from the book Desire: The Tantric Path to Awakening
Kashmiri Shaivism stands in opposition to Indian tradition because it does not recognize castes and disagrees that mystical teachings and intimacy with the sacred texts be reserved for one of these castes, the Brahmans. It disagrees as well with any discrimination between men and women, and all social or ethnic discrimination. Indeed, not only do women have access to the teachings, but Kashmiris have also always believed that their capacities are deeper and more direct than men's. The tradition therefore includes a great number of yoginis and women of knowledge who serve the gods through the exercising of their art, the depth of their practice or their life force, all of which permit them to penetrate the most subtle mysteries. Navjivan Rastogi, an eminent specialist in Kashmiri Shaivism, writes in this regard:
"It may not be entirely out of point to connect this tremendous emphasis on the Shakti aspect [in the Krama system of Kashmiri Shaivism] with the spiritual activity undertaken by the women preceptors. The importance of the role played by the female teachers may be assessed from the fact that this system is said to have originated from the mouth of the Yoginis (lady ascetics)."
Yoginis, like all women, enjoy immense respect from Kashmiris; there is not a single text in which their value is minimized. They are often given the role of mothering the cyclical vision of things, a characteristic of Tantrism, as well as that of a teaching linked to an immediately comprehensible reality - one that knows how to avoid the trappings of a superfluous philosophical sophistication while reaching the greatest depth.
It is also said that Tantrism's attachment to reality rather than to the concept of illusion shared by certain Buddhists (from which Ch'an and the Yogacaras must be excluded) and by the Vedantists, is due, in part, to women's vision. For yoginis, there is absolutely no philosophy that cannot be understood and presented clearly to all people. No rituals, dogmas, beliefs, or biases isolate their followers from the rest of the world.
The power of woman finds its origin in the legendary tales where it is told that the gods were troubled by the appearance of a giant phallus that set about destroying paradise. This black stone linga was devastating forests and palaces, boring through lakes, filing down mountains and hills. The gods launched their armies against him, but no force could bring an end to the situation. Then the powerless gods remembered the Great Goddess whom, out of vanity, they had been ignoring. They went and bowed before her, made amends, and unanimously recognized her supremacy - on the condition that she put an end to the destructive linga. So the Great Goddess manifested herself in the sky, took hold of the giant phallus, and slipped him into her, whereupon he experienced such pleasure that his destructive madness was completely pacified.
Since then, it is said in Tantrism that woman represents power and that man incarnates the capacity for wonder, for marvel. A hymn to the goddess of the Saktisangama Tantra honors this creative force:
Woman is the creator of the Universe,
And the Universe is her form;
woman is the foundation of the world,
she is the true form of the body.
Whatever form she takes,
whether the form of a man or a woman,
is the superior form.
In woman is the form of all things,
of all that lives and moves in the world.
Thre is no jewel rarer than Woman,
no condition superior to that of woman.
The1'e is not, nor has been, nor will be
any destiny to equal that of woman.
There is no kingdom, no wealth,
to be compared with a woman;
there is not, nor has been, nor will be
any holy place like unto a woman.
There is no prayer to equal to woman.
There is not, nor has been, nor will be
Any yoga to compare with a woman,
No mystical formuls nor asceticism
To match a woman.
There are not, nor have been, nor will be
Any riches more valuable than a woman.
We Are What We Seek
Kashmiri thought is articulated in a series of simple affirmations:
- You are Shiva-Shakti.
- Shiva-Shakti is the Self.
- The universe is the play of your conscience
Even if we are not obsessed by the divine - which ultimately is but an image of our absolute Self - we find through this quest that the unity we long for is already present within us. What follows is a total easing of the body and mind, a harmony, a profound joy that every human being dreams of experiencing, because everyone knows that happiness is not dependent upon the accumulation of powers or possessions. "You are what you seek," the Tantric masters say.
The quest for this simple bliss, free from dogmas and religious beliefs, from submission to a priesthood, and from the hope of being sanctified by others, is the object of each person's search. This is a secular path par excellence. We simply want independence, harmony, a continual and deep enjoyment of the world that no fear or anxiety can tarnish.
The objective is simple. It can be shared by all people, be they materialist or be they attracted to it by spirituality, because this longing for happiness is everyone's. Attaining it is difficult because it will be not submitted to the least romanticism. This longing for happiness is founded on the acceptance of our solitude, thanks to which we will realize that we are connected to everything.
Belonging to groups often generates a kind of narcosis that gives us the illusion of sharing something missing from all the members of the group as individuals: completeness. Our main fear - fear of dissolution, of being nothing - keeps us from realizing that when we think we are one particular thing, and therefore isolated, we indeed become only that thing and lose the rest. In accepting that we are nothing, we gain the world. This logical progression is the key to the Tantric vision and to the creative role of desires and passions, which through our sensorality are seen as the fastest steed, like messengers for leading us to the Self. We must, however, agree on the way in which the Tantrics view desires and passions, and how they live them in an absolute manner.
The first question that bears asking is this: Is it possible to lead our whole lives with passion, and thus avoid feeling the earthquakes of passion's emergence into a life that has previously negated it? Many reasonable people would answer that passion inevitably leads to suffering. Indeed, the word passion comes from the Latin passio, which means "suffering."
This is a warped view that we are subjected to from a very early age. Adding to it is the fact that in general, those who attempt the experience of continual passion get burned, suffer, and fade away. We lack, therefore, any convincing examples and decide that it is more prudent to enter the passionate spheres only in those brief, inevitable moments when they overwhelm us, at which point we will draw from these life reservoirs in a despairing, hopeless way.
These violently abrupt changes exhaust us. The Tantric vision, on the other hand, is made of continuity in experience.
We have all experienced the profound inner tremoring of existence for a few seconds or a few hours. If we examine our past, we will remember having been, during our childhood or adolescence, completely connected to the world. Remembering this ecstatic communion with a person or an object will prepare us to go farther in accepting the passion of existence.
The more I immerse myself in Tantrism, the more I feel it is possible to find, in our culture as well, traces of this freedom, of this return to the source of existence, to simplicity, to the fundamental experience of the I Am that all people can share. There is no doubt for me that this manner of gliding toward freedom and original ecstasy through the senses, desire, and passion can find echoes of itself in all the traditions when they are deeply understood.
If I have chosen to plunge into the Kashmiri tradition, it is simply because this seemed to me the most direct path. To a degree I have also followed it because it was incarnated by a woman, the yogini Lalita Devi. I saw in this tradition a tribute to our most anciently held memory, the divinity of woman, and likewise an homage to today's woman, who carries this divinity within her and is able to transmit the deep feeling of this divinity to the sensitive and wonder-filled men whom she welcomes into her body. Thus, in presenting the principles of the Kashmiri path in relation to the senses, desires, and passions, my hope is that I might revive this memory in those belonging to other traditions so that they may meet in their own sources this remarkable life force and integrate it into their daily lives with total presence to reality. Breath: Door of Our Sensorality
If presence to sensations, emotions, and thoughts is to reach plenitude, everything must start with awareness of the breath. Rather than devoting ourselves from the start to breathing exercises, the Tantra masters advise us to become conscious of the manner in which we breathe. This one act of consciousness will calm and deepen the breath. There are never any new behaviors to apply, because the masters believe that nothing deep can be developed starting from the unconscious.
When we have become conscious of our way of breathing, we can allow the breath to find its proper place and its plenitude, very progressively encouraging complete breathing - on the condition that the process be founded on the emergence of consciousness and not on the idea of "doing," of applying a technique to obtain an effect. Nothing is done in Tantric yoga to obtain some future gratification; on the contrary, it offers "practices" whose fruits are immediately present in "the practice" itself. In this way we breathe solely to experience the profound harmony of breathing - nothing else.
Every morning, as soon as I awaken, while still in bed, I bring
