Tantra Yoga
Throughout all of eternity, like cosmic day and night the multiverses alternately expand into energy and matter and resolve back into herself as primal energy, the hiryanagharba.
Within her great heart rest her forms of Lakshmi, Kali and Saraswati, these energies of matter and form (tamas), movement and transformation (rajas) and serene grace (sattvas) weave in a balance of harmony.
In manifestation her forms both create, sustain and destroy as they permeate the whole cosmos, woven through the heart of all energy, matter and life, so this universe as we know it rests in, unfolds from and returns to her awesome heart.
From the Sabdabrahman or soundless sound reflected in the human heart chakra as
anahata or the unstruck sound arises the causal sound or Nada as the vibration
of undifferentiated wisdom and intelligence that sparks into evolution this
cosmic unfolding. From this vibration of OM, there arises a deep primal shudder
running through the resting equanimity of Shakti and rajas arises and the
process of manifestation begins.
Out of this movement and cosmic vibration Shakti splits into two fields of
force as being, Nada and Bindu. Bindu is the male pole, Shiva the centrifugal
ground of being as consciousness from which Nada operates. Nada as vibration
expands outward in centripetal flow, female, she is nature unfolding the
manifest million forms of this universe.
This polar duality in unity provides the forces of magnetism, gravity, levity
that hols together the phenomenal world in their state of vibrating molecules.
Cosmic evolution flowing from the superconscious, unmoving, beyond knowing and un-manifest into both the unconsciousness and conscious of the moving, knowable and manifest universe.
The journey of the individual in Yoga is a stepping into greater consciousness and beyond the beyond into super-consciousness. It is always a return from perceived separation to that source which is in our hearts, reflected as a balance of Shiva and Shakti with the upward and downward triangles in Anahata (heart) chakra of the six pointed star.
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In Tantra, since all is a facet of the divine there can be no impurity,
everything, every event, every experience can then become grist to the mill, an
opportunity for greater and endless awakening into eternal super-consciousness.
The first practices of Tantra include Yoga asana practice as initiated by the
Lord of Yogis Shiva (consciousness) and initiated again through his
re-incarnation as the great Tantric master Adinath. Adinath taught
Matsyendranath who taught Gorakshanath. These famous Tantric masters of the Nath
lineage formulated many practices and techniques to assist the knower to step
into greater wisdom and love.
Yoga asana is the first of these.
Tantra can mean weaving, the experiences of life being an opportunity for
awakening. Tantra can mean liberation or awakening through expansion, this is
different to the ascetic practices of denial, abstention and belief in impurity.
Tantra can also mean technique, in this way teachers outline parameters within
which the students as knowers then engage with and explore, experiencing in
their own mind and body the results of their exploration.
Tantra uses Mantra as a prime tool. Mantra meaning both Mind expansion and also
protection from mundane or small mindedness is the use of specific vibratory
patterns to free the limited small mind into greater and more expansive
awareness. Traditionally a teacher will empower a mantra and then initiate the
student into its use.
Tantra also uses Yantra as its tool. Yantras are geometric often colourful
diagrams that represent the sacred geometric movement from the source through
the bindu or seed into manifestation. The movement flows from one-point (bindu)
into the first possible enclosure of space the triangle and from there into the
wide circles of possibility before manifestation in the square of the earth
element. Different Yantras represent different feminine and masculine energies.
Tantra uses visualisation as a means to embody and actualise, to remember ones
existence as divine.
Tantra uses the focus of one pointed concentrated mind (dharana)to step beyond
limiting conceptual frames into greater freedom of awareness.
Tantra uses massage and also spontaneous dance. The dance is the counterpoint of
the linear Yoga asana practice and unfolds the tensions of perceived or felt
separation into greater spaciousness.
Experiencing oneself as space, knowing one self as empty of concept, as empty of separate inherent existence, the whole of life becomes the play of practice and presence with no outcome and no goal.
Sitting in sacred silence, one just sits, there is nothing to be attained that is not already here, sitting merely rests us in this spacious presence.
Sacred sexuality may also be used as a playfulness and tool to rest in deeper presence, yet like licking honey off the razors edge, such practices can easily drop beings into greater egoic belief in their own power, their own magic, their own strength. In truth, from a place of ‘realised emptiness’, power, strength and magic are all possible manifestations of love and wisdom and merely flow as functions of the all pervading divinity. They rest exclusively in no-one and belong exclusively to no-one. So as no-one we may freely play with licking honey off the razors edge.
Tantra is a means to bring into everyday presence, into the marketplace, into the home, into the whole world the super-conscious.
Christopher teaches the various aspects of TantraYoga on his retreats, the foundations are asana practice, dance and silent sitting.
