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saha
nAvavatu| saha nau bhunaktu| saha viryaM karavAvahe| tejasvinAva dhitaM astu| mA vidviSAvahe||
Aum shantiH shatiH shantiH||
May he protect us both. May he provide
for us both. May we both be courageous in our actions. May we both be guided by divine vision. May we
never hate each other.
Om peace, peace, peace.
Many people seem to be curious about tantra - I
suspect for all the wrong reasons. This will be a very boring page for them (not that others aren't).
Figure 10 below shows two persons we have already met before. They are in love and they are both
interested in personal growth. Love has its rewards. Life offers special opportunity for them in the form of tantra.
X loves Y so much that he wants to experience her like he has not experienced anyone else. Y loves X so much that she wants
to experience X like she has experienced no one else. According to tantra, love has a way of making this possible.
When we experience "other" person like X and Y want to experience each other, our personalities expand to include and contain
that other person's. Can anyone think of easier way to grow? We should recall here that experience is connected with sattva
guNa or being-ness. Most people misunderstand tantra and place emphasis on sex. Recall here that sex is an activity and
thus connected with rajas guNa.
Thus it is easy to see with love, X and Y will now each grow such that the personality
profile of X will be XYCB and that of Y will be YXBC. Indeed this is minimum one should expect of love. Synergy of love does
the rest. When love reaches its full potential, personality profiles of both X and Y will grow beyond simple addition of their
two personalities. Love has no limits. There personalities will grow to contain everything under the sun.
But how does this work? This is what I think. The only way to experience another
person is through our common base. X cannot experience Y on the material plane. There is no direct connection between X and
Y on the plane AD. To expereience Y, X has to reach out to Y through the plane BC. Thus tantra forces X to reach
out to sat-chit-Ananada, our common basis.
tantra while very appealing in its logic and methods, is practically beyond
the reach of most people today. But it doesn't have to be that way. I think we can regain and relearn the lost art of loving.
One can always start on this path by invoking the prayer above.
Let us conclude this brief discussion of tantra by reciting the brahma
gAyatri mantra from mahA nirvANa tantra.
Aum sat chid ekam brahma
parameshvarAya vidmahe paratattvAya dhImahi, tan no brahma prachodayAt
Om, being and consciousness are but one. May everything (brahman)
inspire us that we come to see and know the ultimate controller, that we may understand and embody the ultimate essence or
the highest principle (which is love). Note that brahman
is the Vedic universe.
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