Tantra in India:  Hindu Shaktism

"The broad, underlying foundation of Tantra philosophy may be summarized
briefly as follows:

"The universe and everything in it is permeated by a secret energy or
power, emanating from the single Source of all being.

"This power, although singular in essence, manifests in three ways,
namely, as static inertia, dynamic inertia or mental energy, and as
harmonious union of these reacting opposites.

"The universe or macrocosm through which these modalities of cosmic
force function, is exactly duplicated by the human form as a microcosm.

"The Tantrik seeks, therefore, by mystic formularies, rites and symbols,
to identify the corresponding centers of his own body with those of the
macrocosm.  Ultimately, he seeks union with God Himself.

The importance of the female consort in Tantrik practices stems from the
fact that, according to Shastra, every woman is a shakti; that is, she
embodies the secret, fundamental forces that control the universe.

"By correctly joining himself to this line of force, pouring forth from
the supreme Absolute, the yogi experiences the ineffable bliss of divine
union.

"Tantrik scriptures state emphatically that spiritual liberation can
come only through experience.  States of consciousness cannot
be...transcended until and unless they are lived - rapturously, freely,
and in all the fullness of their power.  The bond that fetters the soul
to samsara (created forms) is precisely the dynamic that can deliver it
from bondage.

"This concept, although brought to its fullest expression by the various
Tantrik schools, is not exclusively the fruit of Hindu thought. 
Actually, many of the basic precepts and rites of Tantrism represent a
broad, pre-Indian movement, to which many civilizations have
contributed.

"...The student of Tantrism will discover, as he goes along, influences
that have entered the currents of Indian thought from the great
mainstream of ancient wisdom - esoteric movements from other lands, in
which woman incarnates the arcanum of being and becoming.

"In strange accord are the devotees of Ishtar in Babylonia; Isis in
Egypt; Shing Moo in China; Aphrodite and the Gnostic Sophia in Greece;
Diana in Rome; the terrible Kali in India."  

_Tantra: The Yoga of Sex, pgs. xxi-xxiii.


"Tantra has always been, for as long as man has wondered about the
mystery of his existence and stood in awe of the primordial power of his
sexual nature.  Symbols of the Tantric heritage are found in every
culture; in cave paintings from the Stone Age, in ancient Samarian
carvings, in magical texts from ancient Egypt, in mystical  writings of
the Hebrews and Greeks, and in the Arabian songs of love.  The alchemy
of medieval Europe disguised its tantric principles with romantic
allegorical poetry.  Paganism was based on the celebration of creative
sexual energy.  In many cultures representations of the male and female
genitals (lingam and yoni in Sanskrit) are widely displayed and revered
for the creative power they represent....

"Tantric practice has also inspired the best art and poetry in India,
Arabia and China.  Temples of India are covered with carvings of deities
in every possible position of sexual union (which is a great
embarrassment to the repressed Indian culture today).

"It appears Tantra was once a worldwide spiritual practice, a common
thread running through all civilizations.  The Yogis in India developed
a system to balance male and female energies.  The Taoist system in
China developed similarly and simultaneously.  These two movements
strongly influenced all Eastern religions.

"Tantric teachings were closely guarded, transmitted orally from master
to disciple only after a long period of preparation and purification. 
Even when the tradition was finally written down in the 3rd Century, its
meaning was obscured in allegory and symbols so only the initiates could
understand.  The secrets were guarded as protection from misuse, but
also to give royalty and priesthood a tremendous power advantage over
the masses.

"The 11th and 12th centuries were the Golden Age of Tantra when it was
practiced widely and openly throughout India.  But the Moslem invasion
in the 13th Century brought slaughter of all Tantrics and wholesale
destruction of all manuscripts.  The movement was forced underground
where it has continued ever since.  It had been preserved in remote
monasteries, primarily in Tibet, but the recent Communist invasion of
Tibet repeated the slaughter and attempt to stamp out Tantric practice. 
Their motive is clear.  One who has realized his true nature cannot be
subjugated to the will of a religious or political power structure.

"By the Yogi calandar we are now in the final stage of a debased age -
Kali Yuga, the age of fire and destruction - a time when Tantra is lost
to the world.  It had been prophesied that Tantra would reappear in the
age of Kali Yuga to unify male and female energies...."  

_Jewel in the Lotus, by Sunyata Saraswati and Bodhi Avinasha, pgs. 3-5.



"The ancient Hindu texts, upon which the practice of Tantra Yoga is
based, assert that we today are living in the final years of a debased
yuga or age - the Age of Kali.  They contend that only by laying hold of
the power inherent in sex force can we find the creative energy to
ascend to spiritual liberation.

"Moreover, they hold that the Shastra (body of literature) which teaches
this mystic science is valid for all peoples of the world, and is not
limited to Hindus, Tibetans, or to any exclusive group.

"They recognize the beauty and truth of transcendental thought in other
systems of yoga; but they realistically declare that the ascetic demands
made upon the aspirant by such systems render them wholly impractical -
indeed, dangerous - for the mass of people.

"Strongly supporting this view is the fact that during the past fifty
years, scores of swamis and religious teachers have come to the West
from India, expounding various spritual disciplines based upon
renunciation of the world as we know it.  Almost without exception, they
have taught that escape from our present degraded existence into higher
realms of being is to be achieved only by rejection of sensual
experience, and by means of difficult austerities.

"Yet the followers of these systems of self-culture have scarcely become
adepts of the kind envisioned by Shankara and Ramanuja.  They have come
nowhere near achieving the yogic powers said to be the inevitable fruits
of such practices.

"These include such things as the ability to become 'light as cotton
wool and fly through the skies'; to know other's thoughts, to become
invisible in a crowd, to know the exact time of one's death, and so on." 

_Tantra: The Yoga of Sex, pgs. xvi-xvii.


"In the mystical experience we know that we are one, a single drop in
the cosmic ocean.  Only our 'ego' keeps us feeling separate.  Ego, the
sense of being 'I' as apart from 'you' is the real barrier to fully
experiencing love.  The more solid the ego, the more difficult it is to
unite.  We're very attached to our separateness.  We love to compare
ourselves with other people, to judge and criticize others, to 
manipulate and compete with others, to blame others for our problems. 
All these games must be sacrificed to attain the mystical experience,
for in union, no one is here.  The ego must die so that you can be
reborn into higher consciousness.  Love emerges out of the void wehre
there is no 'I' and no 'Other'."

_Jewel in the Lotus, p. 179.


"The thing which distinguishes [Shaktism] from other forms of yoga is
that, wheras other schools teach techniques aimed at self-denial and the
extinction of sensuous experience, Tantra urges the fullest possible
involvement in life.

"As Sir John Woodroffe [Arthur Avalon] wrote of the sadakha, 'he attains
liberation, eating the sweet fruits of life.'...

"Tantrism is a goal-directed course of action.  The end in view, as
previously stated, is the union of the two polar streams of life force -
a reintegration that produces spiritual illumination.

"Live life and live it more fully, is the admonition of the Shakta
canon.  Plunge into being with sharpened awareness....

"...You are the strong or the weak, the electric or the magnetic, the
lover or the beloved.

"And from...marriages, these fecundating unions, comes the renewal of
life.  By the act of procreating - whether it be physical, mental or
spiritual - you are to a degree reborn.... Only thereby can [one]
...attain freedom.

"In short, for a man attuned to his soul, each rebirth is into a new
world of thought and feeling - one of greater reality, greater response
to being.

"For Tantrism holds that the world is not an illusion, but real.  Real
flesh experience is the extension of the soul's purpose.   Only in our
deeper feelings, only in love, is the divine creative force registered,
not in intellection.  Truth therefore, can not be taught; it can only be
lived.

"It is [our] way to teach.  It is God's way to experience.   Teachings
are but the substance of another's experience, another's thoughts,
fossilized into permanent beliefs or creeds.  They are but tradition
made law.

"That is the meaning of the passage in the Ratnasara which declares that
'he who realizes the truth of the body can then come the know the truth
of the universe.'

"For that reason, the practice of Tantra yoga starts with the body and
its functions.  That is the true beginning.

"The first objective is to clean the principle nadis or astral channels
previously described, so that psychic currents may unite and flow
through them from the subtle body into the physical body.

Cleansing is achieved by regulation of the breath, a technique known as
pranayama.  As the term itself implies, the procedure is really aimed at
a control of PRANA....What is prana?

"Essentially prana is nothing more than cosmic energy.  It is the sum
total of all primal force in the universe, whether in an inert,
transitional or in a dynamic state.

"It is the tremendous power released from the atom when it is fissioned
or fused.  It is the unseen, ever-present reality behind all movement,
all thinking, willing, doing.

"For biological organisms,... the most important gross manifestation of
prana is breathing, according to the Shastras, we absorb not only
oxygen, but also the basic life-force - prana.

"When breathing ceases, the body's polarity undergoes radical change;
the positive electrical forces of the body, in the form of acid, flood
into the negative, alkaline of the blood.  The body's mechanism becomes
static, ceases to function.  The once living organism ceases greathing
and dies.

"It follows that Tantriks, in common with all yogis, attach considerable
importance to regulating the breath.

"Control the breath, they say, and you can clear the subtle passages of
the etheric body and direct life currents through them.  In the gross
body, the central nervous system is purified and vitalized.  Digestion
is accelerated.  All the five senses are stimulated.  The restless
wandering mind is calmed.  Living, in all its protean forms, loses its
'blur' and becomes more vivid and real.  Experience suddenly assumes, as
it were, a sharper focus.

"In India and Tibet, there are almost as many different methods of
breath control as there are gurus.  Each teacher usually has developed
his own modification of one of the many classical techniques described
in the literature.

"However, all methods, of whatever kind, are concerned with three phases
of the breathing process: inhaling, holding the breath, and exhaling."

_Tantra: The Yoga of Sex, pgs. 39-42.


"Mother worship is the worship of God as the Divine Mother, as the power
of the Lord or the cosmic energy.  Shakti, then, is energy.  Just as one
cannot separate heat from fire, so also one cannot separate Shakti from
Shakta.  Shakti and Shakta are one.  They are inseparable....

"The worship of the Divine Mother means the total acceptance of all
creation.... Kundalini is Shakti power symbolized by Divine Mother.  She
is pure blissful consciousness.  She is the Mother of nature.  It
behooves, therefore, that the aspirant should approach the Mother first,
so that She may introduce Her spiritual child to the Father for its
illumination or Self-realization.  That is the reason why devotees have
placed Radha, Sita, Lakshmi, first in the jugal names, viz,
Radha-Krishna, Sita-Rama, Lakshmi Narayana....

"Worship of Shakti or Shaktism is one of the oldest and most widespread
of religions in the world.  Everybody in this world wants power, loves
to possess power.  He is elated by power.  He wants to domineer over
others through power.  War is the outcome of greed for power. 
Scientists are followers of Shaktism.  He who wishes to develop
will-power and a charming personality is a follower of Shaktism.  In
reality, every man in this world is a follower of Shaktism....

"The countless universes are only dust of Divine Mother's holy feet. 
Her glory is ineffable.  Her splendour is indescribable.  Her greatness
is unfathomable.  She showers Her grace on Her sincere devotees.  She
leads the individual soul from Chakra to Chakra, from plane to plane and
unifies him with Lord Shiva...

"The body is Shakti.  The needs of the body are the needs of Shakti. 
When man enjoys it is Shakti who enjoys through him.  His ears, eyes,
hands, and feet are Hers.  She sees through his eyes, works though his
hands, and hears through his ears.  Body, mind, Prana, egoism,
intellect, organs and all other functions are Her manifestations....

"The basis of Shaktism is the Veda [divine revelation].  Shaktism
upholds that the only source and authority regarding transcendental or
super-sensual matters such as the nature of Brahman, etc., is Veda. 
Shaktism is only Vedanta [the last revelation].  The Shaktas have the
same spiritual experience as the Vedantins....

"The aspirant thinks that the world is identical with the Divine Mother. 
He moves about thinking his own form to be the form of the Divine Mother
and thus beholds oneness everywhere.  He also feels that the Divine
Mother is identical to Parabrahman [the absolute]."

_Kundalini Yoga for the West_, by Swami Sivananda Radha, pgs. 25-30.


"...there is a considerable similarity between Taoist and Tantric yoga. 
The perfect health of the body as a vehicle for the spirit is basic to
both and various techniques in Tantrism are at one with Chinese alchemy
in being designed to 'destroy old age and conquer death.'  Many of the
famous Tantric yogins were also well-known alchemists; both traditions
developed siddhi powers and both aimed at the same transmutation of the
lower body, or base metal, into the perfect body of the True  Man.  An
analogy can be traced between the Taoist circular movement of the force
or energy in the body and the Indian kundalini, the power sybolized by
the serpent coiled at the base of the spine, which lies dormant until,
awakened by yogic practices, it begins the ascent up the spinal region
through the chakras, each represented by a lotus, until, increasing in
power at each stage, it reaches the highest point in the head and
[brings] about realization, enlightenment.

"Kundalini, like ch'i, is spoken of as 'energy', a 'cosmic life energy';
when roused it transverses all the chakras, or 'fields', upwasrds to
final union of the opposites at the highest point.  This is also spoken
of as symbolizing the Sacred Marriage and in Hinduism as the union of
Siva with the female goddess or shakti.  The first chakra in kundalini
symbolism can be compared with the first or 'mortal gate' in Taoist
yoga, from whence the vital force ascends the spinal region; but in
Chinese yoga the  movement and force are cyclic, ascending in a spiral
form to the 'head gate', then returning from the 'cavity of the spirit'
to the source, passing downwards again throught the other centres of the
heart, navel and womb, thus activating the 'foetal breath' and bring
about a union of the yin and yang powers to form a total unity in the
body as a medium for the spirit.  This process of ascending and
descending sets up a cycle of vitality.  The spine in both Indian and
Chinese yoga symbolizes the world axis, while the ascent is the
alchemical change from teh lower  to the higher, lead to gold.  There is
also an analogy between the lotus of the chakras and the Golden Flower
of Taoism, in that the yogic-alchemical process is fulfilled and the
inner light is found, the lotus, or flower, begins to circulate, to move
of its own volition - the Mover at Will.  This is also paralled in many
western texts which state that the Philosopher's Stone has to
circulate."

_Chinese Alchemy, by J.C. Cooper, p. 108.


"Taoist and Tantric yoga have much in common in the use of sexual
techniques for bringing about realization, but the theory and practice
of this yoga is far too complicated and technical to be understood by
any uninitiated westerner.  In the first place it requires a competent
master; it then demands a total dedication and application only possible
in a monastic setting, since times of day, of moths and sexual cycles,
must all be regularly and reigidly observed over long years of practice. 
Sex yoga deals with the generative forces (ching) merging with the
spirit  (shen) in the vital force (ch'i).  It is known as the White
Tiger and the Green Dragon yoga, the White Tiger representing lead and
the semen and the Green Dragon symbolizing cinnabar and the feminine
fluid, the yang and the yin; the two are combined and fused to produce
the Golden Pill, the foetus.  The yang, male fluid is exhaustible; the
yin, female, is inexhaustible.  This also introduces the
inexhaustibility of love.  In Tantric Buddhist legend a Sage, shocked at 
representations of Buddha surrounded by mistresses, was told 'women are
the gods, women are life, women are adornment, be ever among women in
thought'.   This feminine power represents the spontaneous aspect of
love and ecstasy which overcomes duality and is thus the great unifying
force; it is the life-force or immortality; it is the archetypal
feminine.  If correctly used the two forces create life-force or
immortality; if incorrectly used they are a sure way to early death. 
The generative forces must be preserved, not dissipated in ordinary
sexual activity.

"Based on the yin-yang balance and harmony, each sex, providing
stimulus, draws forth and supports the power of the other.  Taoism parts
company with Buddhism, except in its Tantric branch, in regarding
celibacy as unnatural and therefore productive of imbalance and
neurosis.  The yogic techiques are governed by times,  seasons, lunar
phases and astrology; they were kept esoteric to a large extent and
hidden under alchemical terms, since considerable danger accompanies
some of the practices, as it does also with the breathing exercises.  In
Taoist yoga the woman adept plays an important part, both sexes being
necessary to each other; but the yin power, as remarked, is the
inexhaustible force....

"The marvellous powers attributed to the Taoist yogin, the hsien, are
the same as the Eight Great Powers of the yoga of Maha-siddhi Buddhism. 
They are: (1) to make oneself small or invisible, (2,3) to decrease or
increase in height, (4) to have the most distant objects at the tip of
one's fingers, (5) all wish-fulfillment, (6) perfect body control, (7)
the ability to change anything in nature, (8) to be anywhere at will. 
Included in these are knowledge of the past and future, understanding
the language of animals and communication with the dead.  In these
powers the association with Shamanism and magic is clear."

_Chinese Alchemy, pgs. 111-113.

"That the real alchemy was concerned with the metaphysical, mystical and
religious life is made abundantly clear in the writings of leading
alchemists of both East and West who state categorically: 'Our gold is
not of this world.'  All the exhortations to right conduct, purity and
religious observances show that the Work was, for the true alchemist, a
spiritual matter.

"Writing on yoga and alchemy and discussing the legends and references
on Tantricism, Eliade says: 'We have here no pre-chemistry, no science
in embryo, but a spiritual technique, which, while operating on
'matter', sought first of all to 'perfect the spirit', to bring about
deliverance and autonomy ... gold is the one perfect solar metal and
hence its symbolism meets the symbolism of the Spirit, of spiritual
freedom.'  This is confirmed by John Blofeld who, travelling in
pre-Communist China and visiting Buddhist and Taoist monasteries,
received from a Taoist abbot the statement:

'Ours in not a religion but a way to the Way...our yogas and meditation
begin with the generating of tranquility, that in the stillness of our
hearts we may apprehend the Tao within, around, above and below us.  We
seek to nourish our vitality and prolong our lives in order to gain more
time for the refinement of spirit needed for attaining higher goals. 
Then comes the compounding of the Golden Pill which some misguided
persons have sought to produce by alchemical processes, whereas in truth
it can be  compounded only within the body and is therefore known
esoterically as the immortal foetus.  We Taoists are generally agreed
that its creation is the means to immortality, but at this point paths
diverge, some seek aeon-long immortality, the attainment of a god-like
state, as an end in itself; others strive to Return to the Source, an
apotheosis identical with the attainment of Nirvana, though conceptions
of the inconceivable naturally differ.'

"...The real alchemy was the search for wisdom; its work was esoteric
and on the individual, not in the laboratory, or rather the body is the
laboratory in which the knowledge of the Self is gained.  That the quest
was spiritual, not material, is attested by alchemy's religous
affiliations, to Taoism, in particular, in the East; there are also
constant references to it in Hinduism and Buddhism and strong
associations in the Babylonian and Chaldean civilizations, the
Egyptian-Greek  hermeticism and, later, in Christianity and Islam. 
Alchemy is also essentially mystical since its aim is union, the end of
duality and absorption in the Absolute.  Alchemical terms are used
throughout the spiritual processes; the conjunctio is the same as the
mystic's union with the One, the loss of individual identity with the
limitations of the ego dissolved in the perfect whole, and again the
base metal, transmuted by purification and refining, becomes the gold of
perfection, of wisdom.  The alchemist Alipili wrote:

'The highest wisdom consists in this, for man to know himself...
therefore let the high enquirers and searchers into the deep mysteries
of nature first learn to know what they have in themselves, and by the
divine power within them let them first heal themselves and transmute
their souls... if that which thou seekest thou findest not within thee
thou will never find it without thee... He who desires the primacy among
students of nature will nowhere find a greater or better field of study
than himself.  Therefore will I from certain true experience proclaim:
'Oh man, know thyself; in thee is hid the treasture of treasures'.'

_Chinese Alchemy, pgs. 149-151.

"Buddhist cultures retained the ancieod meanings of femaleness long
after the west renounced them.  Male and female, the Chinese yang and
yin, are balanced and interpenetrating powers in many and nature, to
which society is subordinate.  This code of passive acceptance has its
roots in India, a land of sudden extremes where a monsoon can wipe out
50,000 people overnight.  The femaleness of fertility religions  is
always double-edged.  The Indian nature-goddess Kali is creator AND
destroyer, granding boons with one set of arms while cutting throats
with the other.  She is the lady ringed with skulls.  The moral
ambivalence of the great mother goddesses has been conveniently
forgotten by those American feminists who have resurrected them.  We
cannot grasp nature's bare blade without shedding our own blood."

_Camille Paglia, _Sexual Persona_, pg. 8.