Shiva/Shakti, Symmetry and Consciousness

     When people come across tantra and hear that it is to do with sex (which it is!) and that there are two principals Shiva and Shakti and they are connected to consciousness and energy, and that they can also be characterised as masculine and feminine; many are delighted. It is the answer to their deepest hopes; how to have a good relationship and great sex and be spiritual all wrapped in to one new package. They then make one massive mistake if they only takes Western neo-tantra as their guide. They project on to tantra a sort of symmetry and mutuality. It becomes about Mrs Shakti and Mr Shiva and how they can have this equal, mutual, satisfying partnership. It becomes couple therapy externally, or for their inner estranged couple. They may link it to the yin/yang symbol with its black and white fish eternally chasing each other in a circle. Perfectly complementary and equal. If they are women; and get that tantra deeply honours the feminine as the creator of life itself (which it does!) then it can add a bonus, that after all their suffering under the last few thousand years of patriarchal oppression they will be freed and compensated. If they go to tantra workshops and breathe, move, dance their socks off and get high on; the energy, the cosmic orgasms and the freedom then they are sold! They can both be honoured and worshipped and have everything and a beautiful equal relationship within and, hopefully also, without.

     There is one little problem with this. It simply doesn’t accord with the thousands of years of tantric practices and knowledge which exists as texts and as methods within the deep and sometimes complex world of tantra as it has evolved in many cultures and places. It is not just from India, but there it stayed in the culture so that texts were written and temples built. By about the 11th century it had reached a high point before the Mughal invasion. In England, Stonehenge had long been a ruin and we were busy with 1066 and all that.

     The problem is the symmetry bit. Energy and consciousness are not like Mr and Mrs! Even though in the body the two channels, ida and pingala have a symmetry in their winding journey from the coccyx to the brain, the two qualities are simply not in that sort of relationship.  We certainly can’t get entranced by the energy and phenomena side, and hope that consciousness will follow in time. That simply is addiction. It attracts the child, like sweets in a sweet shop. And tantra workshops can turn in to giant sweetshops and most of the participants become exited children. Great fun and for many a necessary relief. Hence lots of tantra festivals now. But it hooks what the Jungians called the puer and puella eternus, the eternal child, and the tantra world is full of such figures taking refuge from the challenges of being a grownup in a very difficult world. The idea of a regular practice seems ridiculous. As if I need to practice eating chocolate cake! 

     I think it is usually the women who notice first.  The men, often supported by the odd belief that polyamory is central to tantra, are simply not quite there! Presence and awareness are notoriously hard to teach compared to energy practices with breath, sound and movement as their simple and effective guidelines.  Women can also become so busy “skydancing” that they never quite get around to landing and having their feet firmly on the cool damp Earth of reality.

     The fact is that at one of the highest and most sublime times when tantra was flourishing in 11th Kashmir;  Abhinavagupta a great practitioner and scholar (for there was no separation then) wrote The first Shiva sutra, Chaitanyamatma, which can be translated as ‘The nature of reality is consciousness’, or, ‘Everything is consciousness’. It may not be immediately obvious that everything is Consciousness. Our culture is based on its opposite; everything is atoms and stuff. Kashmir Shaivism says that Consciousness underlies all creation. It was there in the beginning, it is there in the middle and it will be there in the end. It is the fundamental stuff of the universe. In Hindu tantra there is the wonderful image of Kali dancing on the prone

body of Shiva. Far from being the patriarchs’ nightmare of being killed and trampled underfoot, it shows that Shiva, as consciousness (he isn’t dead but in deep meditation), is the platform on which everything can be danced into existence. Consciousness, and its cousin, awareness; is the basis of tantra. 

     There is no easy symmetry between Shiva and Shakti. There has to be the deepest respect for consciousness first. So Indian tantra says that everyone is Shiva. Without that foundation, we are lost in maya; in illusion. At the Solstice, as we mark the return of the light; the return of the sun, it is good to worship the light of consciousness for it is from the light of consciousness that things arise; just as it is the return of the sun that will allow the seeds to grow and abundance to flower.

The Paper & The Mirror

Nearly all therapy, personal development and self-help is based on the idea of learning, improving ourselves and having better habits or more skills.  We may improve our ability to meditate so we have less distracting thoughts. Or perhaps we will remove some past traumas and issues through therapy so we can be more effective in the present. Or even go to the gym and exercise more and improve our health and fitness. All of these are based on the idea of a journey to a better state and they have a long history. In America, self-improvement is virtually a national duty and even classically and mythologically, The Hero's Journey involves getting to some better place. Essentially it is seeing us as a thing to be improved. We are like a sheet of paper where past writing can be erased, new and better words written, and creases ironed out.

But there is another perspective which is deeper and very different. It is the perspective that we are not like a sheet of paper but like a perfect mirror reflecting whatever is there equally and holding on to nothing. The mirror is forever pure, unsullied infinitely open and clear.  This could be called our Natural Presence; recognising this enlightened state as our true nature and present now. It does not have to be achieved through effort. The analogies to this are, traditionally in Tibetan teachings in particular, being like the open blue sky; vast and not reduced by the flight of birds or passage of clouds (ie. thoughts, sensations or dramas). We are then not experiencing ourselves as a thing to be changed but as without essential substance, a space through which thoughts, feelings and sensations pass from within us and impressions from around us.

The first approach is useful and can work for many provided they have enough of a sense of ego available to be improved (unfortunately for some, they do not and then self-help books are cruel in promising what they cannot deliver). However, it is essential to realise that the very success in striving with the ego for whatever we are trying to achieve - including more compassion or wisdom; has the likely effect of binding us to that ego. That identification is then an obstacle.  Becoming "Empty, Loose and Natural" and using practises which can give a direct experience of our innate spaciousness beyond duality is then the only remedy. Energy work cannot do this as energy work is building something such as improved flow of energy in the body or more balanced chakras. In Dzogchen the experience of their basic open-eyed meditation method, of relaxing in to infinite openness and allowing everything to arise offering it hospitality as each thought, feeling or sensation is self-liberating and will dissolve into space on its own.  The Self-Enquiry method of Ramana Maharshi with the question of who is the experiencer is part of this pathless path. In tantra there is also the possibility of using ritual and intention and some energy practices to dissolve into the Divine becoming the vast spaciousness as Shiva.

Paper and Mirror both have dangers. For Paper it is the endless nature of self-improvement and the possible risks of pride and attachment ("look at how hard I am trying, or how much insight I have", or its inversion "look how messed up I am!"). For the Mirror each way has dangers; sleepiness or dissociation or being stuck in the Mind with the question "Who am I?". Tantra is the most dangerous of all; addiction to intensity, and grandiose inflation are the two most common ("Wow, that was amazing!" and "I am a Goddess")

In some ways the first approach; as paper is more like Shakti, about creating things and the second more like Shiva, the open ground of consciousness itself.  In tantra; Shiva is the ground on which Shakti, the creative power of life can dance the world into being.  Chaitanyamatma can be translated as "Everything is Consciousness"  and is the first Shiva sutra, in Kashmir Shavism. In my view the highest teachings of tantra.

So; work at improving the Paper but open to some opportunities which may give the direct experience of  the Mirror as Space itself. In tantra workshops and in individual sessions this may arise but can never be engineered. Don't become too busy with self-improvement; there is no self - its a trap!

Equinox!

5am this morning, in our tantric temple in Wiltshire - the exact time of the Spring Equinox. I light the havan kund on the central sri yantra and make offerings of gee, rice and cow dung into the flames; chanting the Maha Mrityunjay Mantra 108 times. The mantra is to Shiva as the "three eyed one" that is one who has the third eye open.  Western neo-tantra places a huge emphasis on energy; breath sound and movement and all forms of Shakti, the Goddess. However, in most forms of traditional tantra consciousness is everything; it is the foundation of all, including the dance of Shakti to bring everything in to existence. The three eyed one expresses this sense of all-seeing presence and awareness.  The Equinox, the equal balance of day and night is a perfect time to meditate on the balance of Shiva and Shakti, consciousness and energy.