The Tantras themselves came from a core need of the master and of the disciple, to form a bridge between them. Tantra is more famous than known. That is, many people have heard of tantra, but they know less about it than they generally heard. When people meet tantra, often they meet a workshop, but not the tantric texts. It is quite unique for tantra, it is quite a different approach. If you come to give a lecture on Christianity, people will probably expect that you speak about the Bible and that you have at least read the Bible. But, in today’s tantric world, there are a lot of, not just tantra students, but even tantra teachers, who know very little and have read very little of the actual Tantras.
Reading the Tantras Takes Skill
It is indeed more difficult to read the Tantras than to read the New Testament. It comes from a different civilization, it has a different rhythm, we always read translations, it is a little more delicate and takes a little bit more skill. In this article, we will give you a general taster. There is a course from one of our teachers, Adinatha, speaking about the Shiva Sutra for six years, sutra by sutra. You can explore more in the course of Kashmiri Shaivism. This article is like a taster, so you can have curiosity and check our other articles about sacred texts, and why not read the Tantras themselves?
The Tantras date back a few thousand years. Some people consider some of the Upanishads as part of the Tantras. For sure in the time of the Buddha, he said: “I leave you with Sutra and Tantra.” Two branches. There are many books describing the difference between Tantra and Sutra, supervised by the Dalai Lama. The conclusion was that the Sutras don’t include deity worship and the Tantras do.
A Guide Map for Higher States of Consciousness
If you can imagine that you experience a lot of very high states of consciousness, and then you need to explain them because you feel compassion in your heart and want others to experience such high states of consciousness. Then you would want to create a map for others.
This map is an interior map because we do something inside in order to reach such high states of consciousness, which are very liberating, elevating, awakened states. The authentic Tantras were written from very elevated states of consciousness, not from the state of consciousness that most people experience life in their day-to-day. They were written from divine inspiration and mark the way to reach from an ordinary state of consciousness – to up there. The process of spiritual awakening is not a walk in the park. We need to rise from our ordinary, limited, mind-based, mentally agitated, egoistic, selfish, very limited state of consciousness. Tantra means – “Tan – tool” and “Tra – expansion” – tools for the expansion of consciousness. As we move from a limited state of consciousness, which is full of suffering, into higher, more peaceful, expanded, elevated states of consciousness, all sorts of things happen.
If you read biographies of saints and masters from all traditions, you can see that every choice counts. It is a very delicate path. Swami Mukunananda, for example, left home at the age of 15 and became a wandering monk. He met his master after more than a decade of very intense spiritual practice by himself. He received initiation from his master, the great Bhagavan Nityananda. His state of consciousness rose so much, he was walking next to some trees, everything became light, then his body experienced so much pain the next week that he was shouting uncontrollably thinking he had gone crazy. Divine guidance led him to a house where he felt, “I need to open that closet and that book”, and he would read there exactly the same state of consciousness he had experienced.
A Tuning Fork for Eternal Truth
In conclusion, the Tantras are essential. They are like a tuning fork. We rise to a high spiritual experience – and then we look in the text. Then we have a spiritual map, directly from a master
You can see in the life of Gopi Krishna for example, who did not have a master and did not have a grip on a sacred text. It took him fifteen years of agony, through the process of awakening of kundalini. He lost love for his children, he thought he was dying several times, and somehow he improvised with very difficult trial and error and was able to attain a certain spiritual level, but he would have reached much higher if he had inquired from the texts and inquired from a master.
The Tantras also describe various spiritual practices, rituals, cosmology, astrology, predictions for the future, the movement of epochs and so on.
A series of articles on tantric texts have been published on this website, which you can check out for a more in-depth inquiry and fuel your knowledge and aspiration for the tantric path and for higher states of consciousness.
This article was transcribed and edited by Zita Jerković from the following video: