´TANTRA AND YOGA

The path of Yoga practices constant self-improvement. One is constantly busy developing oneself through daily study, taking classes, raising one’s self-awareness and universal consciousness, physical exercises, gathering knowledge and asking the right questions, like ‘Who am I? What am I doing here? Why am I alive? What is the purpose of my life?’ et cetera.

Yoga is the path of the Mind. This path consists of gathering a lot of knowledge, reading, interaction with others, continuous self-reflection and self-judgement to be able to develop yourself. The path of Yoga is very common in the Western world, but also in the East. It is a path where the mind is involved. On that premise, it is a path where problems need to be created to support the Self. Why would you develop yourself if there are no problems? The path of Yoga does not accept the wholeness of being, the wholeness of existence. The path is based on the constant restlessness of the human mind. It is based on the Universal rule of avoiding pain and finding happiness. That is why this path is very well suited for mind-people, people who live from their mind, and why this path is very common in the West and for example India.

On the other hand, the path of Yoga states that the goal of our existence is reaching Unity, peace of mind and Nirvana. Based on that, you should ask yourself: how can you reach peace of mind by exhausting the mind? How can you reach harmony by using disharmonious methods? If you use a muscle frequently, this muscle initially will respond with pain, and then with cramping. If you then keep using this muscle, it will become stronger and thicker, and eventually more dominant within the body. But you will not get a healthy, pain free muscle. And if you are dead set on reaching your goal and keep using your muscle, you will eventually damage it, and you will need to heal it. You need to heal it by giving it rest.

What happens when you damage the mind? What happens if you use or abuse the mind, if you think too much, if you keep busy in your head too much? For example, you won’t be able to experience and be present in the moment. By using your mind excessively, you create a situation in which you are busy with the past, busy with things that have already happened, events that have already passed. But also a situation in which you’re busy with the future, with things that haven’t happened yet or may never even happen at all. If you are sitting at a table with people and someone directs the conversation to you, you may find that your mind is occupied with yesterday or today, which makes it hard for you to follow the conversation.

Of course, the path of the Yoga is necessary as a first step.

But what happens when you’ve gained a lot of knowledge? You should come in contact with the Tantra.

Tantra says, ‘You are perfect. Everything is perfect.’ Tantra says ´Everything is right-all the time´. If you look at it from a comical perspective, Tantra says ‘Well, you were born perfect, you’ve done your best to destroy yourself, and now you’re spending the rest of your life to return to that original perfection.’ Tantra says, ‘You are whole, just be. If you love, love. If you cry, cry.’ Tantra says ‘By accepting your own existence and by accepting your surroundings, and your reality as you’re experiencing it, you’re not using your mind, but you are using your senses and you are using your heart. You stop using your mental energy and start experiencing life with the help of your senses.

You laugh and cry like a child. By not using the mind, you are allowing yourself to experience, to observe. You’re not busy judging, you’re not busy developing yourself, you’re not busy trying to make others better and you are not busy violating reality.

From the path of Tantra, another very beautiful path emerged. That path is called Taoism, ‘The Path’. Tao. Now, to go a step further, I’d like to describe Yoga as ‘Becoming’ and Tantra as ‘Being’. Tantra says ‘Be´, just, ´Be´. Dance, cry, laugh, destroy, hit, just be.’ You are perfect as you are. And by ‘being’ you are able to gather wisdom of Universal Consciousness, and you are able to connect yourself with everything and everyone.

Yoga says ‘Become!’ You’re not there yet. Continue working hard, continue reading books, meeting people and talking to them, continue twisting your body in all kinds of bends and shapes, and learning how to breathe. Continue judging, continue avoiding, continue desiring, continue hating, continue longing, and by doing all this and thinking all these thoughts, you will eventually reach your goal. So, there is ‘being’ and there is ‘doing’.

We can also call ‘being’ the egg, and ‘becoming’ the chicken. And then we can ask the same old question: ‘who was first, the chicken or the egg?’ The answer is very simple. They were created at the same time, the chicken and the egg. That is also the path of the Children of the Law of One. We teach to ‘be’ and ‘become’ at the same time. We have no judgment over either one of these paths, we do not decide which come first and which comes second. Furthermore, we see the importance of both these paths. The one cannot exist without the other. It’s like yin and yang. These two seemingly opposing forces are one. And we teach to ‘become’ while being, to accept and to change simultaneously. Accepting the change. That is why some people will experience our path as very confusing. Most people are raised and taught according to one path or the other, but not according to both. People like interpretations, they like hearing a, b, c and d, or firstly, secondly, thirdly, fourthly, or one, two, three, four. They like structure, they like frameworks, they like patterns. People are locked inside the captivity of the linear, illusive way of thinking. People are locked inside the illusion of linear time, past, present and future.

This structure gives them the illusion that they are in control. When you are in control, you can’t ‘be’ and you can’t ‘become’. The only way to ‘be’ and to ‘become’, is to accept. Well, a nice and trendy way of saying it: ‘going with the flow’. Water ‘is’ not, and water doesn’t ‘become’, water is water. Water flows and ‘is’. Water repeatedly changes form while it’s standing still. When you pour water into a glass, it immediately takes the shape of the glass, while it is still moving, while it’s still running from the tap. When you close the tap, it still accepts the form of the glass until it comes to a halt. And when you then pour this water from one glass to another, the whole process starts anew. So, water ‘is’ and ‘becomes’ at the same time. And during this process, it loses none of its characteristics, it is still water. It’s water.

Maha Kundalini Tantra teaches in the same way, contradictory to what most people have been trained in, or what they have been taught in school or at home. Use this moment while I speak, to practice it. At this moment, there is a desire in you to move, to listen to me or to not listen to me anymore, a desire to understand or to open your eyes. That is ‘becoming’. Aside from that, there is what is now, that’s ‘being’. Acceptance will dissolve the contradiction between the two, and will make it go away. Just like we have two legs and two feet to walk with, we use the Yoga and the Tantra for our goal of ‘being’ and ‘becoming’, and you can’t and shouldn’t separate the two.