letters to surfers
I am fascinated by Tantric Yoga as a way of experiencing God.
What do you think about it?
by Robert Brow (www.brow.on.ca)
All forms of Yoga were originally designed as a preparation for deep
meditation with a view to experiencing oneness with the Absolute (see God
of Many Names on Monism). The practice of tantra may have
originated in Mahayana Buddhism when the emphasis moved from the monasteries
(sanghas) into more popular (Dravidian ?) magical practices including
the use of circle worship (chakra puja) of the mother goddess of
nature (shakti, usually known as Kali), magic circles (mandala),
hand gestures (mudra), and sexual symbols to convey the idea of
unity in duality. In India the devotees (shaktas) retained the theory
of transmigration, but they abandoned other essentials of traditional Hinduism
(about 600 AD). They rejected caste distinctions and indulged in the five
Ms: intoxicating drink (madya), meat (mamsa), fish (matsya),
hand gestures (mudra) and sexual intercourse (maithuna).
This was on the theory of purification by opposites (see Trevor Ling,
A History of Religion East and West, London, 1968, 269). In the
west tantric forms of yoga have been popularized to offer posture training,
hand gestures, breathing, picturing, massaging, and other techniques to
improve sexual performance. On this site we view God's kind
of love as inventing our sexual nature with a view to being perfected
in the love of heaven (see Creative
Love)
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