Interview Continues......
"What is Tantra?"
an interview with Tantric Master Prem Pranama
R. I am not sure I understand what you mean by public and private
non-realities. Are the images, energies, and beings worked with in the
practices real or not? Could you elaborate on that bit?
P. The basis of all this lies in an understanding of Dharmakaya and
sunyata, "the realm of essence" and "emptiness". The Dharmakaya is not
a place or even a state of being or consciousness. Dharmakaya is the
field of pure potential, which is exploding into actualized energy and
matter at every moment. Each object or thing, even in its "thingness",
is still in essence characterized by this field of potentiality. In
other words, each "thing" is empty of permanent characteristics; its
characteristics share the quality of pure dynamic potentiality and are
always tending towards the expression of that potential via constant
change and transformation.
All worlds and fields of perception explode from this pure
potentiality, which is also pure awareness or emptiness. This essence,
this emptiness, is unspeakable and is not any thing at all. And yet it
is the dynamic matrix from which all of this (waving his arm about the
room) arises, and of which all of this is a presentation, and into
which all this returns.
This explosion of essence creates fields of energetic
perception. This energy is conditioned into forms by the play of cause
and effect. These forms are our world and our self. The world, and all
worlds, are coincident with the essence of awareness, which is
birthless and deathless and utterly free of the implications of form
and limit. The manifest world is not other than essence, but essence
is not limited to the shape or conditions of the manifest worlds. One
might say that the world and all worlds are held together as form by
the conditioned and habitual intent of consciousness. Our particular
world is held together by the intent of human beings. The worlds of
other beings are held by the force of their conditioned intent.
The structures of existence are not "real" in any ultimate
sense. They are public non-realities, playful dreams shaped out of
essence and molded in form. They are the radiance of pure
potentiality, momentarily given shape by intent and held in a
seemingly cohesive pattern by karma or patterned habitualized
consciousness. A Tantric yogi shatters the tyranny of ordinary
appearance - the forgetting of how things took on their seemingly real
forms - by molding new structures of existence - private
non-realities.
We are not talking here about "creative visualization" in the sense
generally used. Imagination is, generally, simply mind forms within
the public non-reality. We are talking about the actual deconstruction
of the building blocks of reality and reconstruction of
alternatives. Both public and private non-realities are conditioned
forms of consciousness. By enacting the process of creation and
destruction in the private non-reality the unquestioned authortiy and
permanence of the public non-reality is undermined. Through the
process of advanced Tantric sadhana one is able to recognize the
ground of intrinsic awareness within all conditioned forms. This
realization allows one to live as intrinsic awareness and recognize
all arising as ornaments of that awareness.
The idea of Tantra is not identification with endless new
conditioned forms of awareness and color. The point is to slip
between the cracks into the matrix of pure potentiality itself. The
goal is not achievement of unusual states it is to recognize your
primordial intrinsic nature in all appearence. Then all appearance has
the single taste of bliss and wisdom. That's not the end either it's
the beginning of endless play.
R. That goes quite a bit beyond the general view of Tantra as merely
a way of advanced self-help rather than a profoundly magical or
transcendental practice. But isn't it also true that Tantra (in this
radical form) works with the ordinary emotions and everyday problems?
P. There are no ordinary emotions and everyday problems. That's the
point. Being is the natural luminous quality of this matrix of pure
potential and Being presents itself in the play of existence. The
bliss-mad radiance of pure awareness plays in the colors of Being. The
world and your own body, your mind and your energies are nothing other
than the natural communicative thrust of limitlessness. There is
absolutely nothing ordinary about anything.
When the colors of Being are read through the distortions of
dualistic view, they appear as emotions and confusion, and one is
bound in the tyranny of ordinary appearance. Being freed from
distorted view plays as feeling and clarity in the wild and raucous
romp of manifestation. When the true nature of every event is
recognized, even the most seemingly mundane moment will hold such
great beauty that it will shatter the mind.
Tantra's power lies in its ability to recognize the poisons of ego
as distortions of the qualities of enlightenment. The practices
transform these distortions or, depending on one's capacity,
spontaneously liberate dualistic distorted view into its own true
nature. For Tantra the stuff of body, emotion and mind, ordinary
emotions and events are the essential ingredients needed for the
alchemical transformation of distorted view into Buddhahood.
R. You mention Being's appearance as a play of colors, and that
intrigues me. So often Being is described as clear light or white
light. Non-dual realization seems to be a one dimensional and one
flavor thing, whereas this seems to have depth.
P. Light broken open by a prism displays the colors that are always
its nature. Its essence is clear light and its nature is to manifest
as the colors of the rainbow. Pure awareness is completely transparent
like a sheet of glass. But when broken open, it displays the rainbow
of colors or flavors that are the substance of manifestation. Pure
awareness and the colors of Being are not in opposition or even in any
way two. They are aspects of singleness. So many spiritual paths
inherently, though often subtly, negate world, body, and
existence. They are always seeking to get elsewhere into the "light"
failing to recognize that all is light.
Spiritual systems often misinterpret bondage as resulting from
being in form rather than from wrong view. Because of this, they
wrongly assume that enlightenment means to be abstracted out of form
into subtle realms or "pure" awareness. These spiritual systems try to
negate form and dissolve, or return, into the pre-form matrix of pure
potentiality. This is possible and that radical act of transcending
form is most blissful - but it is not enlightenment. Form and formless
are not two; they are a single mystery. These systems are
spiritualized forms of the dualistic delusion. Tantra, which in its
true form is Advaitic (or non-dual), transcends this
limitation. Tantra is wisdom gone wild embracing the totality of what
is.
With Tantra you are not getting somewhere; you are just waking up
to the true nature of things as they are. The colors inherent in clear
light are not other than the light. The display whereby Being presents
its limitless mystery is not other than the birthless and deathless
pure mystery from which Being comes..
R. It's interesting that you mention Advaita. I recently read
Poonjaji, an Advaitic master. He advocates no practice. Form is
illusion and every action by the illusory self adds to
unenlightenment. What do you think of that.
P: Well, I have great respect for the traditional forms of Advaita. I
have always been intimately connected with Ramana Maharshi, and the
path that I teach is "Advaitic Tantrayana". On the other hand, there are
some serious problems and limitations with the talking school of
Advaita versus the various practice schools such as Tantra.
R: What do you mean by "talking school"?
P: Talking schools are those that understand that delusion is only an
illusion and all that you need to do is understand the illusion to be
free of it. Because all you need to do is understand, then all I need
to do as master is explain the truth to you, and all you need to do is
listen and you will "get it". The problem is that this is a superficial
grasp of understanding. Understanding in the talking school is
considered a primarily mental act. I talk; you listen. In truth
understanding is a whole body act. You must understand with the cells
of your body, your mind and your feelings. Listening involves a
profound action of the entire self. This action is what practice
is. Spiritual practice is the act of listening to the teaching with
the whole body.
There are fundamental differences between a teacher, even an
awakened one, and a master. Poonjaji is a teacher. He speaks about
Truth very nicely, though he suffers a bit from the delusion of
viewing form as illusion rather than presentation of the formless. Due
to this he lacks the skillful means needed to deal with the actual
roots of delusion. He lacks the skillful means to communicate with the
whole bodily being rather just the mind. In a recent interview he said
that he teaches the pure Truth - some get it, some don't, and he doesn t
know why. That's the difference between a teacher and a masteInterviewer R: A
master knows why and can deal skillfully with the causes. A master is
willing to deal with delusion on its own ground if necessary. He or
she is willing to take on the dragon in its cave, even if the dragon
is only an illusion.
The teachers of the endless talk no practice school go on to say
"open your eyes and see the beautiful sunset. You do not need to do
anything, add anything to yourself. Just open your eyes". While it is
true that you don't need to add anything, the problem is that your
eyes are shut and you are wearing a blindfold. You open your eyes and
see nothing. These teachers do not see you because they are too busy
admiring their own "non-dualism".
The teachers of the Advaita talking school do in fact give
practices. They give the very difficult practice of pre-verbal inquiry
which works once you have taken off your blindfold. But until then it
leaves you stranded. All too often people make sense of the words and
develop conceptual enlightenment. You understand the description of
the sunset so well that you think you are seeing it, even though you
are still wearing a blindfold and have your eyes closed. People in
this condition even go on to become teachers of the talking school,
endlessly describing the imagined sunset to others. I am sure that it
is based on my Tantric predilection for wisdom gone wild, my delight
in manifestation, but I often find these Advaitic teachers a little
prissy. They are unable to enjoy the game, unable to enjoy the madness
and wildness of existence. There is no space for non-dual dualism in
their non-dualism.
R: That clears up some confusion about Advaita which I hadn't quite
been able to put into words. You mentioned Ramana Maharshi. As I
understand it your path was not originally Tantric. I would be
interested in hearing about how you evolved into this style of
practice and teaching. What led you to awakening and to teaching the
way that you do?
P: My introduction and initiation into the world of Tantra began with
a naked menstruating woman in the University of Michigan's graduate
school library. She danced and sang and placed her bleeding cunt over
my mouth and I drank from that source the nectar of immortality, the
liquid union of bliss and emptiness. She was the Vajra Dakini Yeshe
Tso-gyal, Mother of my true life. But that is the end of the story and
was not planned, asked for, or expected. For most of my spiritual
journey I had nothing to do with Tantra nor wanted to.
My own spiritual work began in the Gurdjieff system. Gurdjieff was
influenced by Tantric teachings though more strongly influenced by the
Sufi schools. In his system I found a concrete practical method for
working with the habitual conditioning of my body, mind, and
emotions. I got to see myself without any veneer. It was in this
school that I began to truly crystallize the wish to grow and forge it
into a center of gravity that could begin to pull the unintegrated
parts of the self into a unified whole.
After some time I began to find that certain axioms on which the
work depended were, for me, limited in their view. Given the lack of
anyone I considered a true Master, I resumed my search for a system
that could take me farther. I visited many different teachers and
communities, read enormous amounts, and engaged in a variety of rather
extreme experiments on myself. Eventually I encountered the work of
the enigmatic and rascally Master Osho. My meeting with Osho, who was
called Bhagwan at that time, awakened my heart into intense ecstasy
and devotion. It also began a long period of powerful visionary
experiences that centered on the Virgin Mary and the Goddess Kali.
For me devotion was an instant and natural though hard path often
filled with confusion. My heart exploded in love. The Guru is the
trigger. The Guru is the object that the devotee uses as an excuse to
slip through the boundaries of ordinary feeling. I learned, in a trial
by fire, that irresponsible devotion to the master always ends in
serious suffering. In other words the Guru ain t your daddy, the Guru
is an introduction to your own nature. What is most important is that
I did learn, and over time the love that Bhagwan awoke in me matured
into non-dual inquiry.
One day all the energy that had been pouring outward in love for
five years simply stopped and began to move inward. This process was
fundamentally Ramana Maharshi's question "Who am I"?. Who is the one
who experiences all experience? This process cuts through all
hierarchy of "higher" or "lower" experience by cutting to the root of
all experience. Each time I sat down it was like a vortex of energy
moving into expanding fields of silence. I would feel this vortex and
rest in it. It would draw me into deeper and deeper states of silence
from where I would engage pre-verbal inquiry. What had been ecstasy
and love before was now recognized as a womb-like place of silence.
When I started the meditative phase of my practice, all the visions
stopped short. Previously they were explosions of love, and they kind
of rode on the outflowing energy of devotion, my interest in them
fueling their appearance. Very late in the silent phase of practice,
several months before my own awakening, a new series of visionary
experiences began. Visions of Yeshe Tso-gyal, Queen of the Lake of
Awareness, Mother of Pure Pleasure. These visions exploded from the
depths of emptiness and silence.
One morning, after I had finished my practice, I went to the
library to study Sufi texts. I was reading two volumes of Rumi's
works. As I was walking towards the library, I had a feeling that was
familiar from previous visionary experiences. It was an intense
pleasurable sensation that pushed out from the center of my body, from
my heart, towards my skin, though this time it seemed to open forth
from silent space. I felt giddy and drunk. I looked up and for a
moment I could swear I saw the outline of a dancing woman standing in
the air above the library. She was huge! Maybe three hundred feet
tall.
The vision lasted for a second, and I went in and began reading on
the nearly deserted fourth floor. The longer I sat, the more intense
this vibration became. I knew this process very well, and I knew it
would lead to a feeling of such intensity, that the ordinary world
around me would black out. This feeling of ecstatic drunkenness gets
stronger and stronger as if it's resonating more and more swiftly
through the entire body. At a certain point visionary experience
outshines the "ordinary" world.
I found myself in a cemetery. A woman approached. She was naked,
except for some bone ornaments. She was singing and dancing a tune of
haunting melody, which I later discovered was the mantra of her
consort Padmasambhava: Om Ah Hung Vajra Guru Padma Siddhi Hung!
I was entranced, simultaneously with ecstatic love and an absolute
feeling of overwhelming sexual desire so strong that I was sure I
would die from it. She danced around me and then swiftly stood
directly in front of me placing her genitals over my face. Her vagina
was over my mouth, there was blood flowing from it, and I drank this
blood deeply in an unending flow. I could feel it coursing through my
body like liquid heat. Suddenly the vision disappeared. I got up and
went home - well, actually, I think I first went and had a chocolate
chip cookie. This began a period of what my wife and I refer to as the
"drooling in the living room" period. I spent close to a month, mostly
sitting in a rocking chair in our living room unable to function
because the force of Bliss that was flowing through my body was so
overwhelming. I was also unable to speak about what was happening.
Interview Continued ....Next Page
