Tantra Quotes

“The principle stated in the last sentence has been amply demonstrated by yogins and fakirs, who seem immune to pain because of their intense mental concentration. Heard rightly believed that the energy, or vitality, that typically causes us to experience pain points to the possibility of our further evolution—not on the physical level but on the level of consciousness. This possibility is in fact a challenge to us, for in order to translate it into actuality we must respond to it consciously. And this is precisely the purpose of all Yoga and Tantra. To be clear, Tantra does not recommend that initiates pursue pain. Its goal is that of all Indic liberation teachings: to move beyond all suffering and discover the indescribable bliss of Being. But Tantra understands that life on earth and in the other conditional realms brings us mixed experiences to which we must apply a measure of dispassionate, patient acceptance and self-discipline. Fearful avoidance of what we think are negative experiences merely reinforces the very attitude—namely, the exclusive identification with a limited body-mind—that breeds negative experiences. Likewise, blind attachment to what we consider positive experiences merely creates another kind of karmic bind by which we persist in our state of unenlightenment. Significantly, Tantra asks us to go beyond the traditional stance of the cool, utterly detached observer of all our experiences. It recommends the more refined position of witnessing while at the same time understanding that observer and observed are not ultimately distinct. The Tantric approach is to see all life experiences as the play of the same One. Whether positive or negative, all experiences are embedded in absolute joy, the great delight (mahā-sukha) of Reality. When we have understood that what we dread the most—be it loss of health, property, relationships, or life itself—is not occurring to us but within our larger being, we begin to see the tremendous humor of embodiment. This insight is truly liberating.”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“He who does not heal himself from hellish diseases while here on earth, what can he do about a disease when he goes to a place where no remedy exists? What fool starts digging a well when his house is already on fire? So long as this body exists, one should cultivate the Truth. Old age is like a tigress; life runs out like water in a broken pot; diseases strike like enemies. Therefore one should cultivate the highest good now. Oné should cultivate the highest good while the senses are not yet frail, suffering is not yet firmly rooted, and adversities have not yet become overwhelming. When we unpack the conceptual content of the above stanzas, we find that human life is so extraordinarily precious because it can serve as a platform or ladder for Self-realization. It endows us with sufficient self-awareness to reflect on our existence and thereby give us valuable options in life. One of the fundamental choices we have is in fact to go beyond the karma-producing automatisms, beyond the unconscious behavior patterns, by which life tends to perpetuate itself. We can choose to grow ever more conscious of the forces pushing and pulling us and thus also to become increasingly capable of shaping our destiny. Finally, we can opt to identify with the very principle of awareness, the Self (ātman), rather than the diverse displays of the body-mind. Concretely, we can choose to stop thinking of ourselves merely as an individual of a particular race, creed, gender, age, social setting, or educational and professional background.”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“Tantra’s body-positive approach is the direct outcome of its integrative metaphysics according to which this world is not mere illusion but a manifestation of the supreme Reality. If the world is real, the body must be real as well. If the world is in essence divine, so must be the body. If we must honor the world as a creation or an aspect of the divine Power (shakti), we must likewise honor the body. The body is a piece of the world and, as we shall see, the world is a piece of the body. Or, rather, when we truly understand the body, we discover that it is the world, which in essence is divine. Because the human body has a complex nervous system allowing higher expressions of consciousness, it is especially valuable. Indeed, the Tantric scriptures often remind students of the preciousness of human life. Thus in the Kula-Arnava-Tantra (1.16–27) Lord Shiva declares: After obtaining a human body, which is difficult to obtain and which serves as a ladder to liberation, who is more sinful than he who does not cross over to the Self? Therefore, upon obtaining the best possible life form, he who does not know his own good is merely killing himself. How can one come to know the purpose of human life without a human body? Hence having obtained the gift of a human body one should perform meritorious deeds. One should completely protect oneself by oneself. Oneself is the vessel for everything. One should make an effort in protecting oneself. Otherwise the Truth cannot be seen.”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“Just as a king favors those who move inside [the palace] over those who are outside it, so, O Goddess, you favor those who cultivate the inward sacrifice over others. The discovery of the inner sacrifice was made long before the appearance of Tantra. But it remained the province of a select few because of the inveterate tendency in human beings to neglect the inner world of consciousness and be overly active in the external realm. Many Tantric teachers reacted against this tendency, which was strongly present in the mainstream priestly culture of Hinduism. They also reacted against the parallel tendency, fueled by the priestly philosophy of nondualism (advaita), that fled the Many to attain the One. Although in many respects Tantra continued the metaphysics and language of nondualism, it often sought to express new meanings through them. The Tantric One (eka), for instance, is not the life-negating Singularity of some brahmanical teachers but the all-encompassing Whole (pūma), which is present as the body, the mind, and the world yet transcends all of these. At its best, Tantra is integralism. This is hinted at in the word tantra itself, which, among other things, means “continuum.” This continuum is what the enlightened adepts realize as nirvana and what unenlightened worldlings experience as samsāra. These are not distinct, opposite realities. They are absolutely the same Being, the same essence (samarasa). That essence merely appears different to different people because of their karmic predispositions, which are like veils or mental filters obscuring the truth. To ordinary worldlings, the One remains utterly hidden. To spiritual seekers, it seems a distant goal, perhaps realizable after many lifetimes. To initiates, it is a reliable inner guide. To the Self-realized sages, it is the only One that exists, for they have become the Whole.”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“Since the body and the world as a whole are deemed insignificant, the spiritual seeker is further advised to focus exclusively on the Self, abandoning all conventional pursuits. That Self is said in verse 132 to be luminously present in the “cave of the mind” (dhī-guha), that is, within oneself, in the heart. The path to it is described in verse 367 as consisting in restraint of speech, nongrasping, nonhoping, nonwilling, and always cultivating solitude.”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“Though the house-lamps have been lit, The blind live on in the dark. Though spontaneity is all-encompassing and close, To the deluded it remains always far away. Bees that know in flowers Honey can be found. That Samsāra and Nirvāna are not two How will the deluded ever understand? There’s nothing to be negated, nothing to be Affirmed or grasped; for It can never be conceived. By the fragmentations of the intellect are the deluded Fettered; undivided and pure remains spontaneity.6 According to the Ratna-Sāra, a text of the medieval Vaishnava Sahajiyā tradition, beings are born out of sahaja, live in sahaja, and again vanish into sahaja.7 In the two extant versions of the Akula-Vīra-Tantra, a scripture of the important Kaula tradition, sahaja is described as a state of being characterized by omniscience, omnipresence, and goodness. When the spiritual practitioner attains it, all cognitions merge into it and the mind becomes utterly silenced. Then all duality is banished, all suffering is eliminated, and all karmic seeds are burned to ashes, so that the tree of unenlightened existence cannot sprout again.”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“Verticalist, Horizontalist, and Integral Teachings In another book, I have made a distinction between verticalist, horizontalist, and integral approaches to life.8 The Sanskrit equivalents for the first two are nivritti-mārga (path of cessation) and pravritti-mārga (path of activity) respectively. The third orientation can be dubbed pirna-mārga (path of wholeness). The horizontalist approach characterizes the typical extroverted lifestyle of the worldling (samsārin), who is preoccupied with his or her job, family, belongings, status, and prospects. At a certain stage of spiritual development, these horizontalist concerns are appropriate enough, and the Hindu authorities have produced textbooks (shāstra) on a wide range of topics enabling worldly-minded people to live a better life.”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“Sanskrit scriptures seek to provide guidance on the first three goals or pursuits of human existence, namely, material welfare (artha), passionate self-expression (kāma), and moral virtue or lawfulness (dharma). Manu, who is remembered as the progenitor of the present human race, divided the course of human life into four stages—those of a student, householder, renouncer, and liberated being. Each stage is thought to extend over a period of twenty-one years, yielding an ideal total of eighty-four years. In the first stage the foundations for a solid intellectual, moral, and spiritual life are laid. In the second stage, the Vedic training is applied in everyday life. Then when one’s children are grown and have their own children, it is time to renounce the lifestyle of a householder and retire to the forest or a similar remote area. This is the beginning of the verticalist approach. The renouncer in the third stage of life intensifies his or her ritual practices, meditation, and prayer, increasingly focusing on the ultimate ideal of liberation. This ideal is traditionally recognized as the fourth and highest human pursuit (purusha-artha, written purushārtha). When one’s renunciation has born fruit and one has realized the transcendental Reality, or innermost Self of oneself and all beings and things, it is appropriate to adopt the spontaneous lifestyle of a liberated being. The lifestyle of the fully illumined sage is inherently integrated but may tend toward verticalism or horizontalism without, however, being confined to either orientation.”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“For the Shāktas, it is Kālī who performs the rhythmic dance that weaves and disentangles the gossamer threads of cosmic existence. According to one myth, the goddess Durgā once fought the demon Raktabīja (Blood Seed), but however much she severed his limbs with her sword, she was unable to kill him, for every drop of the demon’s blood that fell on the ground promptly gave rise to a thousand new demons as powerful as Raktabīja. When Durgā’s fury reached its peak, the dark goddess Kālī sprang from her forehead and mercilessly attacked the demons, whirling about in a blur of motion. Between the infallible strikes from her sword, she licked the blood that had spilled to the ground, preventing the generation of new demons. At last she destroyed Raktabīja himself. In triumph, she started to dance, and the more she danced the more she lost all sense of self. Her frenzied dance caused the earth to quiver and soon threatened to annihilate the universe itself. At the behest of the terrified deities, the supreme god Shiva begged the goddess to stop dancing. When she ignored his request, Shiva lay prostrate before her. She promptly jumped on his body, placing one leg on his chest and the other on his extended legs, continuing her dance. After some time she realized that she was dancing on her husband’s body, grew ashamed, and stopped. The destruction of the universe was halted, and deities, humans, and all other beings were able to resume their respective lives governed by the rhythm of time.”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“Thus the Mahānirvāna-Tantra (5.141) has this pertinent verse, spoken by a devotee of the goddess: I worship the primal Kālikā [i.e., Kālī] whose limbs are like a [dark] rain cloud, who has the moon in her crown, is triple-eyed, clothed in red, whose raised hands are [in the gestures of] blessing and dispelling fear, who is seated on an open red lotus with her beautiful smiling face turned toward Mahākāla [i.e., Shiva], who, drunk on sweet wine, is dancing before her. Like Kālī’s grisly image, Shiva’s dance is one of the grand archetypes of Hinduism. The dancing Shiva is known as Natarāja, or “King of Dancers.” His performance extends throughout the universe. His repertoire, or dance steps, include the creation, preservation, and destruction of the world, as well as concealment of the truth and grace by which the ultimate Reality is revealed in its true form. What is not often appreciated outside India is that Shiva’s dance has several forms, each conveying a distinct but related message. Its best known form is that of the tāndava, which Shiva dances in wild abandon in the cemetery and cremation ground. According to Hindu mythology, Shiva once visited a group of sages in their forest huts. Ignorant of his true identity, they began to curse him. When their curses had no effect, they set a ferocious tiger upon him. Shiva skinned the animal alive and put its hide around his waist. Still blinded by their own delusion, the sages next set a monstrous serpent upon him. Shiva simply seized it and draped it around his neck like a harmless necklace.12 Finally, the forest hermits set a vicious black dwarf upon him, but with a single blow Shiva knocked him to the ground and then planted his right foot on the dwarf’s back. The demonic dwarf, named Muyalaka, represents the karmic energies that must be subdued to achieve liberation. Then Shiva started his cosmic dance, attracting even the deities from the highest realms to watch the spectacle. As he danced, he rhythmically beat his drum, which emanated a blinding light. Bit by bit the universe around him started to dissolve. In due course, however, his dance restored the world out of nothingness. The cardinal witness of Shiva’s dance was Kālī, the great Goddess in her fierce form. According to one myth, she was even the cause of his destructive dance. She had hoped to defeat him but ended up worshiping him. After her submissive gesture, Shiva explained to her that he had performed the dance not because of her challenge to him but because he wanted to grant a vision of the dance to the sages of the forest.”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“Thus the Mahānirvāna-Tantra (5.141) has this pertinent verse, spoken by a devotee of the goddess: I worship the primal Kālikā [i.e., Kālī] whose limbs are like a [dark] rain cloud, who has the moon in her crown, is triple-eyed, clothed in red, whose raised hands are [in the gestures of] blessing and dispelling fear, who is seated on an open red lotus with her beautiful smiling face turned toward Mahākāla [i.e., Shiva], who, drunk on sweet wine, is dancing before her. Like Kālī’s grisly image, Shiva’s dance is one of the grand archetypes of Hinduism. The dancing Shiva is known as Natarāja, or “King of Dancers.” His performance extends throughout the universe. His repertoire, or dance steps, include the creation, preservation, and destruction of the world, as well as concealment of the truth and grace by which the ultimate Reality is revealed in its true form. What is not often appreciated outside India is that Shiva’s dance has several forms, each conveying a distinct but related message. Its best known form is that of the tāndava, which Shiva dances in wild abandon in the cemetery and cremation ground. According to Hindu mythology, Shiva once visited a group of sages in their forest huts. Ignorant of his true identity, they began to curse him. When their curses had no effect, they set a ferocious tiger upon him. Shiva skinned the animal alive and put its hide around his waist. Still blinded by their own delusion, the sages next set a monstrous serpent upon him. Shiva simply seized it and draped it around his neck like a harmless necklace.12 Finally, the forest hermits set a vicious black dwarf upon him, but with a single blow Shiva knocked him to the ground and then planted his right foot on the dwarf’s back. The demonic dwarf, named Muyalaka, represents the karmic energies that must be subdued to achieve liberation. Then Shiva started his cosmic dance, attracting even the deities from the highest realms to watch the spectacle. As he danced, he rhythmically beat his drum, which emanated a blinding light. Bit by bit the universe around him started to dissolve. In due course, however, his dance restored the world out of nothingness. The cardinal witness of Shiva’s dance was Kālī, the great Goddess in her fierce form. According to one myth, she was even the cause of his destructive dance. She had hoped to defeat him but ended up worshiping him.”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“Kālī’s devotees, however, experience her as a loving, nurturing, and protecting mother. With tear-filled eyes and a longing heart, they invoke her as Kālī Mā, asking her for health, wealth, and happiness, as well as liberation. Like a doting mother, she bestows all boons upon her human children. Sri Ramakrishna, who was a great devotee of the goddess, prayed to Kālī for the fruit of all Yogas and, as he confirmed, “She has shown me everything that is in the Vedas, the Vedanta, the Puranas, and the Tantra.”11 Toward her devotees, Kālī always presents her most benign aspect. Even her destructive side is modulated in a benevolent way, as a force that removes all inner and outer obstacles, especially spiritual blindness, and grants the highest realization beyond space and time. “Because You devour Time (kāla), You are called Kālī.” declares the Mahānirvāna-Tantra (IV. 32). At the end of time, the great Goddess also swallows up all the myriad forms filling space. Then she alone remains, in intimate union with her divine Beloved, Shiva—until the next Big Bang, when the cosmic egg newly arises from its own ashes. The Feminine Divine and the Masculine Divine are never really separate. Consequently Kālī’s destructive function is also often attributed to the supreme god Shiva. He is also called Mahākāla, meaning “Great Time.” Thus the Mahānirvāna-Tantra (5.141) has this pertinent verse, spoken by a devotee of the goddess: I worship the primal Kālikā [i.e., Kālī] whose limbs are like a [dark] rain cloud, who has the moon in her crown, is triple-eyed, clothed in red, whose raised hands are [in the gestures of] blessing and dispelling fear, who is seated on an open red lotus with her beautiful smiling face turned toward Mahākāla [i.e., Shiva], who, drunk on sweet wine, is dancing before her. Like Kālī’s grisly image, Shiva’s dance is one of the grand archetypes of Hinduism. The dancing Shiva is known as Natarāja, or “King of Dancers.” His performance extends throughout the universe. His repertoire, or dance steps, include the creation, preservation, and destruction of the world, as well as concealment of the truth and grace by which the ultimate Reality is revealed in its true form. What is not often appreciated outside India is that Shiva’s dance has several forms, each conveying a distinct but related message. Its best known form is that of the tāndava, which Shiva dances in wild abandon in the cemetery and cremation ground.”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“In The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, which chronicles the life and teachings of this great nineteenth-century master, we find the following hymn: In dense darkness, O Mother, Thy formless beauty sparkles; Therefore the yogis meditate in a dark mountain cave. In the lap of boundless dark, on Mahanirvana’s waves upborne, Peace flows serene and inexhaustible.8 Taking the form of the Void, in the robe of darkness wrapped, Who art Thou, Mother, seated alone in the shrine of samadhi?9 From the Lotus of Thy fear-scattering Feet flash Thy love’s lightnings; Thy Spirit-Face shines forth with laughter terrible and loud!10 To absorb, devour, or destroy the universe is one of the terrifying functions of the black goddess. She brings death not just to the individual but to the cosmic egg itself in which individuals, high and low, live out their respective separative lives over and over again. In the Mahānirvāna-Tantra (4.29–31) the goddess is addressed as the supreme yogini because at the end of time she devours the devourer of time himself, Shiva in his form as Mahākāla. In many temples in Bengal and Nepal, Kālī is depicted as a black or dark blue block of stone.”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“Escaping the Prison of the World The goal of Tantra Yoga, as of any Yoga, is to crack the cosmic egg, to use Joseph Chilton Pearce’s obliging metaphor. To do so implies the transcendence of the fabric of space-time. Since the world is not something that is merely external to us but is part of our consciousness, and vice versa, there is no question of any spatial trajectory out of the world. Liberation is an intrapsychic event. Hence Pearce was right when he offered a figurative, psychological interpretation of the cosmic egg:”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“Beyond the immensity of the brahmic egg lies the inconceivable dimension of the formless Divine, which, as the Mundaka-Upanishad (3.1.7) puts it, is “subtler than the subtlest.” The Divine, equated in the Tantras with Shiva/Shakti, is outside the realm of causation or destiny and is the supreme object of the liberation teachings.”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“This aspatial and atemporal Reality, which alone is immortal, simultaneously and paradoxically interpenetrates the cosmos in all its levels of manifestation and is therefore also the ultimate spiritual core of the human being. Without the immanence of the Divine, liberation would be impossible. Without its transcendence, liberation would be meaningless. Because the various levels of the cosmos, apart from the visible aspect of our earth world, are accessible only through the pathway of meditation or inner vision, the three-dimensional cosmographic descriptions found in the Tantras and Purānas are little more than (perhaps even rather misleading) simplifications of what in fact is an enormously complex higher-dimensional reality. In any case, it is a reality that is an integral part of the experience of Tantric masters and that therefore should not be dismissed purely on the basis of our knowledge of the sensory world. The higher and lower planes are quite like the layers of an onion, and they are to the macrocosm what the “sheaths” (kosha) are to the individual human being as a microcosm. This parallelism is fundamental to Tantric spiritual practice, and I will have occasion to discuss its symbolism in subsequent chapters in connection with the structures of the subtle body (such as the cakras and nādīs). To penetrate, in meditation, the subtle coverings of the physical body means to transcend the visible and the invisible realms and realize the divine Self, the ultimate Reality. Escaping the Prison of the World The goal of Tantra Yoga, as of any Yoga, is to crack the cosmic egg, to use Joseph Chilton Pearce’s obliging metaphor. To do so implies the transcendence of the fabric of space-time. Since the world is not something that is merely external to us but is part of our consciousness, and vice versa, there is no question of any spatial trajectory out of the world. Liberation is an intrapsychic event. Hence Pearce was right when he offered a figurative, psychological interpretation of the cosmic egg:”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“is adored even by the Lord of Gods himself (5.81), illuminates the spatial directions (5.92), owns all the treasures of the deities, gandharvas, and nāgas (5.111),6 and abides as higher understanding (buddhi) in the hearts of all beings (11.8). But, as is clear from the core story of this hymn, the goddess also has her destructive side. She not only conquers all demonic forces but also annihilates the universe at the appropriate time. To her devotees, however, she shows her most benign maternal aspect, protecting and ultimately liberating them. After having been propitiated with praise, the goddess responds: Whosoever with concentration worships Me constantly with these [hymns], his every difficulty I will remove without a doubt. (12.2) Kālī, Shiva, and the Cosmic Dance Even a short précis of the Tantric view of time, as attempted here, would be incomplete without introducing the Divine Female, or Shakti, in her most startling manifestation as the goddess Kālī. The name is the feminine form of kāla, meaning “time,” “death,” and “black.” These three connotations are all fused in the symbolism of the goddess Kālī. Black results from the absorption of all colors, whereas white is their copresence. The saintly Ramakrishna, guru of Swami Vivekananda, offered a devotee’s complementary explanation of the name Kālī when he remarked, “You see her as black because you are far away from her. Go near and you will find her devoid of all color.”7 In The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, which chronicles the life and teachings of this great nineteenth-century master, we find the following hymn: In dense darkness, O Mother, Thy formless beauty sparkles; Therefore the yogis meditate in a dark mountain cave. In the lap of boundless dark, on Mahanirvana’s waves upborne, Peace flows serene and inexhaustible.8 Taking the form of the Void, in the robe of darkness wrapped, Who art Thou, Mother, seated alone in the shrine of samadhi?9 From the Lotus of Thy fear-scattering Feet flash Thy love’s lightnings; Thy Spirit-Face shines forth with laughter terrible and loud!10 To absorb, devour, or destroy the universe is one of the terrifying functions of the black goddess. She brings death not just to the individual but to the cosmic egg itself in which individuals, high and low, live out their respective separative lives over and over again. In the Mahānirvāna-Tantra (4.29–31) the goddess is addressed as the supreme yogini because at the end of time she devours the devourer of time himself, Shiva in his form as Mahākāla. In many temples in Bengal and Nepal, Kālī is depicted as a black or dark blue block of stone. In her humanoid form, Hindu iconography pictures Kālī as a fierce-looking female whose naked, full-breasted body stands astride or straddles the prostrate nude body of her divine partner Shiva, with ashen skin and erect penis.”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“The highest plane, inhabited by the Creator (be he called Brahma, Vishnu, or Shiva), is the only aspect of the brahmic egg that survives the periodic collapse (pralaya) of all the other planes, for the satya-loka serves as the seed for the next cosmic evolution. But even the Creator does not enjoy true immortality and forfeits his life after 42,200 kalpas, corresponding to 120 brahmic years. Since one kalpa (or brahmic daytime) is 4,320,000,000 human years long, Brahma’s lifespan translates into a staggering 453,248,000,000,000 human years.9 The present Brahma is said to be in his fifty-first year. His eventual death will coincide with the total destruction of the brahmic egg itself. This is the moment when our present universe will blink out of existence completely. For this reason, the spiritual traditions of India all consider the attainment of satya-loka as ultimately unattractive. In fact, the Indic teachings praise human life with its intensity of experience as a unique platform for escaping the cycle of birth, life, and death, which is found desirable even by the deities themselves. Beyond the immensity of the brahmic egg lies the inconceivable dimension of the formless Divine, which, as the Mundaka-Upanishad (3.1.7) puts it, is “subtler than the subtlest.” The Divine, equated in the Tantras with Shiva/Shakti, is outside the realm of causation or destiny and is the supreme object of the liberation teachings. This aspatial and atemporal Reality, which alone is immortal, simultaneously and paradoxically interpenetrates the cosmos in all its levels of manifestation and is therefore also the ultimate spiritual core of the human being. Without the immanence of the Divine, liberation would be impossible. Without its transcendence, liberation would be meaningless. Because the various levels of the cosmos, apart from the visible aspect of our earth world, are accessible only through the pathway of meditation or inner vision, the three-dimensional cosmographic descriptions found in the Tantras and Purānas are little more than (perhaps even rather misleading) simplifications of what in fact is an enormously complex higher-dimensional reality. In any case, it is a reality that is an integral part of the experience of Tantric masters and that therefore should not be dismissed purely on the basis of our knowledge of the sensory world. The higher and lower planes are quite like the layers of an onion, and they are to the macrocosm what the “sheaths” (kosha) are to the individual human being as a microcosm.”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“The Architecture of the World Similar to other traditional cosmologies, Hinduism conceives of samsāra as a vast, hierarchically organized field of experience, comprising many levels or mansions of existence, each containing countless beings of all kinds. The visible material world is thought to be only one of fourteen levels of manifestation extending above and below the earth. Both the realms above the earth and those stretching out below it, though invisible to the ordinary eye, can be seen by those gifted with clairvoyance (dūra-darshana, or “remote viewing”). As some Hindu texts insist, and as shamans around the world assert as well, it is even possible to visit these other realms in the subtle body. In fact, we can understand such paranormal abilities as the principal source of knowledge upon which traditional cosmologies are built. Many Western interpreters, however, prefer to regard these cosmologies as mere products of the imagination. The many variations found in the traditional descriptions of the higher and lower realms are generally taken as proof of their origin in pure fantasy, yet we know that a description is only as good as a person’s power of observation and linguistic facility. A dozen people witnessing the same event very likely will yield a dozen different descriptions of it, as in the well-known story of the blind men and the elephant. When we examine the cosmologies of the various spiritual traditions, however, we find a remarkable overlap. We can either explain this as being due to a borrowing of ideas from one tradition by another, or, more reasonably, see this as evidence that actual observation-based knowledge was involved in their creation. This is not to say that creative imagination does not come into play in the traditional descriptions of the world, just as it is an ingredient of modern cosmology and indeed any branch of knowledge. Why is it important to speak of cosmology in connection with Tantra? The Tantric goal, like the goal of all spiritual traditions, is to transcend the experienced world, which is both external and internal. But to be able to transcend the world, we first need to know the territory. The scriptures of Tantra by and large subscribe to the same cosmography that can also be found in the Purānas. The Purānas, as the name suggests, are “ancient” lore, combining myth with history (especially dynastic history), religion with folklore, and metaphysics with practical moral instruction. They”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“Samsāra, as the British mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead would say, is “process.” And what is being processed is the human psyche (jīva), which must undergo repeated world experience in order to realize its true destiny beyond all manifestation, consisting in the realization of Being-Consciousness, or Spirit. The world is a school, which is an idea given expression in non-Indic spiritual traditions as well. If human life can be said to have an overarching purpose at all, it is to graduate through the awakening of wisdom (vidyā, jnāna). From yet another angle, samsāra is māyā. That is to say, it is a finely woven mesh of illusions, rooted in our fundamental misapprehension of ourselves and the world. The misconception about ourselves consists in looking upon ourselves as ego-personalities rather than the indivisible pure Being-Consciousness. The misconception about the world consists in looking upon it as an external reality rather than as being identical with our own nature. This root error (avidyā), which is a matter of spiritual blindness, is what keeps the karmic nexus going. It is at the bottom of our limited and limiting experience of space and time and is the primary cause of our experience of suffering (duhkha) as seemingly individuated beings.”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“Krita signifies the lucky or “well-made” throw, dvāpara (deuce) a throw of two points, tretā (trey) a throw of three points, and kali (from the verbal root kal, “to impel”) the total loss, indicated by a single point on the die. The word kali is not, as is often thought, the same as the name of the well-known goddess Kālī.4 However, since Kālī symbolizes both time and destruction, it does not seem farfetched to connect her specifically with the kali-yuga, though of course she is deemed to govern all spans and modes of time. The Tantras describe the first, golden age as an era of material and spiritual plenty. According to the Mahānirvāna-Tantra (1.20–29), people were wise and virtuous and pleased the deities and forefathers by their practice of Yoga and sacrificial rituals. By means of their study of the Vedas, meditation, austerities, mastery of the senses, and charitable deeds, they acquired great fortitude and power. Even though mortal, they were like the deities (deva). The rulers were high minded and ever concerned with protecting the people entrusted to them, while among the ordinary people there were no thieves, liars, fools, or gluttons. Nobody was selfish, envious, or lustful. The favorable psychology of the people was reflected outwardly in land producing all kinds of grain in plenty, cows yielding abundant milk, trees laden with fruits, and ample seasonable rains fertilizing all vegetation. There was neither famine nor sickness, nor untimely death. People were good-hearted, happy, beautiful, and prosperous. Society was well ordered and peaceful. In the next world age, the tretā-yuga, people lost their inner peace and became incapable of applying the Vedic rituals properly, yet clung to them anxiously. Out of pity, the god Shiva brought helpful traditions (smriti) into the world, by which the ancient teachings could be better understood and practiced. But humanity was set on a worsening course, which became obvious in the third world age. People abandoned the methods prescribed in the Smritis, and thereby only magnified their perplexity and suffering. Their physical and emotional illnesses increased, and as the Mahānirvāna-Tantra insists, they lost half of the divinely appointed law (dharma). Again Shiva intervened by making the teachings of the Samhitas and other religious scriptures available. With the rise of the fourth world age, the kali-yuga, all of the divinely appointed law was lost.”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“Tantra understands itself as a gospel for the “new age” of darkness, the kali-yuga. According to the Hindu worldview, history unfolds in a cyclical pattern that proceeds from a golden age to world ages of progressive spiritual decline, and then back to an era of light and plenty. These ages are called yugas (yokes), presumably because they fasten beings to the wheel of time (kāla-cakra), the flux of conditioned existence. There are four such yugas, which repeat themselves over and over again, all the while maturing all beings, but especially human beings. The scriptures speak of this developmental process as “cooking.” The four world ages, in order, are: 1. The satya-yuga, in which truth (satya) reigns supreme, and which is also known as krita-yuga because everything in it is well made (krita) 2. The tretā-yuga, in which truth and virtue are somewhat diminished 3. The dvāpara-yuga, in which truth and virtue are further diminished 4. The kali-yuga, which is marked by ignorance, delusion, and greed These correspond to the four ages known in classical Greece and ancient Persia. Significantly, the Sanskrit names of the four world ages derive from dice playing, a favorite pastime of Indic humanity ever since Vedic times. The Rig-Veda, which is at least five thousand years old, has a hymn (10.34) that has been dubbed “Gambler’s Lament” because its composer talks poetically of his addiction to gambling. Of the dice he says that “handless, they master him who has hands,” causing loss, shame, and grief. The Bharata war, chronicled in the Mahābhārata epic, was the ill-gotten fruit of gambling, for Yudhishthira lost his entire kingdom to his wicked cousin Duryodhana with the throw of a die. Krita signifies the lucky or “well-made” throw, dvāpara (deuce) a throw of two points, tretā (trey) a throw of three points, and kali (from the verbal root kal, “to impel”) the total loss, indicated by a single point on the die. The word kali is not, as is often thought, the same as the name of the well-known goddess Kālī.4 However, since Kālī symbolizes both time and destruction, it does not seem farfetched to connect her specifically with the kali-yuga, though of course she is deemed to govern all spans and modes of time.”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“Our cosmic egg is the sum total of our notions of what the world is, notions which define what reality can be for us. The crack, then, is a mode of thinking through which imagination can escape the mundane shell and create a new cosmic egg.10 In our case, the crack is the path of Tantra Yoga. It creates the necessary opening in cyclic existence. Yet for the yogin it is not imagination that escapes, because imagination belongs to the realm of the mind and thus to the world. Imagination, however, has the capacity to grasp the nature of the reality in which we are caught up and show us a way out of it. When it has done so it must be jettisoned for liberation to occur. The mind, driven by imagination, does not itself escape. It is part of our worldly baggage. In fact, nothing really ever escapes the boundaries of the world. The crack in the cosmic egg is only a crack in our limited understanding, a fissure in our imagination through which genuine wisdom can manifest. In a certain sense, liberation is something of a nonevent, for there is neither loss nor gain in it. Rather, when wisdom fully manifests, the world becomes transparent, revealing our true nature, which is inherently free. The idea that we are bound is the first and the last illusion. Nor is it the yogin’s ambition to create a new cosmic egg after abandoning the old one. On the contrary, practitioners of Tantra do their utmost to penetrate all veils of illusion, that is, all mental constructs of Reality. In this way they can be sure to be rid of all possible bondage to cosmic existence now and forever. From a yogic perspective, the brahmic or cosmic egg is a prison. Many people, under the influence of māyā (fundamental illusion), are not in the least aware of their self-perpetuated state of incarceration. But those in whom wisdom has dawned can see that the world, or rather how they experience it, is confining. They also are sensitive to the fact that worldly existence is suffused with suffering (duhkha). At first, they may not see a way out of the cosmic prison, but as wisdom increases, there is a growing sense of a Reality that transcends the cosmos. Then they understand that the Divine, though transcending space and time, dwells within themselves in the form of the eternal Self (ātman) and that it is the hidden doorway to liberation. In other words, the prison gates were never locked.”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“Because suffering is thus everywhere at the beginning, the middle, and the end, one should abandon samsāra, abide in Reality, and thus become happy. To be trapped in samsāra means to be doomed endlessly to repeat oneself, that is, one’s karmic patterns. Those sensitive to this fact have always sought to escape samsāra by burning the karmic seeds of future rebirths into the conditioned realms of existence. This is also the view of the masters of Tantra. As I will show, however, their transcendence of time does not take the form of mere escape from the round of spatiotemporal existence but of actual mastery of space and time. Propelled by the karmic forces set in motion by his or her own past actions or volitions, the individual who is bound to the realm of cyclic existence is called samsārin. The most common translation of this Sanskrit term is “worldling”; another rendering is “migrator.” By contrast, the person who has succeeded in escaping karma and the flux of time through the power of liberating awareness is known, among other things, as a mahā-siddha, or “great adept” who has transcended or “cheated” time.3 It is to such a one that samsāra reveals its hidden, divine nature. The Architecture of the World Similar to other traditional cosmologies, Hinduism conceives of samsāra as a vast, hierarchically organized field of experience, comprising many levels or mansions of existence, each containing countless beings of all kinds. The visible material world is thought to be only one of fourteen levels of manifestation extending above and below the earth. Both the realms above the earth and those stretching out below it, though invisible to the ordinary eye, can be seen by those gifted with clairvoyance (dūra-darshana, or “remote viewing”). As some Hindu texts insist, and as shamans around the world assert as well, it is even possible to visit these other realms in the subtle body. In fact, we can understand such paranormal abilities as the principal source of knowledge upon which traditional cosmologies are built. Many Western interpreters, however, prefer to regard these cosmologies as mere products of the imagination. The many variations found in the traditional descriptions of the higher and lower realms are generally taken as proof of their origin in pure fantasy, yet we know that a description is only as good as a person’s power of observation and linguistic facility. A dozen people witnessing the same event very likely will yield a dozen different descriptions of it, as in the well-known story of the blind men and the elephant. When we examine the cosmologies of the various spiritual traditions, however, we find a remarkable overlap. We can either explain this as being due to a borrowing of ideas from one tradition by another, or, more reasonably, see this as evidence that actual observation-based knowledge was involved in their creation. This is not to say that creative imagination does not come into play in the traditional descriptions of the world, just as it is an ingredient of modern cosmology and indeed any branch of knowledge.”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“Samsāra is often somewhat flatly rendered as “conditioned existence” or “mundane existence.” These two English equivalents fail to convey the rhythmic or cyclic nature of our individual worldly lives, which ride on the current of time, now submerging into the invisible, “subtle” realms, now reemerging into material visibility. Samsāra is the round of birth, life, death, rebirth, renewed life, and then again death, ad infinitum. It is existence determined by fate (daiva), the intricate and inviolable web of karmic indebtedness that exists between beings. Samsāra is karma. This means, as the contemporary Tantric adept Vimalananda pointed out, that it is mostly memory.2 Cyclic or conditioned existence is governed by all kinds of laws (which are the frozen memories of nature), the most important of which is the law of cause and effect. Newton captured its physical aspect in his formulation that every action has an equal but opposite reaction. India’s sages assure us that this law applies with equal force in the realm of the mind to our thoughts and volitions. Because science looks only at the material realm, it fails to appreciate the comprehensive nature of causation and therefore also allows for meaningless chance events. From a deeper, spiritual perspective, however, all events are governed by causation. Existence is an infinitely complex network of conditions giving rise to other conditions. This is what karma signifies. Samsāra, as the British mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead would say, is “process.” And what is being processed is the human psyche (jīva), which must undergo repeated world experience in order to realize its true destiny beyond all manifestation, consisting in the realization of Being-Consciousness, or Spirit. The world is a school, which is an idea given expression in non-Indic spiritual traditions as well. If human life can be said to have an overarching purpose at all, it is to graduate through the awakening of wisdom (vidyā, jnāna). From yet another angle, samsāra is māyā. That is to say, it is a finely woven mesh of illusions, rooted in our fundamental misapprehension of ourselves and the world. The misconception about ourselves consists in looking upon ourselves as ego-personalities rather than the indivisible pure Being-Consciousness. The misconception about the world consists in looking upon it as an external reality rather than as being identical with our own nature. This root error (avidyā), which is a matter of spiritual blindness, is what keeps the karmic nexus going. It is at the bottom of our limited and limiting experience of space and time and is the primary cause of our experience of suffering (duhkha) as seemingly individuated beings. The Hindu texts describe in graphic terms the nature of cyclic existence.”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“Tantra is a profoundly yogic tradition, and the Tantras call themselves sādhanā-shāstras, or books of spiritual practice. The Sanskrit word yoga means both “discipline” and “union” and can be translated as “unitive discipline.” It stands for what in the West is called spirituality or mysticism. The oft-used compound tantra-yoga means simply “Tantric discipline” and captures the intensely experiential character of the Tantric heritage, which emphasizes the realization of higher or subtle states of existence right up to the ultimate Reality itself. Tantra Yoga is unitive discipline based on the expansion, or intensification, of wisdom by means of the beliefs and practices promulgated in the Tantras and the exegetical literature that has crystallized around them. By “unifying” the mind—that is, by focusing it—Tantra Yoga unifies the seemingly disparate realities of space-time and the transcendental Reality. It recaptures the primordial continuum that is apparently lost in the process of becoming an individuated being. Tantra Yoga, as understood here, is a relative latecomer in the long history of Yoga. As we have seen, however, proto-Tantric elements can be detected even in the Vedic era. To be sure, the taproots of Yoga are to be found in the Vedas, composed some five thousand years ago. In its most archaic form, Yoga was a combination of ritual worship and meditation, having the purpose of opening the gates to the celestial realms and beyond. It was closely associated with the Vedic sacrificial cult, priestly hymn making, the mystery of the sacred ecstasy-inducing soma potion, and visions of the subtle dimensions with their hierarchy of male and female deities, as well as ancestral and other spirits.”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“Except for the most orthodox pundits, who view Tantra as an abomination, educated traditional Hindus have long looked upon Tantra as running parallel and in close interaction with (rather than merely in opposition to) the Vedic heritage. They distinguish between Vedic and Tantric—vaidika and tāntrika—currents of Hindu spirituality. This distinction demonstrates the huge success of Tantra as a tradition or cultural movement within Hinduism. In many instances, Tantra has been so influential as to reshape the Vedic stream by infusing it with typically Tantric practices and ideas. For example, the type of ritual called pūjā (worship), which involves iconic representations of deities and their employment in ritual worship, has been characterized as Tantric rather than Vedic in nature. Yet brahmins throughout India employ it either in addition to, or instead of, more typically Vedic forms of ritual. To most of these brahmins it would not even occur to them that they are engaging in a practice that may well have originated in Tantric circles. Many tāntrikas themselves regard the Vedas as an earlier revelation that, as has already been indicated, has lost efficacy in the present kali-yuga. Thus we can read in the Mahānirvāna-Tantra (2.14–15): In the kali-yuga, the mantras revealed in the Tantras are efficient, yield immediate fruit, and are recommended for all practices, such as recitation, sacrifice, rituals, and so on. The Vedic practices are powerless as a snake lacking poison fangs or like a corpse, though in the beginning, in the satya-yuga, they were bearing fruit. We can appreciate the gravity of this pronouncement only when we know that the Vedic heritage is deemed to be a revelation of the Divine. It borders on heresy to say that it is no longer useful. The author of the Mahānirvāna-Tantra gets around this difficulty by presenting his own tradition as the direct utterances of the Divine as well. He can make this claim because the Indic civilization has always accepted the possibility of profound knowledge and wisdom arising from higher states of meditation and ecstasy. To attribute teachings to the Divine or a particular deity is both a convenient didactic device and an acknowledgment that the teachings are not merely products of the intellect or the imagination; rather, they are based on the sages’ direct realizations of the subtle dimensions and the ultimate Reality. This is what is meant when the Vedas are said to be “superhuman” (atimānusha).”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“The Radical Approach of Tantra The adepts of Tantra believe that it is possible to attain liberation, or enlightenment, even in the worst social and moral conditions. They also believe, however, that the traditional means devised or revealed in previous world ages are no longer useful or optimal, for those means were designed for people of far greater spiritual and moral stamina who lived in a more peaceful environment conducive to inner growth. The present age of darkness has innumerable obstacles that make spiritual maturation exceedingly difficult. Therefore more drastic measures are needed: the Tantric methodology. What is so special about the Tantric teachings that they should serve the spiritual needs of the dark age better than all other approaches? In many ways, the Tantric methods are similar to non-Tantric practices. What is strikingly different about them is their inclusiveness and the radical attitude with which they are pursued. A desperate person will grasp for a straw, and seekers in the kali-yuga are, or should be, desperate. From the vantage point of a spiritual heritage extending over several thousand years, the Tantric masters at the beginning of the common era realized that the dark age calls for especially powerful techniques to break through lethargy, resistance, and attachment to conventional relationships and worldly things, as well as to deal with the lack of understanding. Looking at the available means handed down from teacher to student through countless generations, they acknowledged that these required a purity and nobility of character that people of the dark age no longer possess. To help humanity in the kali-yuga, the Tantric adepts modified the old teachings and created a new repertoire of practices. Their orientation can be summed up in two words: Anything goes. Or, at least, almost anything. The Tantric masters even sanctioned practices that are considered sinful from within a conventional moral and spiritual framework. This feature of Tantra has been termed antinomianism, which, as this Greek-derived word implies, consists in going against (anti) the accepted norm or law (nomos). The Tantric texts use words like pratiloman (against the grain) and parāvritti (inversion) to describe their teachings. Some Tantric adepts have made a way of life out of this principle of reversal, as can be seen in the extremist lifestyle of the avadhūtas, who walk about naked and live amid heaps of garbage.”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“Thus while wisdom is always the same, it can also, paradoxically, grow inside a person. Or, to put it differently, a person can grow to reflect more and more of the eternal wisdom. But tantra is also the “expansive,” all-encompassing Reality revealed by wisdom. As such it stands for “continuum,” the seamless whole that comprises both transcendence and immanence, Reality and reality, Being and becoming, Consciousness and mental consciousness, Infinity and finitude, Spirit and matter, Transcendence and immanence, or, in Sanskrit terminology, nirvāna and samsāra, or brahman and jagat. Here the words samsāra and jagat stand for the familiar world of flux that we experience through our senses. Historically, tantra denotes a particular style or genre of spiritual teachings beginning to achieve prominence in India about fifteen hundred years ago—teachings that affirm the continuity between Spirit and matter. The word also signifies a scripture in which such teachings are revealed. By extension, the term is often applied to textbooks or manuals in general. Tradition speaks of 64 Tantras, though as with the 108 Upanishads this is an ideal figure that does not reflect historical reality. We know of many more Tantras, though few of them have survived the ravages of time.3 A practitioner of Tantra is called a sādhaka (if male) or a sādhikā (if female). Other expressions are tāntrika or tantra-yogin (if male) and tantra-yoginī (if female). An adept of the Tantric path is typically known as a siddha (“accomplished one,” from sidh, meaning “to be accomplished” or “to attain”) or mahā-siddha (“greatly accomplished one,” that is, a great adept). The female adept is called siddha-anganā (“woman adept,” from anga, meaning “limb” or “part”). The Tantric path itself is frequently referred to as sādhana or sādhanā (from the same verbal root as siddha), and the spiritual achievement of this path is called siddhi (having the dual meaning of “perfection” and “powerful accomplishment”). Siddhi can refer either to the spiritual attainment of liberation, or enlightenment, or to the extraordinary powers or paranormal abilities ascribed to Tantric masters as a result of enlightenment or by virtue of mastery of the advanced stages of concentration. A Tantric preceptor, whether he or she is enlightened or not, is called either an ācārya (“conductor,” which is related to ācāra, “way of life”) or a guru (“weighty one”). Chinnamastā, whose severed head symbolizes the transcendence of the body through Tantra. (Illustration by Margo Gal) Tantra: A Teaching for the Dark Age Tantra understands itself as a gospel for the “new age” of darkness, the kali-yuga. According”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy

“Thus while wisdom is always the same, it can also, paradoxically, grow inside a person. Or, to put it differently, a person can grow to reflect more and more of the eternal wisdom. But tantra is also the “expansive,” all-encompassing Reality revealed by wisdom. As such it stands for “continuum,” the seamless whole that comprises both transcendence and immanence, Reality and reality, Being and becoming, Consciousness and mental consciousness, Infinity and finitude, Spirit and matter, Transcendence and immanence, or, in Sanskrit terminology, nirvāna and samsāra, or brahman and jagat. Here the words samsāra and jagat stand for the familiar world of flux that we experience through our senses. Historically, tantra denotes a particular style or genre of spiritual teachings beginning to achieve prominence in India about fifteen hundred years ago—teachings that affirm the continuity between Spirit and matter. The word also signifies a scripture in which such teachings are revealed. By extension, the term is often applied to textbooks or manuals in general. Tradition speaks of 64 Tantras, though as with the 108 Upanishads this is an ideal figure that does not reflect historical reality. We know of many more Tantras, though few of them have survived the ravages of time.3 A practitioner of Tantra is called a sādhaka (if male) or a sādhikā (if female). Other expressions are tāntrika or tantra-yogin (if male) and tantra-yoginī (if female). An adept of the Tantric path is typically known as a siddha (“accomplished one,” from sidh, meaning “to be accomplished” or “to attain”) or mahā-siddha (“greatly accomplished one,” that is, a great adept). The female adept is called siddha-anganā (“woman adept,” from anga, meaning “limb” or “part”). The Tantric path itself is frequently referred to as sādhana or sādhanā (from the same verbal root as siddha), and the spiritual achievement of this path is called siddhi (having the dual meaning of “perfection” and “powerful accomplishment”). Siddhi can refer either to the spiritual attainment of liberation, or enlightenment, or to the extraordinary powers or paranormal abilities ascribed to Tantric masters as a result of enlightenment or by virtue of mastery of the advanced stages of concentration. A Tantric preceptor, whether he or she is enlightened or not, is called either an ācārya (“conductor,” which is related to ācāra, “way of life”) or a guru (“weighty one”).”
― Georg Feuerstein, Tantra: Path of Ecstasy