Theos-Talk Archives (December 1998 Message tl00029)

On 12/05/98, ""W. Dallas TenBroeck" <dalval@nwc.net>" wrote:
> Dec 4th 1998
>
> Dallas offers:
>
> In several postings I notice questions flying back and forth
> concerning tantrika instructions and in particular those
> concerned with Kamamudra, Kundalini, Meditation ( and its
> effects) and I wonder that (what seems to me) to be the basic
> idea behind these considerations does not seem to ring out clear.
> To me it is MOTIVE.
>
> Why are these things done or investigated ?  Curiosity, the
> search for personal power or domination ?  And, if there is some
> knowledge attained, what then ?  What does the attainment of
> information or of some "power" (?) confer ?
>
> A study of Buddhism, Lamaism, Tantrikaism, etc... provide what as
> a conclusion?

I'm not sure I understand everything said in this post.  But it seems a
misconception of yabyum is at the basis of it.  The feminine consort of a
Buddha of the Mandala is Prajna.  In embryonic form, as the bodhi seed, she
is conscience.  The Buddha is upaya, the skilled activation of Wisdom.  The
symbolism of sexual union comes in a very traditional culture where free
sex and western hedonism (including western ego-hedonism of playing at
spirituality and giving oneself fancy lodge-decree titles such as made
Krishnamurti sick) are strongly condemned.  The symbol is one of an inner
kind of marriage.  It is the marriage of awareness to conscience (although
both awareness and conscience have undergone a major inner evolution).  In
ordinary humans, conscience is a weak knowledge of right and wrong (wisdom
pre-school 101).  Tanha, or desire, is a form of self-concern that places
self before others.  So, often, there is inner conflict between what one
wants to do and what one ought to do.  Unfortunately, sex as powerful force
is often the victimized vehicle for the playing out of the tanhic ego.
Tanha rides piggy-backed on sex.  So, yabyum means that there is in the
Buddha a permanent (can't be divorced) marriage of his awareness and all
his energies to conscience in an inner fusion so strong that conscience is
a stronger force than sex and tanha is destroyed.  But conscience has
revealed herself to be the Wisdom of the Dharmabody.  Thus, the Adi Buddha
and Samanabhadra are the two most often show in yabyum.  Conscience is a
seed of a Wisdom of vast dimensions.  Tantra is not about powers.  Tantra =
super-ethics.

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