History Of Tantra

(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)

 

The historical roots of tantra are varied and culturally eclectic, although the area of India north to Nepal and Tibet seem to be the zone where tantra flourished from a primitivist magical form to a metaphysical science. India has always been a hotbed from 5000 B.C. to the present day. Tantra became the backbone of Tibetan civilization. There is one tenet that runs through all forms of tantra since its earliest forms whether in the tantra texts of India, the rigorous diamond path of Tibet, or the godlike magick of Egypt: the realization of tantra is to realize the great perfection of all things in their natural, primordial, radiant light, the unified existence of everything, expressed as the attainment of the mundane and supernormal siddhis (powers) and enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings.

In the original tantra there is only one Mother, creator of all things. From her everything that exists was born, to her all things will return. Galaxies, stars, mountains, seas, plants, animals, humans, gods; all are her creations. Every leaf, each living cell, every pulse of the blood, every molecular love affair, each fizzing electron, is sustained by Her. She gives life and takes it. With a myriad forms, loving and terrible, She is known by untold numbers of names and honored in countless shrines. She is the primordial ground of being from which everything and even the void spring. Hers is the primeval energy of the universe that drives all divine and cosmic evolution. The ancient text Mahanirvana Tantra, (edi. from Sanskrit by Abi Brahmasamaj, Calcutta, 1876) tells us, "I adore primeval Kali; her limbs like dark rain clouds, moon-crowned, three-eyed, clothed in crimson. Her two hands uplifted bless me and free me from fear. Seated on a red lotus, She turns her laughing face to Mahakala, the Great Energy, who, drunk on divine wine, is dancing before her splendor." (verse 141)

Supreme being, single source and controller of all forces and potentialities of nature: She is Shakti, the divine wisdom Power, great goddess of all the Tantric Yogis. She is Parvati, lovely beyond imagination, who, because her limbs were dark black, was given the pet name Kali, the Dark One. She is the One with whom all creation begins. "Ever gracious, ever blissful Lord whose compassion is like the ocean of nectar; whose body shines white as camphor and the jasmine flower; purest truth, robed in space, omnipresent; loving and beloved Lord of yogis, whose coiled and matted dread-locked hair is drenched from the spray of the celestial Ganja river; adorned with ashes, garlanded with snakes and human skulls; three eyed Lord of the triple world: trident in one hand, in the other, blessing; embodiment of Gnosis; giver of Nirvana; everlasting, pure, flawless; amiable, benefactor to all that lives, God of Gods." (verse 6-10 Mahanirvana Tantra, Brahmasamaj, Calcutta, 1876). So the tantric poet describes Shiva, consort and husband of the goddess. As Mahakala, the Great Energy, he dances for Her pleasure, he is also her Lord. They are co-mutual divinities; he is her strength as she is his. Shiva and Shakti cannot be separated, they are eternally One. Each is ever the other.

When Shiva dances, it is Kali who moves within his limbs. When Kali dances, it is Shiva who dances within her body. Shiva is indeed the Lord of the Dance, of music and drama, of austerity and yoga. He is the master ascetic, untroubled by desire, yet he is also the teacher of the arts of love. If Shakti is all and everything, Shiva is the annihilation of opposites. He is simultaneously holy, yet outcaste; god yet beggar; sober with clarity yet intoxicated with bliss; lord of the union yet supremely detached yogi. The basis of all Tantra is this fundamental worship of the female and male principles. This worship can take the form of simple ceremonies to the village Mothers in remote India, goddesses of such great antiquity their origins are forgotten. Their shrines may be no more than rough stones standing as they have for centuries, or perhaps millennia, in the corners of fields, by old trackways, or on a hilltop.

Tantra can manifest as elaborately as a twenty day long Buddhist Vajrayana Deity empowerment with chanting, bells, mandalas, mountains of offerings in thousands of years old temples with ten thousand adepts coming to receive empowerment from all over the world. In India, the traditional, universal symbol of the Shakti-Shiva worship is the holy “lingam” standing in the sacred “yoni.” The lingam represents the male phallus or creative principle in the universe and the yoni is the open vagina, the receptivity of the universal ground of being, the god and goddess in union. The male polarity is the force of creation, the female principle the all-nothingness of the primordial Mother. The lingam and yoni united in perfect balance symbolizes the harmony of the cosmos. These linga-yoni images can be unhewn stones dating back to the Neolithic period or highly stylized and elaborately carved pillars of great size in temple sanctuaries.

When missionaries arrived in the colonialism of India from the 1700's on, they were disturbed and terrified of the overt sexuality of such images, as well as the rumors they heard whispered of tantric sexual rites. They would have tantric texts translated to learn of these mysteries, often seeing innuendo that wasn't always there, the texts themselves are usually written in a poetic form called twilight language in which up to even five meanings can be derived from the passages, the texts speaking in stylized metaphor. This inner tradition was a Gnostic one, in that it teaches a secret knowledge and direct experience of God. Nonetheless, there was a secret tantric tradition, which did include ritual sex, mostly with one's own spouse, sometimes with other people, often involving prostitutes and people of the lower castes. Followers of Shavite tantra broke caste taboos.