Category Archives: Tantra

Naṭarāja and the Two Paths of Yoga

The image of Naṭarāja, Śiva as the Lord of Dance, encapsulates many beautiful teachings. To begin, take a moment to pause and consider your impression of Naṭarāja (there is an image below).

– For a few moments take in the feel of Naṭarāja —not so much the specific details, but the overall presence of the image and how it resonates with you.

– Write about your general sense of this image.

Whatever you see is what you see, but one of the main things the image elicits is, of course, a dance. Naṭarāja is dancing, but there is also a sense of serenity. His face is serene; he is very steady and aligned along a central axis. Yet this is a wild dance, and Naṭarāja’s hair is flying about. So here there is a representation of both the wild dance and a serene center.

One way to think of these qualities relates to the meaning of Śiva as the ground of being, the unmanifest, quiet and centered, stillness itself. But also in the image of Naṭarāja, Śiva is dancing the world into manifestation. From the center of his dance, everything begins to pulsate, and all of manifestation occurs. He’s starting the whole wheel turning, from which all that is manifest is created. So there is an aspect of Śiva as the cosmic dancer dancing life itself into existence.

These two aspects of Naṭarāja are related to a thread that runs throughout yoga philosophy and is mirrored in the modern yoga scene: the contrast and choice between what are termed nivṛtti and pravṛtti paths of yoga. The term vṛtti relates to turning or revolving. Nivṛtti is turning away from the world. This path requires renouncing the world and all associated desires. Pravṛtti is turning toward the world. This path involves engaging in the world. So there is a general contrast between two paths of yoga: the nivṛtti, or renunciate path, and pravṛtti, the householder path.

When I first began my yoga journey, the perceived push toward asceticism in the yoga world was very confusing to me. I began my practice in a very rigorous yoga school that emphasized breath, a steady gaze, and a prescribed sequence of postures. It required immense discipline, focus, and dedication. Through that practice, I got a glimpse of the quiet mind, a still point, that part of me that was watching, the draṣṭṛ/seer, that serene center reflected in Naṭarāja’s face and centeredness.

I began to have larger questions about the path of yoga and started exploring the philosophy underlying the practice. At that time, there weren’t many texts or books on yoga, but one that was available was the Yoga Sūtra, which delineates an ascetic or renunciate path, turning awareness inward and away from the world. I began to understand how such a philosophy could lead to a strict and controlled approach toward the body and mind, which was what I was experiencing in my āsana practice. I was so perplexed by this perspective, which didn’t resonate with me. Again and again, I found myself asking, If the goal of yoga is to subjugate the body and withdraw the mind from the world, why are we born into these bodies, into this world, with the gift of such active minds?

When I encountered a different yoga āsana school that honored the body, mind, and all of manifestation as part of a divine pulsation, it drew me in. It resonated with what I sensed intuitively. I found out that this approach was based on Tantric yoga philosophy, a development that came later than the Classical Yoga of Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra. And Tantra acknowledges a householder path for those who choose to function in society and all that entails.

I felt lucky to have experienced both of these schools, and it felt that each had a piece of the truth, yet I struggled to reconcile them. This is the paradox represented in Naṭarāja, the serenely quiet yogi and the wild dancer. Eventually I realized what was missing from these schools of yoga āsana was the practice of meditation. In both, there was a sense that one should be meditating, but no method was explicitly integrated. So when I saw the opportunity to begin practicing and studying a Tantric-based meditation method, I dove right in.

Along with receiving a meditation practice for householders, I learned how the practice worked, which allowed me to assimilate my previous experiences. I came full circle back to the teachings of Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra with its emphasis on meditation and practice. And as I began studying Tantra, I confirmed that there was more than the ascetic path, as I’d always intuited. The meditative state is not the end but the beginning. Through meditation, we connect to the ground of being, which supports us as we then move through everyday householder activities.

Patañjali’s Yoga Sūtra tells us the ultimate limb of yoga is samādhi, that state of enstatic, or internal, awareness. But Tantra represents a path that leads to more stages of yoga beyond samādhi. These further stages allow one to live a fully embodied life from a place of expanded awareness. One can experience the Divine while embodying the householder life. In this way, Yoga and meditation can be a support in the many dances in life.

Reflect and Explore

How do you see the relationship between practices that move you inwardly and living your life fully as a householder?

Have you experienced any conflict regarding these two paths of nivṛtti/inward turning/renunciate and pravṛtti/outward turning/householder?

How have you experienced yoga practice supporting householder life?

Svātantrya

A fundamental teaching of Tantra occurs in the beginning of the Pratyabhijñā-hṛdayam: “Consciousness (Citi) in her freedom brings about everything in the universe” (PH 1). The highest Absolute reality as the ground of being manifests relative reality out of its own freedom. The power of freedom, the svātantrya-śakti, is considered the highest form of the power of Consciousness.

Svatantra is an extraordinary and important concept. Usually translated as “free,” it also means “independent,” in that there is no reliance on anything else. The absolute Citi manifests everything as a result of its freedom, or svātantrya. At the level of the highest reality, the absolute Citi is completely free. The freedom implied in svātantrya is a much larger concept than simply liberty and the pursuit of happiness. At the level of the Absolute, it means freedom from any limiting factors, including time, space, and form. It is the ability to be anywhere as anything at any time. It seems inconceivable.

The prefix sva means “self,” and tantra can mean “loom,” (as in “weaving”), so another interpretation of this word is “self-weaving.” She takes the strands of existence and weaves them into the manifest world as we know it. I love this definition, as it invokes the image of our lives as a piece of cloth or a quilt that we create over a lifetime. So the question becomes: What do you want the quilt to be like? All your thoughts and behavior weave what becomes the fabric of your current life and, the tradition says, future lives. This concept of freedom, svātantrya, or self-weaving, is important to consider in all levels of reality. On the level of the relative manifest world, including the path of yoga, it is important to consider how freedom of choice is exercised in all of our actions.

As a fundamental quality of the Absolute, svatantra means that the Highest is completely unlimited, independent, and absolutely free. And out of that freedom, It dances everything into existence. Human beings are the result of that dance. As a wave on the ocean of Consciousness, we also have a fair amount of freedom, though not the unlimited freedom of the Absolute itself. As relative beings, by virtue of being embodied, we are more or less limited depending on our embodied form, social circumstances, progression on the path of yoga, and so on.

In everyday life, choices are often made unconsciously. We might not understand that we are even making a choice or that there are different options. We just mindlessly carry on, often out of personal habit or prescribed social convention. For example, we always brush our teeth or commute to work in a certain way, without even thinking about it. With a pause, we can see how habitual ways of thinking and general mindsets are being activated.

Many times when facing challenging situations, we yearn to go back to “normal,” which essentially means enacting old behavioral patterns. That may not necessarily be bad, but each moment is an opportunity to pause and evaluate whether “normal” is the highest way of being for everyone involved. There is an opportunity to consciously examine these patterns. Then, out of freedom, we can choose how to be. Or, we can unconsciously allow the old patterns to dominate and reiterate, which affects not only our personal lives but society at large.

We think of freedom as a birthright, but it isn’t about the ability to do or enact anything without recourse. Ultimately this can lead to bondage on so many levels. As embodied beings, svātantrya/freedom is being free of the bonds of unconscious, habitual, saṃskāric patterns so that one acts consciously from the highest accessible place, bringing the greatest possible alignment to any given situation.

I once had a teacher who suggested I consider whether or not every one of my actions would lead me farther along the path of yoga. In some ways, this is a really heavy teaching, because it puts responsibility for our lives squarely on us and requires constant mindfulness. It means that we each are responsible for how we weave the fabric of our lives. In each moment, there is a choice to create a more aligned, integrated, and joyful life out of freedom—or one can choose misalignment, disintegration, and suffering.

REFLECT AND EXPLORE

Contemplate the concept of svātantrya. How do you see it playing out in your life?

To what degree do you feel free? Consider your thoughts, feelings, and actions.

What inhibits you from feeling free? What encourages a feeling of freedom?

Are there circumstances in which you unconsciously limit your freedom of choice and/or expression?

Under which circumstances do you feel most free?

IGNORANCE

The yoga tradition asserts that at essence we are each divine, yet this isn’t what most of us experience. Somehow we don’t know that, we’ve forgotten our hearts as we become entangled in our surface lives. One way this forgetfulness is expressed in the tradition is as avidyā. Vidyā means “knowledge,” and adding the negator a indicates that avidyā is a lack of knowledge, generally translated as “ignorance.” We are ignorant of who we are at essence.

YS 2.5 anitya-aśuci-duḥkha-anātmasu nitya-śuci-sukha-ātma-khyātir-avidyā
anityta: not eternal, impermanent, transitory
aśuci: impure
duḥkha: pain, sorrow
anātmasu: not-Self
nitya: eternal
śuci: pure, clear
sukha: happiness, joy
ātma: Self
khyāti: perception
avidyā: ignorance
Ignorance is confusing the transitory, impure, and painful not-self with the eternal, pure, joyful Self.

The Yoga Sūtras lists ignorance as one of the five kleśas, which are impediments or afflictions that are the underlying causes of suffering. Avidyā, or ignorance, is given as the primary ground from which the other kleśas are born (YS 2.4). Also, YS 2.5 indicates that ignorance leads to a fundamental confusion. Instead of experiencing the ātma/Self, which is eternal, pure, and joyful, we identify with the surface self (the an-ātma or “not-self,”), which is transitory, impure, and painful.

SS 1.2 jñānaṃ bandhaḥ
jñāna: knowledge
bandhaḥ: bondage
[Limited] knowledge is bondage.

A related way of thinking about this is that we’ve forgotten caitanyam ātmā (SS 1.1), “Consciousness is the self/ātma.” And in the Śiva Sūtra, immediately after proclaiming this highest teaching in the first sūtra, the next sūtra, SS 1.2, says, “Limited knowledge is bondage.” In his commentary, Kṣemarāja points to two ways this limited knowledge manifests, which is similar to what is outlined in YS 2.5. (Note the use of “ātma” in both YS 2.5 and SS 1.1.)

The first type of limited knowledge is thinking of ourselves in limited terms. Our everyday awareness thinks that all we are is our dance on the surface of life. We think the totality of existence is that part of the iceberg above the water. We are sucked into the daily drama of life and identify completely with it.

A second way knowledge is limited is not recognizing that we are in fact Consciousness itself. We don’t know ourselves as the ocean of Consciousness. We fail to penetrate beyond the surface awareness to discover the heart of who we are at the depths.

The teaching on ignorance is fundamental and prevalent throughout the tradition of yoga, and many others. Many mechanisms are posited for how this comes to be, which we will consider sometime in the future.

REFLECT AND EXPLORE

Give your definition of ignorance/avidyā.

Consider YS 2.5 and SS 1.2 and the two ways ignorance is described. Put these into your own words.

How do you see ignorance manifesting in your life?

How do you see ignorance manifesting in the world at large?

caitanyam-ātmā

Throughout human history, we’ve known there’s more than meets the physical eye, and scientists have spent a great amount of effort investigating the physical world, from the microscopic to the boundaries of our universe and beyond. Research on human consciousness has lagged behind somewhat, but there are well-developed philosophies elaborated by those who spent time investigating it.

Historically, these are the ṛṣis, the seers, the see-ers—those who have turned their awareness inside to their own consciousness—exploring and investigating its makeup to describe the nature of reality. And what some of these seers discovered—not unlike what modern science has discovered—is that there is a unifying energy, a source that underlies, unfolds, and enfolds all of the material world.

The Tantric tradition articulates that beyond the physical reality and our everyday bodily existence there is a Sourceplace that is the ground of being, which pulsates everything into existence as part of Itself. This statement is such an extraordinary and paradoxical teaching that it is challenging for us to understand within the limited perspective of our body-mind.

In fact, some traditions simply say “it” cannot be described and refuse to do so. And they are right to some extent, because any words will inevitably fall short of fully representing the highest reality. This unmanifest sourceplace has been given many names in the different streams and traditions of yoga. The Upaniṣads speak of Brahman, and the Tantric tradition speaks of Śiva, Śiva-Śakti, Cit, and Citi, among other names.

The Tantric tradition asserts that everything emanates into existence from Source, including you. You are not separate. You are Consciousness. This profound and core teaching requires a willingness to sit with paradox. For now, simply allow these ideas to permeate your awareness.

Before going further, stop to contemplate how YOU think about this highest sourceplace.

Ask yourself

Who am I?

What animates your everyday consciousness? Where does your moment-by-moment awareness come from?

What is beneath the surface awareness?

Do you think of a higher consciousness as separate from you, or part of you?

Is it possible that you are God incarnate?

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SS 1.1 caitanyam–ātmā

caitanyam: supreme Consciousness

ātmā:Self

Consciousness is the Self.

The first sūtra from the core text of Tantra, the Śiva Sūtra, says that the highest reality, Caitanya, is our very own self, ātmā (SS 1.1). The first word of this first sūtra, caitanya, comes from the word cit, meaning “Consciousness,” pure eternal intelligence. As already noted, this Highest Consciousness has many names including Cit. This sūtra indicates that Cit is the nature of the Self, here called the ātmā.

Ātma or ātman is a word used in many of the older texts, particularly the Upaniṣads, to name individual Consciousness, that spark of divinity or spirit within each of us. SS 1.1 is simply translated as: “Consciousness is the Self.” The full, free, perfect Consciousness is the true Self and the essence of the individual self. This is so important to remember: in Tantric philosophy, when discussing the Highest, we are not talking about something separate or out there but, instead, that which is our own innate consciousness.

Word order is important in these sūtra texts, and “Consciousness” is the first word of the first sūtra, indicating that it is the most important and highest teaching of this text. Then the first sūtra, “Consciousness is the Self,” indicates that supreme Consciousness manifests as our very own Self. Part of how this sūtra encapsulates the highest teaching is that it captures the paradox of our humanity.

There is a sense that every human being at essence is good, full, and perfect, which some call “divine.” Yet, as individuals in the domain of the relative manifest reality, we don’t necessarily experience ourselves and others as divine. Turning the translation around to “Self is Consciousness” in this sūtra indicates there is a pathway from our individual self back to the absolute Consciousness. This is our path of yoga.

REFLECT AND EXPLORE

Contemplate any of the following:

– the notion of Consciousness

– the notion of Self/ātmā

– the alternate translations of SS 1.1 as “Consciousness is the self” and “Self is Consciousness.”

Consider the statement “I am Consciousness.” How have you experienced this?