjoy the harmony of life. It is the quality of 'laghima' of lightness of being. Through it, you are able to move from sadness to joy. You are able to move from the illusion of sorrow to the reality of this wondrous universe. Everything, according to the mystic vision of Tantra and esoteric Buddhism, is full of blissful dimensions. But the 'heavy' or over-ponderous/over-thinking head simply misses these because it does not catch the spirit of life itself. It ponders upon things and weighs things, but it does not have that lightness of spirit which allows it to ascend the sunlit summits of its own self-potentiality with bravery.
The nature of the human spirit is luminous. It is of the nature of light, and light has no weight. Light is weightless, yet it has the power to bring life to the whole existence. Look at our solar system: the light from the Sun is powering life on Earth. The light from the Sun is making things possible. Yet this light is weightless. It is not heavy. So the most significant aspect, which is making things grow, is lightness of being. Hence, we are also to become like that. That is what it means to live an organic life. That is the truth of existence. That is what is meant to live a life of direct wisdom and courage, responding and being original in your grace, without being distorted by the heaviness of the head.
Heaviness of the head implies wearing masks; it implies not allowing the heart to come into the functioning of your life. It implies the ego. In fact, heaviness of the head is exactly that: it is a symbol of the ego-driven, neurotic mind which keeps spinning its anxieties. It keeps spinning its needless worries. The Tantra and esoteric Buddhism concept is to feel tremendous relief from the heaviness of the head, by going into meditative states. These ate states of profound relaxation. That is what it essentially means: a relaxed state of being, where you transcend the workings of the repetitive mind and see beyond it, realize that you're full of a fresh consciousness that is far larger than the conscious mind.
Now, consciousness or 'Chaitanya' is described in the old esoteric teachings as being of the nature of light. Consciousness has no weight; it weight; it is of the nature of the divine. And we are to emulate the nature of the divine if we are to find divine bliss in our own lives. All other things in life money, position, power, and material happenings are important, but if your very sense of being itself is loveless and joyless, or full of anxieties/fears, what is the point of any of this? Tantra is very liberal in the sense that it does not deny you the pursuit of material pleasures, but at the same time tells you very powerfully to never live a loveless life. Absorb all the love you can in your life, and the only way to absorb it is to be light at heart, light in mind, light in consciousness. Then the inner illumination of fearlessness and true joy become possible. And that illumination is our divine birthright. It makes us as we are meant to be. It makes us surrender all those illusions which the mind has been constantly conjuring up in its dreams, and allows us to awaken into a new dimension of prayerfulness. Into a new dimension where you find the hidden divinity opening up into your life more and more. And when you do that, you take a great jump into the cosmic dance which is happening at every moment.
Blissful Spirituality
Tantra means blissful spirituality, and that is at the heart of what the Buddha taught. At the superficial level, we were told that Buddha's whole teaching was about sorrow and the negation of sorrow. But in the esoteric Tantric paths of Buddhism, you'd find that the Buddha's whole message is about the energy of joy, the energy of being able to take part in this boundless existence with all the joyful energy that we have. And that arises only when you are able to unblock the heavy energy of the head and transform it into something magnificent, something divine, something which allows your consciousness to break free of its mental slavery and to again pour itself with great passion into whatever it is doing. With real heartfulness and courage.
Hence, our real identity is one of being light-hearted yet depth-ful, at the same time. Our real identity is one of continuously being in a state of love with life, continuously being in a state where we feel cleansed of the heaviness of the head. And so doing, in a single jump, we are able to enter into the multi-dimensional possibilities available to us in life. Then, whatever we do has this quality of great spontaneity, this great surrender to the cosmic harmony. And when that happens is you are able to function at your most passionate, your most intense. Then, naturally, the results of whatever you are doing become transformed into something good. Most of all, this stance gives you the courage to attempt that which you had always hesitated from attempting!
The mind is a fear-creating mechanism, and the more fearful the mind, the more heavy it feels. That is the simple connection between fear and mental phenomena. If you want to de-sensitize yourself, then yes, you should have a heavy mind. But if you want to realize with great sensitivity and sharpness the true energy which is possible to you, then you have only to do one thing: make your mind less heavy, allow your natural consciousness to function, but do not get overweighed by the verbal repetition of the mind's processes. Consciousness is a non-verbal experience: pure consciousness transcends dreams, transcends words, transcends definitions. It is a feeling of being energetic and alive through the act of perception. The mind is a good instrument of perception, but when it processes the information it sometimes creates wrong interpretations. And the biggest interpretation that has kept us way down as individuals is the belief that out thoughts are the most important part of ourselves. But that is not so: the Tantra vision says that our thoughts are simply like a passing film. Most of them have no relevance and no foundation in reality whatsoever. They are simply out imaginings, our hallucinations, and our illusions.
Beyond Mental Imaginings
Go past the barrier of mental imaginings, and then you come to a new way of life. Then you come to a mature way, a mystic way: where you can feel thankful and grateful for what you have. And in that very attitude you become spontaneously courageous. The purity of bravery, the purity of fearlessness comes out as a basic element of the weightless quality of mind. What is weightlessness? It does not imply lack of depth; rather, it implies depth itself. It implies a feeling of great freedom to plumb the highest depths of the great sea of consciousness and at the same time, a great freedom to take wing and take fight to the highest aspects of consciousness. So, both depth and height are achieved by the mind which is light, which is not overburdened by mental disturbances. Then you find that happiness can be a natural state in you, whatever activity you are doing: whether at your work, in your relationships, and so on. You find that it is a twenty-four-hour phenomenon which can happen to you: this sense of inner happiness, which is emotional, spiritual, physical, mental. Hence, it is a great synthesis of happiness. It is an integrative power of feeling free from the burden of thoughts and being more intense in your very awareness of being so.
What Tantra and esoteric Buddhism really want you to understand is that the way of intellectuality is not the way of happiness and powerful energy. Rather, it often becomes a way of becoming fearful in life. So, sometimes people who you'd find are thinking too much are not able to take great intuitive leaps into the unknown. And this goes for any aspect of life: it doesn't imply only the soldier who's going into the battle, or the warrior who has to make his mark in the war. This kind of bravery implies any work that you're doing: if you're a scientist, become a fearless scientist, who is able to explore new frontiers, to take great mental leaps and come up with something innovative and something new. So, too, you'd see this phenomenon in the world of technology.
Real Courage
People with teal courage are those who are not bound by prior information or prior knowledge. They are courageous enough to find something new, and thereby do they come up with a breakthrough. So, at the heart of anything this applies to mavericks in business, path-breaking artistes or musicians, great athletes or captains of sports teams, and across the spectrum of human pursuits this one quality of being light at heart and mind applies. Where path-breakers and real thought leaders are able to use their natural intelligence to a very high degree! But that only comes about when there is an overflow of a relaxed but dynamically Amazing feeling within you. When you are not dulled and made heavy in your mind by your apprehensions and your belief systems. ms. Get rid of belief systems, says Tantra! Encounter truth as it is, and then you'll find the real bliss of life opening up to you, reaching you. And you realize that you're able to go deeper and higher into your potential as much as you like in a way which you had perhaps never thought possible.
Tantra and esoteric Buddhism are full of devices and techniques to shake you out of mental stupor, to stop you from clinging to the mind's content. That is one of the most fundamental aspects of these paths, and what it really means is that this quality gives you so much empathy, so much compassion, and such a feeling of lovingness that you become truly courageous! And out of this courage, you are able to get rid of egoistic self-centred thoughts that limit you in everyday life.
We think we need the ego to assert ourselves, but what we are actually doing through ego is making ourselves heavier and dull. Truly innovative and truly happy people are those who give up the ego more and more, and thereby their participation in life becomes greater; thereby the vibe of their very presence becomes much more dynamic and powerful! So the root of real self-power is getting rid of the heaviness of ego, getting rid of the heaviness of anxiety, getting rid of the heaviness of mind itself. And through that your greater qualities become magnified. Otherwise, they are hidden behind those thoughts of anxiety. Come to a transcendence of your previous knowledge, come to a transcendence of all that you had known! Then you awaken to your inner music that which is your intrinsic being, that which is your Divine substance, that which is your essential self. And through it, you find great fearlessness and freedom. Through it, you find great expressiveness. Through it does the power of your potential spread in all directions of your work and life.
"Running after thoughts, you become like the dog chasing a thrown stick! Be like the lion: don't chase the stick, instead turn towards the thrower!" Milarepa
Post a Comment
Do not post any spam link here.