On both Saturday and Sunday, there were two intense asana classes followed by a 2.5/3 hour presentation on Tantra. I skipped the asana classes and attended both presentations.
Dr. Phillips, a Sanskrit scholar and philosophy professor at UT, gave the presentations. He actually comes to our classes and will correct our Sanskrit if we want. We are lucky to have him in our community.
On the first day, he presented the Upanisads and Bhagavad Gita, citing certain aspects and verses of each that he sees as precursors to Tantra. The karma and bhakti yoga discussed in the Gita definitely open the path for Tantra.
And then the next day, he gave us an overview of Tantra and talked about the great Kashmir Shaivite poet and commentator Abhinavagupta. Then he talked about the Kularnava Tantra, which is the text from which Anusara yoga gets its name.
It's impossible for me to relate all of the revelations I had just listening to these talks. They affirmed many of my core beliefs. I have been a seeker my whole life, and it wasn't until I stumbled into Tantra, and particularly Kashmir Shaivism, that I felt I had come "home." I literally stumbled into my first Anusara teacher, John Friend, in 1998. He has created this entire "system" of yoga based on the tantric philosophies of his guru and her direct lineage into K.S.
The essence of the philosophy is that all of life is auspicious. Even suffering is beauty-in-progress. And everything we do can be made an offering.
I really feel this way, and I really live my life this way. Every moment is gift, and everything I do is an offering of gratitude. I really try to be open and accepting of all that life has to offer. But of course it's not easy.
The other great piece in this philosophy is that life is not a problem. The body is not a problem. The monkey mind is not a problem. Everything is a means for liberation. And we co-create our existence with a higher power, by aligning ourselves to be in sync with the flow of Grace, of life around us. Enlightenment isn't something outside of us, or on top of a mountain we have to climb; enlightenment is already here, available to us at any time. We just have to become self-realized.
The mantra we began class with today comes from the Upanisads, and it roughly translates as:
"From the fullness, came fullness. Out of fullness, fullness returns. All is fullness."
In other words...Nothing's missing.
There is nowhere to go, nothing to do, nothing you can buy that will fill you; you are already perfect and full. Of course once you've accepted this, you have to get busy to take care and honor it and never forget it, and if you're a bodhisattva, you'll want to share this with all sentient beings to help end their suffering.
This is not to say that enlightenment doesn't require work; you must do a tremendous amount of work to OPEN and to make yourself available for this revelation. I believe that if more modern-day religious believers would become real practitioners, have a daily, personal, private spiritual discipline like yoga or meditation to rid themselves of judgment, and to open themselves to self-realization, we would have a much happier world. There are certain truths we can only access by sitting in quiet and finding the key to heaven hidden in our own hearts.
The bigger the bumper sticker, the smaller the spiritual truth.
Okay, that's my speech for today.
Come to my reading Tuesday night.
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