01/11/2019
Did you know?
“THIS AWARENESS-SELF IS A DYNAMIC EXPERIENCER, NOT A PASSIVE WITNESS ~
The different spiritual paths are *not* all saying the same thing. On key points, Vedānta, Patañjalian Yoga, and Ta**ra diverge. This is one of those points. If you want to say you're a Tantrika, you MUST understand this.
Our true nature, our essence, the Self-which-is-Divine-Consciousness (chaitanyam ātmā, Shiva-sūtra 1.1) is not neutral and does not stand apart from or merely witness the world of matter, energy and emotion. It is dynamic and actually *becomes* the substance of every experience.
The innermost Self does not witness the joys and sorrows that arise in the heart-mind, it actually becomes the heart-mind vibrant with all those joys and sorrows. In other words, you are divine Consciousness oscillating between its expanded and contracted states. Consciousness 'wants' to contract into the form of each and every experience and wants to release each experience and expand into its limitless potential once again. And this dynamic oscillation, this contraction into painful and/or joyful experience followed by the return to the expanded state of pure potential, followed by another contraction, another expansion, and so on (and on and on forever), does not in any way taint or sully the One who so oscillates. it is the nature of that Perfect One to oscillate in this way through every possible mode of experience, until it has become and embraced every possibility in limitless time.
But let's see what one of the original Tantrik masters (a siddha) has to say about this.
In 'An Investigation into the Doctrine of Vibration' (Spanda-nirṇaya), 1000 years ago, Rājānaka Kshemarāja writes:
"The individual soul is a cognizer, a conscious agent, who consists of everything [that arises in its sphere of experience]; therefore, as the Spanda-kārikās teach, "the state that is not Consciousness does not exist in words, thoughts, or things," whether past, present, or future. The real meaning of this verse is that everything has God as its real nature. -- And since it is so, the conscious perceiver is an active *experiencer* who exists as the feeling-state of the given object of experience, yet remains the same, neither lessened nor increased, at all times and in all loci of experience, such as the various tattvas and worlds. Nor can any object of experience whatsoever be something separate from its experiencer. So the Spanda-kārikā verse (2.4) establishes that in actuality there is no difference whatsoever between Śiva and the individual soul. Thus, one should not think oneself incomplete or imperfect with regard to any state of the body, mind, etc. On the contrary, one should know “My essence-nature is Śiva, undivided Awareness, in the form of this very state.”"
This passage is quite astonishing for those used to the mainstream teaching in Indian spirituality, that the innermost self is a witness, detached from and untouched by all that it experiences. Here, by contrast, the self is said to be an engaged, active experiencer (bhoktā), not separate from the feeling-state it experiences. That is, in this view the inner self is not a detached witness of some state like ‘cold’ experienced by the body or 'happy' experienced by the mind; the self-which-is-consciousness actually becomes the ‘felt-sense’ of cold (or happy), just as Śiva (universal consciousness) has really become this manifest universe, which is not at all an illusion.
But, and here’s the important part, the self-which-is-consciousness, the soul, is *not depleted or enlarged* by any experience whatsoever, and not divided or fragmented either—just as God retains Her undivided and complete nature even as She becomes this whole reality. Feeling depleted or enlarged is something that happens on the level of the prāṇa, and the soul is even more fundamental than prāṇa; it is unbounded Awareness, Being itself. By definition, Awareness can adopt any form, have any experience, and it remains simply what it is: something like pure radiance, a conscious field that is like gold in that it is soft, malleable, and shining. It does not become incomplete or imperfect due to any alteration in mind or body.
The significance of this teaching is huge, for it is a decisive turn against the dissociative consequences of the ‘detached witness’ teaching still prevalent throughout the world of yoga today. Ta**ra teaches that no detachment is ultimately necessary to be healthily centered in your innermost being. What is necessary is to be healthily centered in your innermost being, neither attached to detachment nor indifferent to attachment.
Both detachment and attachment result in suffering, if we build an identity out of them. Since attachment occurs through identification with body-mind and detachment occurs through identification with the Void, the solution in both cases is the same: know your soul, your essence-nature, divine Awareness, and become centered in it as it pulses through its endless unavoidable oscillations of experience.”
The post is from Tantrik Yoga NOW FB group.
