Part Two: Shiva, Shakti and the Art of Experience

If we look carefully at our experience, we discover something very interesting. We are aware of the body, but we are also aware of the fact that we have a body. We are aware of thoughts, but we can also observe thoughts. We experience emotions, yet there is something within us capable of knowing that an emotion is taking place.

What is this knowing?

We often use the word consciousness very casually, but consciousness is difficult to define because every definition is itself appearing within consciousness. We can describe its qualities, discuss different philosophical interpretations and study the functioning of the brain, but the immediate fact remains that experience is taking place and that it is known.

Tantra begins with this mystery.

Shiva is used symbolically to represent pure consciousness, while Shakti represents the dynamic energy of consciousness. Creation, movement, perception, thought and experience belong to the field of Shakti. Without consciousness there can be no known experience, and without its dynamic expression there would be no experience through which consciousness could be recognised.

This relationship between Shiva and Shakti is not merely mythology. It provides a way of understanding existence and our own experience. Consciousness is not something that exists somewhere far away from ordinary life. The possibility of recognising consciousness is present within every moment of experience.

The difficulty is that we usually identify completely with the movement of Shakti. We become absorbed in thoughts, emotions, ambitions, fears, desires and memories. We rarely stop to ask what is aware of all this movement.

Spirituality cannot remain in books

This is where spiritual practice becomes important. Reading about Yoga and Tantra can give us useful maps, but a map is not the territory. We cannot understand meditation simply by reading about meditation. We cannot understand Pranayama merely by knowing its technical instructions. We cannot understand consciousness by collecting philosophical explanations.

At some point, experience has to begin.

This does not mean that every unusual experience is spiritual, nor does it mean that psychological difficulty should automatically be interpreted as spiritual awakening. Periods of confusion, dissatisfaction or existential questioning can certainly cause a person to look more deeply into life, but serious psychological distress should never be romanticised or ignored. Spiritual practice requires discrimination as much as openness.

Sometimes, however, the structures through which we have understood ourselves begin to break down. The things that previously gave us certainty may no longer satisfy us. We may begin to question what we considered important, who we believe ourselves to be and what we are actually seeking.

Such a period can become an important turning point.

Instead of immediately trying to cover the uncertainty with another belief system, we can learn to remain present and investigate what is happening. This requires courage because the mind generally wants conclusions. It wants someone to tell us what everything means.

Yoga and Tantra ask us to experience first and conclude later.

Yoga as a tool of Tantra

Yoga and Tantra should not be understood as two completely separate systems competing with each other. Historically and philosophically, their relationship is much more intimate.

Yoga provides many of the tools through which the practitioner can prepare, purify and stabilise the body and mind. Asana develops steadiness, Pranayama works with the breath and vital energy, Pratyahara turns awareness inward, Dharana develops concentration and Dhyana deepens meditation. Shatkarma, Mantra, Mudra, Bandha and other traditional practices also have their place within the broader field of Yoga and Tantra.

Patanjali's Yoga Sutras present one highly refined system of Yoga, but they should not be mistaken for a complete historical definition of everything that has ever been called Yoga. Yoga existed before Patanjali, and many streams of Yoga developed alongside and after the classical system represented by the Sutras.

The eight limbs of Patanjali should also not be understood simply as eight steps that every practitioner must complete one after another in a rigid sequence. They are interconnected dimensions of practice. A traditional practitioner may work with several of them together according to his or her needs and stage of development.

This is why the living practice of a Sadhu or serious practitioner may appear very different from the modern idea of attending a Yoga class. One person may combine asana with Pranayama, another may spend long periods in Dharana and Dhyana, while another may emphasise Mantra, worship, self inquiry or other Tantric practices.

The external form can vary considerably. The underlying purpose is the refinement of awareness.

Going deeper into duality

There is an important distinction between trying to escape duality and understanding duality.

Most of us experience duality and immediately want one side to disappear. We want pleasure without pain, success without failure, certainty without uncertainty. But Yoga does something more subtle. It takes us deeper into the nature of duality so that we can understand how the mind creates and maintains these divisions.

As awareness becomes clearer, we begin to see that opposites are not always as separate as we imagined. Pleasure and pain belong to experience. Attraction and aversion belong to the mind. Success and failure depend upon our interpretation of events.

This does not mean that all distinctions disappear in ordinary life. We still need discrimination. We still need to know what is appropriate and what is harmful. The difference is that we are no longer completely trapped by the psychological conflict created around those distinctions.

Tantra takes this understanding further by asking us to encounter life directly. Rather than constantly trying to escape experience, we learn to use experience as a means of awakening awareness.

This is why Tantra can include the body, the senses, breath, mantra, ritual, meditation and the energies of life. Nothing has to be rejected merely because it belongs to the world of experience. What matters is whether our relationship with it is conscious or unconscious.

Yoga and Tantra require different attitudes

There is sometimes an attempt to describe Yoga and Tantra as completely opposite approaches. Yoga is said to require withdrawal, silence and solitude, while Tantra is presented as a path of remaining fully engaged with society and life. There is some truth in the distinction, but reality is not so simple.

Different stages of practice require different environments. A practitioner may need periods of silence and withdrawal to develop concentration, while at another time the same practitioner may need to discover whether that awareness can remain stable in ordinary life.

Renunciation and engagement are therefore not necessarily enemies. The deeper question is attachment.

A person can live alone and remain completely attached to the world through memory and imagination. Another person can live within society while developing considerable inner freedom. External circumstances can support practice, but they do not automatically produce awareness.

This is where Tantra offers an important challenge. Can we remain conscious while living? Can we observe ourselves while speaking, working, eating, relating to others and responding to difficult situations? Can ordinary experience become part of our practice rather than an interruption to it?

These are practical questions, not philosophical exercises.

The art of life

Ultimately, both Yoga and Tantra are concerned with the same fundamental possibility: that human beings can live with greater awareness than they ordinarily do.

Yoga gives us methods for understanding and refining the body, breath, senses and mind. Tantra teaches us to recognise the sacred dimension of existence itself and to use life as a field of experience. The traditions may use different languages and methods, but neither is asking us merely to collect information.

They are asking us to look.

Look at the body. Look at the breath. Look at the mind. Look at desire, fear, attachment and resistance. Look at the way we create an image of ourselves and then spend much of our life defending it. Look at the moments when that image becomes uncertain. Look at the awareness that knows all of these things.

Perhaps this is where the real art of life begins.

The purpose of Yoga is not to create another identity called “a Yogi”. The purpose of Tantra is not to create another set of beliefs. Both traditions ultimately point us towards direct experience and a deeper understanding of consciousness.

We may begin by studying the teachings, practising asana, learning Pranayama, meditating or exploring Mantra. These are valuable beginnings. But sooner or later we have to move beyond the idea that knowing about Yoga is the same as practising Yoga.

The elephant has to be experienced, not merely described.

And perhaps that is the real invitation of Yoga and Tantra: not to believe that we have already understood the whole, but to remain curious enough to keep looking.

Copyright 2016 SWAN Yoga Retreat, Assagao, Goa, India