InnerSelf.com

One day the Buddha was walking with Ananda, his favorite disciple. He was deeply engrossed in answering a question. A fly landed on Buddha's forehead and he vigorously shooed it away. At that moment he stopped what he was doing and repeated the act. Ananda asked him, "Why are you shooing the fly away again, when it has gone?" Buddha replied, "I was so engrossed in your question that I was unconscious of what I had done. I am doing it again, to know it consciously." 

This is the essence of Western Tantra: "to know it consciously".

Tantra and Love

The Tantric act is a giving and a receiving. There is no taking. When giving and receiving reach their highest level of intensity then No-One is left. There is simply Love.

It is easier to discuss Love in the negative sense since being immersed in Love is beyond the subject/object duality and beyond time and space. Time and space are the ultimate signposts for logic, languages, definitions, and philosophical systems. However, they are useless when we try to define Love.

Returning to the Source

Love is not rational, nor is it the yearning for some person. Love is the core element of the Universe. Those individuals who frequently talk of love know little of it. More often they are feeling the compelling need to give or to receive the impossible. More often they are speaking of control, guilt, loneliness, or sex. Love is more; it is the compelling need to Merge -- to Melt -- to return to the Source. As the source is One, so must the Tantric couple finally disappear. What is left is simply Love itself.

The formula is simple. First there is Wholeness, then there is Division, then there is Wholeness. The second Wholeness is different from the first in that the major portion of it has to be earned. The remainder is added as a gift.

Ordinary life doesn't give us this opportunity and neither do our religions. We are too steeped in our needs and our ego. We are fighting off feelings of vulnerability, ineffectualness, loneliness, and death. To return to the Source is an experience out of the space-time continuum. It is without Thing/ness. Unlike other experiences, however, when it reaches sufficient depth a crystallization occurs which changes our whole orientation toward life. We realize at once that we are nearing Home.

Divided We Fall

Although we are born with this sense, we lose it in the natural process of becoming adults. To become an adult we must learn division. We are taught that the other is not us, that she/he is a potential enemy. We are taught to hold on to ourselves, never to rest or to let go. We are taught to identify with the things for which we strive. We are taught to believe that language is reality.

Our relationships are frequently empty and hollow. More often then not, they reflect our need for status, for power and escape. We demand the impossible from ourselves and everyone else. We are asleep, sound asleep, being lived by our instincts and learned habits of behavior, yet all the time believing that we are awake, conscious, and in charge.

Much of the misery in the world is the result of the frustrated desire to return, to melt, to merge, to be one. What I have presented inSecrets of Western Tantra is one way of making the journey. It will only help you if you work at it. This does not mean that you have to give up living your ordinary life. It does require a few hours of work each week. At some point real change will begin to happen. You will crystallize into the being you have always been but have forgotten. You will merge back into the whole, this time not as an ignorant infant, but as an innocent person. Once this transformation has taken place you will no longer have to ask any questions. You will be the answer. 

This article was excerpted from:

Secrets of Western Tantra: The Sexuality of the Middle Path,
by Christopher S. Hyatt, Ph.D.

Reprinted with permission of the publisher, New Falcon Publications, Tempe, Arizona, USA. www.newfalcon.com

More info. or order this book.

About The Author

Christopher S. Hyatt, Ph.D. was trained in both psycho-physiology and clinical psychology and practiced as a psychotherapist for many years. He has published many articles in peer-reviewed, professional journals. Today he is known as the world-famous author of a wide variety of books on psychology, sex, tantra, tarot, self-transformation, and Western magic. Among these books are: Tantra Without Tears;  Undoing Yourself With Energized Meditation and Other Devices;  The Tree of Lies;  and  Taboo: Sex, Religion and Magick.

Please Share This Article... Thank you :-)

You Might Also Like

Everybody for President...
by Swami Beyondananda. I come to you tonight to declare that I am not a serious candidate for President, and that is precisely why I am asking for your support....

Everyone Desires Happiness... Yes, Everyone!...
by B. Alan Wallace. It’s easy to like some people and it’s not very easy to like others. They don’t smile back! So it has to go deeper. If we continue to j...

Thinking: Good or Bad?...
by Andrew Weiss.  When most of us are introduced to the practice of meditation and mindfulness, usually our opinion is that thinking is bad. After all, we...

Are We Evolving?...
by Swami Sivananda Radha. Each culture sees human life as a progression through a series of stages... in an attempt to understand the evolution of human beings...

Five Types of Dreams...
by Gillian Kemp. There are five different types of dreams: ordinary, lucid, telepathic, premonitory, and nightmare. They often blend and merge with one another....