Tantra or Vedanta, Choosing the Best Path

[Leo Volont]

Tantra or Vedanta, Choosing the Best Path.

If one ever intellectually reflects upon what one is doing, then one inevitably begins to discern categories, and in the World of Enlightened Spirituality, there are two very important and distinct categories – Tantra and Vedanta.

The best and most regarded instance of Tantra practice is Kundalini Yoga but there are many other disciplines that go the same way – Tai Chi, and Sufi Ecstatics.  All of this is Tantra.  Well, then, what defines Tantra?  The Tantrics were of the school that you shoot the energy up and you cross your fingers regarding the possible results.  The Possibilities, while being unpredictable, even dangerous, could also be quite spectacular – a double-edged sword, but one could gamble one's Fate that it would cut in one's favor.   

But Vedanta stands for practices that are much safer and definitely more respectable (one never hears about "Sexual Vedanta").  Vedanta specifies that no substantial Spiritual Progress can be attained without first achieving a degree of Perfection in every Human Dimension – Mind, Heart and Will – that one would have to square away the big Triple Three Yogas – Jnana, Bhakti and Karma Yoga.  Knowledge, Love and all the Karma of one's Will and Actions – all had to be purified and etherealized.  When all of that, that is, all of one's complete Life, could be set in order... when the Fruit would be not only Ripe but perfectly wholesome and sweet... then the power would finally rise into a receptive and prepared Vehicle.  The Theory is that once one succeeds in Vedanta, then one automatically receives all that one could ever hope from Tantra. 

But, it may sound better than it actually is or ever can be.  Although I agree wholeheartedly that one has a Moral Obligation to be as 'perfect' as one can manage to be, still, as an old man quickly running out of Time, the Tantric exhortation to effectively "damn the torpedoes!  Full speed ahead!" looks better and better.  Save Perfection for later.  Energize Now.

Because to grasp the Vedantic Perfection is to reach for the Stars.  It is an admirable Path, even obligatory if one believes in Evolution, but largely Futile.  In an active life, karma will always be complicated.  One often falls from the Razor's Edge.  In helping some, one inevitably steps upon the toes of others.  Help the Poor and the Rich cry "unfair", as we are told that Free Food spoils the Market for those who buy and sell (and we are always reminded that the Market is far more important than Life and Death).  Then, regarding Knowledge, I've learned much knowledge, but knowledge is like a collection of maps to a prisoner confined in jail – One knows of the Possibilities but they are all out of closed off.  For Maps to become useful, first one needs to break through the Wall.   Without a fundamental change, a transition to transcendence, all the possibilities enumerated in the countless books on Spirituality, while some incremental progress is achievable, any absolute perfection is quite impossible.  And then where Love is concerned, while it is a pretty thought that one can love one's own Enemies, it becomes impossible when asked to love other people's Enemies – those who hate everybody else whom one loves.  The Good Shepherd cannot love the Wolves without betraying his Sheep who are his first Duty.

So while the inevitable contingencies of life make Vedanta the Ideal but impossible choice, Tantra has its risks but also its results.  The Kundalini Energy will light one up, and then one's impurities will either burn off, or one will burn up.  And so the final argument becomes "No Guts, No Glory".

[Flannery]

Tantra is about letting what is repressed come to the surface and then drop it, let it go.