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An unprecedented spiritual expression
TANTRA & TAPAS1"When you body surf the big waves of experience, sometimes you wipe out. That's part of it. If you're lucky you will realize you are none of this and all of this. Before, during, and after this you are Being." -- Todd VickersI have heard the word tapas defined as "the fire of transformation." I do not like this definition because it is a misnomer. Transformation is always changing and what can change is unreliable. What has a beginning will end. Therefore, transformation is relative and temporary. It serves a purpose and there is nothing wrong with that, but it can't be who you are because, you were before the transformation. What I say is: tapas is the fire that burns what is unreal or pretence. It consumes that which you are not.. This fire is the world of nature burning itself, revealing the limitations of experience and, with grace, the source which is unaffected by these changes. Call it that which does not come and go: only-ness, freedom, consciousness, enlightenment, nirvana, truth. Tapas will expose the truth via life itself, those who don't avoid it. If you are identified with experience then that will burn as experiences come and go. The truth that experience is not your identity is present even now, but one can't realize this because the habit of mind is to try to be something you are not. The tantra, as pedaled, currently does not reveal one's nature but, simply, evokes new "spiritual experiences." People are trying to master pleasurable experience and avoid or minimize anything uncomfortable in the process. People are learning techniques that create experiences and getting new ideas of how to act; these things are unreliable. However, when you play with fire sometimes you get burned and this is the part of tantra that is utterly rejected, denied, or avoided. If one is embracing the pleasure of natural events, say, sexual union with one or more lovers, yet they are avoiding and unable to embrace the pain and disillusionment that comes with it, then one is not truly tantric. Pain and pleasure can reveal the source from which these experiences arise. Unfortunately, the inquiry into this source rarely happens because the people teaching the tantra are not awakened people. They are like musicians who have cultivated talent, yet know not the source from which this expression arises. In this situation tantra becomes a mechanism of delusion. Very few people are going to be interested in tantra when it reveals that they are not who they think they are via disillusionment. In other words, shattering their beliefs aboutwho they are, the world, and about tantra itself. So tantra is sold as spiritual entertainment. A sexual Disneyland where you can have experiences you would not have otherwise. For example: In popular tantric workshops people are told they are healers and light beings and are shown how to "work with" painful feelings. They feel safety in the group. The pain they do feel becomes a badge for the ego. They are taught to look at everything from a sacred (i.e., sentimental) point of view, because they wouldn't want to say they were enjoying having their finger up somebody's ass and making them come. You have to call it healing, or something else sentimental, so it appeals to the spiritual ego. This does create new experiences but it does not take you to the source. People are told to visualize their lover as the god or goddess. This generates emotionalism and sentiment, which in turn paves the way for a new experience that wouldn't happen otherwise. The new experience convinces one that they are evolving and, thus, the ego is placated. This is no different than imagining your lover is someone else, say an adult film star; this method generates a different experience, you can do this with breathing techniques, concentration methods, and countless other ways. It is actually quite common, although not really mainstream. People refine and evolve the ego, to make it more functional, and create the possibility for more pleasure. But, when you start playing with the more powerful energies there is a chance your ego will be overwhelmed. That drowning of the ego is not what people want and when it happens the reactions can be subtly or not so subtly insane. There is absolutely nothing wrong with enjoying pleasures. I say let everybody that will finally rot, rejoice as much as possible. However, this is not going to reveal the truth of Being. The whole point of tantra, as far as I am concerned, is entering profoundly into life to speed up the inevitable disillusionment, so one doesn't spend a lifetime wandering in delusion, and endlessly chasing after experience to identify with. Yes, there is great pleasure and also the shattering of identity that will eventually come with death. Life can also send experience your way that can help you to notice who you truly are. Life will find you. If one is not engaged in avoiding what is being revealed every moment then this is tantra. All of life is Satsang. The reason the freedom is not enjoyed is because the life energy and attention is spent trying to support an ego that doesn't even exist outside of thought. This ego is of less substance than a soap bubble. When there is true silence, there is No-mind, when there is No-mind there is no ego or identity. Don't just take my word for it: inquire. After all, my freedom doesn't do you much good because freedom is not a vicarious pleasure. It is Being. TANTRIC LIFEI write about the embracing of nature and also pointing out the limitations of this experience. The world of form is not at war with the reality of living truth. People become afraid that they will be losing the things they enjoy for the sake of the freedom I talk about. This is a mistaken fear. I am only saying experience is what it is, and it is not what it is not. I am not here to take away anyone's pleasure. Those things come and go on their own and I don't want to cause anyone less joy.The belief that experiences can do something they can't do causes an endless loop of karmic suffering. So let's talk about sex. It is the spark where the flame of life not only begins but also where so much of the life energy and attention is fixated. Doing it or not doing it, saying it is important or unimportant, trying to figure it out and feeling great when it seems to be working and wondering what went wrong when it doesn't, obeying and rebelling to cultural strategies (most people do both if they are honest). This is a way to expose of the whole seeking game: Call it working on yourself, call it evolution, call it becoming more functional in the world, it makes no difference. This is confronting the idea that you need to be someone in particular and live in some particular way in order to be. Most seeking effort is only half-hearted because people don't want to see the limits. They can have the excuse that if they were more sincere "it" would have satisfied them. Many a "pseudo teacher" has used this excuse for the limitations of their techniques. Renunciation is seeking, too: it consists of an idea that someone will attain something, which is thought of as liberation by forsaking the world of form. This idea is a form; a thought form; a strategy. The opposite of renunciation could be called hedonism and a seeking through form that which is thought of as liberation. The reliance on strategy or following a plan of how life should be to create what you want is also hedonism. The dissatisfaction that motivates the ascetic is the same dissatisfaction that motivates the hedonist. This is not noticed because many times the strategies are conservative to one degree or another, but it is still relying on the world of form to satisfy the discontent one lives with. Both of these efforts ultimately fail because you are asking form, or the world of experience, to do something it can't do, and that is to give you identity. When one is generating wonderful and ecstatic experience, one is avoiding discontent and who cares about freedom or enlightenment in the midst of that success? What people think of as tantra is not my expression of tantra: it is hedonism. People want to avoid discontent by generating pleasure and they want to maintain this pleasure. The methods of tantra make the strategy look religious and these methods appeal to the seeking ego. In the midst of that pleasure, who cares about enlightenment: you are just as free in that moment as you are when events are awful. You think freedom is getting your way or the height of pleasure. It is not. Freedom is not found in any experience. It is when "wanted experiences" entropy and "unwanted experiences" take their place that one might ask: "Do I want to spend a lifetime doing this or do I want to be free?" Truth ultimately reveals the source of forms (who you truly are) because all of the forms return to the source as they disintegrate; this includes all forms of thought and systems of thought. The failure to realize this is called samsara or being lost in the world of thoughts and form. The endless chasing of form is called karma. Realize who you truly are and then all experience, be it wild or mild, is not a problem. Freedom does not free you from form, as the acetic believes, nor does it guarantee you forms of joy and getting your way in a world where everyone loves you. That is what you want freedom to be and that is food for the ego. Freedom frees you in the midst of form as that from which all forms arise. The tantra I speak of is all-inclusive and particularly inclusive of the disillusionment that occurs when forms disintegrate. Unfortunately the word tantra has become so polluted in through marketing chicanery that it has lost all significance. I am thinking to use another word. The embracing experience, as it truly, is a fuel for the fire of freedom. Love of freedom is called devotion, or bhakti. It is ecstatic love of truth. So live this life fully, for you are sensitive and let this life reveal to you all of who you truly are and your freedom. If that seems to be taking too long then that's what I am here for: to speed up that recognition. 1Content Copyright 2001 (c) Vickers Publications. All Rights Reserved Excerpted from Truth Like Fire and edited for public perusal. Return to the topContent Copyright 1999-2007 © Todd Vickers. All Rights Reserved.
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