Limitless Possibilities in Tantra Yoga and Tantric Buddhism

"Rest in the lowest place, and you'll reach the highest." Milarepa

      Indian Tantra and occult Buddhism are very clear on one point: that you are not to consider yourself the body or the mind. You are only to consider yourself to be energy; when you look at yourself as pure energy, you start feeling unlimited (asheem). All fear then disappears from you mind. This principle is key to the most powerful teachings of Indian Tantriks such as Vajrabodhi and Shubhakarasimha, along with Amoghavajra and the tantric practices of Shingon, Tangmi. It creates empowerment of mind-body-spirit to encounter difficult situations in life.

Limitless in Tantra

      The teaching of the Tantrics and the Bodhisattvas is that our problems begin when we start identifying with the mind or body. Our natural state is that we are simply bundles of energy, and all of life is a quest between finding harmony of the microcosmic energy (as human beings) and the macrocosmic energy (which is God, the divine, the beyond, the absolute). So, in this manner, the entire way of looking at yourself changes. In this manner, your entire illusion of looking at yourself as mind and body is shattered into pieces. And with that shattering, a great cleansing happens in your consciousness. A great catharsis happens in your consciousness. You are able to release your energies to the maximum. You are able to be transformed, you are able to feel blissful, you are able to feel complete.

      Tantric Buddhism is so profound: it has some teachings which take us beyond, which make us transcend our limitations. Knowing yourself as energy, you know yourself as an open sky full of possibilities, having great space within yourself. Having great room within yourself, to fill your life with abundance! And when all possibilities start becoming possible to you, you start becoming subtler in your perception. You start feeling like you are a flower of this great universal tree of energy. That there is absolutely nothing to feat. You can just be your spontaneous self, sending out your best energies into the world, expressing your feelings, functioning through the qualities of your heart.

      Knowing yourself as pure energy, you tap into the greater mind. You don't remain limited. The difficulty which man faces is the limitation of the mind-body complex. The way we look at ourselves itself is limiting: we are often scared of small things. It is our nature as human beings to miss the whole point about our cosmic destiny, because we observe ourselves as a bundle of thoughts, as a bundle of cells and so on. In doing so, we really miss the point, because we are not able to go into our original state, the depth of ourselves. And in that way, we become slaves to the mental-physical complex that we have been brought up in.

You Are Much More than Mind and Body

      The way of Tantra and Buddhism is to look silently at yourself as being much more than mind and body. Once you do that, you feel immensely energetic from within. You feel like a bundle of great, immense, vibrating, dynamic energy. And that is really the way to God, the way to the divine, the doorway to higher things. The whole intelligence of the rishis/sages is taking us towards a situation where we feel ourselves not dominated by the thought of mind and body (because then we are constantly possessed by worry) but rather a situation where we make our whole life very sacred by looking at ourselves as such a vibration of energy which is an expression of universal energy itself! Hence, you feel as part of the universal ocean which is the cosmos, and so doing you unite yourself with a higher power. You become empty of all that is unnecessary in thought. You do not occupy your mind with its wanderings of fear, anxiety, etc. You don't remain stuck because of tensions. You feel dynamic, free to flow. Because energy is basically free-flowing, Look at the energy of electricity. Look at the energy of sound, look at the energy of light: all these energies are free-flowing. They just need a medium. So, too, is your mind and body just a medium for your innate energy to flow. And when you look at yourself that way, you realise that your uniqueness does not depend on the body you have or the mind you have.

      So, it is simply about realizing yourself as a part of this collective energy which the whole universe vibrates with, throbs with, pulsates with! In this way you start dropping false notions of yourself. And dropping false notions of yourself really means that you feel a part of the vast universe. You feel a part of that universal bliss which is throbbing throughout creation, and so doing you become an intrinsic part of the greater intelligence! You are able to merge and dissolve into something far greater. Your inner energies are activated, you become light-hearted.

      We are usually carrying too much of a burden of thoughts: to become light-hearted requires us to realize ourselves as beings who are moving towards bliss, with a great deal of energy. In that state, you come to a situation where the crossroads of the mystic paths are facing you. On the one hand is the option to look at yourself as limited through the mind-body complex, and on the other hand is the path towards infinity, where you realize yourself as part of that meditative bliss which is endless, which is timeless, which has no beginning and no end.

      Through looking at yourself as universal energy, you come to a situation where you're able to do away with the headache of worrying about what will happen to you at a bodily level, at a physical level. Much of our worries have to do with what will happen at the bodily level - whether we'll be healthy of not - and our other worries have to do with things such as our finances, our relationships and so on. But knowing yourself to be energy, you see you original face.

Divine Energy

      The ancient sages used to say that we are beings of divine energy. We are comprised of divine energy, yet we forget this. The whole path of mysticism, the whole of spirituality, is to remember this fact. And when you remember this fact, then you go beyond the usual way of looking at yourself. You feel within your heart the vibration of cosmic energy, You feel within your life: a certain dynamism, a throb of a higher ability, a higher capability, a higher willingness to go fearlessly into whatever needs to be done! And thereby you become a person of true value within the world!

      The whole symbolism in the East is of looking at ourselves as purity of energy: not only in the Buddhism and Hinduism of India, but even in China, the Yin-Yang symbol. It is simply a representation of energy, telling us that we are basicaly energy. In Hinduism the whole concept is of Shakti and Shiva - energy and consciousness or stillness in a divine interplay. So, this is what we are comprised of. Everything is symbolic. Everything is a reminder that we are not separate from the universal energy. At the very centre of ourselves, we are united; on the circumference are various forms, and the way we perceive things may be different. But let all that chaos and difference in the mind disappear: find yourself in an accord with the realization that you are pure energy, and then you become more passionate, more loving, more capable of surmounting struggles. You thereby also create a bridge between the heart and the work you do: you are able to bring your heart into whatever you act upon. You can work full-heartedly, because you work with an ecstasy of energy.

      Energy creates ecstasy. When you work with great energy, you feel ecstatic, you feel blissful, you feel happy. But you also feel a great silence, a great calmness and peace within your being. That is the test. The mystic idea itself changes you, transforms you: that is the magic of spirituality.

      Buddhism is deeply profound in that it said things which only now modern neuroscience, modern psychology, modern cosmology, are coming to: that mind is basically energy, and so is the entire cosmos. It is throbbing, pulsating energy. Astro-physics is telling us that more and more: the cosmos is not mechanical, it is simply an interplay of energy which is happening. Hence, at the level of our personal selves also, when we realize this, we tap into the divine power that is our birthright! And tapping into our divine power is really what nourishes us at the mental, material, spiritual levels. It makes us feel alive. It makes us feel that we can conquer, we can win. We can do that which is valuable! Then you don't feel like shrinking from challenges; then you are able to flow on effortlessly. You automatically become more undivided in your ability to function in a focused manner. And when you do that, you realize that not only is there within you a deep and silent harmony with universal energy, but also deep alertness. The warrior within you has awoken, able to face all challenges without doubt! Able to emphasize the power of oneself through one's actions!

      It is about being absorbed in the realization of your inner being. According to Tantra and Buddhism, your inner being is utterly pure energy. If you think like this, if you imbibe this feeling of being energy-filled, you realize that you automatically move towards a more meditative state. What is that state? It is the state of inner clarity. It is a state where all your doubts fall apart. It is a state where you can see the light of yourself and feel lighter at heart. Where you can find the very fountainhead of nectar existing right within you! Your illusions drop, and you realize that the highest religion is in this attitude. It makes you feel lively, it makes you feel unworried. It makes you move on to that infinite path which is always available to us, but which we miss simply because we identify too strongly with our mind-body complex (and hence are too worried to move towards the infinite)!

      All of life should be a movement towards the infinite realms of being, because that is what we have been born into. That is a birthright given to us by the divine. You can transform your life into something of great beauty: just move towards the awareness of the energy that you are! And then you will activate yourself and your inner powers more fully at a subconscious, unconscious, and conscious level. All your energies will coalesce and merge together, and create this absoluteness of energy which is your true being and which is the sum total of nobility within you. It makes you empowered not only with more capability, but with more joy, and that is the secret of truly successful living!