I'm feel like I'm gravitating towards a Tantric mindset.

[StarryNightshade]

I've been very inactive lately, mostly due to my insane school schedule, but also because I was sorting out my spiritual house. Some spring cleaning, if you will.

Although I'm initiated into a Vedic lineage, I honestly think I'm moving towards a more Tantric worldview.

In short:

• As I said in an earlier thread, I honestly don't think the gods are really that involved in our lives. They're there and they receive our devotion and sacrifices, but it's people who have to cultivate devotion and get their attention.
• I don't understand why we have to wait until we reach moksha until we experience God. If we are of God, surely we can experience them here and now? Our lives acting as a vehicle for transformation and reflect God's attributes while we're here on earth.
• Likewise, I don't think impurity is a "real" thing. It's just a thing we think we know as a result of believing we are fully separate from God.
• I realize that I don't really accept the general Vaishnava view of "moksha is staying in an upper heavenly plane serving Narayana for all of the eternity while we inhabit literal celestial bodies." For me, it's complete and utter surrender of our consciousness and returning to Devi. A drop returning to the ocean.
• I don't think delving into the not nicer parts of humanity is a bad thing. Humans are a mixed bag, and I think understanding this, or even embracing this, can be beneficial in our quest to liberation.
• Frankly, I'm feeling more and more attracted some of the darker aspects of Devi. Like, not just Kali, but the Mahavidyas.
• I'm barely a Brahmin, despite my Diksha. I don't think admitting that is detrimental. Honestly, most of the time I feel like a Ksatriya (I'm not an advocate of pacifism) or Vyasa (I'm a dirty capitalist and I like money).
• Also frankly, liberation is something that just isn't going to happen in this lifetime for me. Instead, while still embracing Devi in my life, why not strive for self-realization and, yes, even material satisfaction?

Title Edit: I feel like...

 

[SomeRandom]

May the Mother's love always fill your heart and wrap around you, Starry.
The Tantra paths have long been misrepresented by Colonialism and therefore a weird divide sometimes occurs, with Tantra being seen as magick and sex driven or "unorthodox." But this is unfair and often false. It is just another path designed to try to reach Ma, it's more meditative really. And actually crops up in Shaktism and Shaivism paths more than people like to admit. Because, well, like a lot of Hindu practices, it's based on personal preference. And at least the people I know tend to mix and match from both Tantra and non Tantric practices without really thinking about it. If one is drawn to the Divine Mother, particularly Kali and Durga, then Tantra interest often crops up almost by default, at least after a while. Since you seem to have had that pull towards the fierceness of Ma for a while now, I, for one, am not surprised by your feelings.

 

[Terese]

Good luck Starry, i hope you find meaning in Tantra

 

[Fireside_Hindu]

I've just recently started feeling a stronger pull toward Maa Kali and Maa Durga as well which I can trace back to my last visit to Varanasi in November. It was a difficult time, and there were some experiences there that have left a strong impression on me - namely the impression that the fiercer forms of the Mother are going to help me become a stronger (Literal, spiritual) person. I've come to see that maybe Devi didn't want to intimidate me at first, so she brought me in with the loving embrace of Maa Lakshmi, and now, to continue my spiritual journey it's time to address those areas where I feel timid and lack confidence. Devi's fiercer qualities inspire confidence in me, while Lakshmi Maa has a lap I can curl up in and feel secure.

I wouldn't say I'm moving toward a Tantric Path since that term still remains a little unclear to me despite my intense reading on the subject. But I do agree with the Tantric notion that we do not need to wait for moksha to experience Divinity and that, with the right mindset any action mundane or otherwise can be an opportunity to show devotion and connection to Mother.

 

[Aupmanyav]

Let your heart (mind) take you where it will. Just try to follow the 'dharma'.

 

[Vinayaka]

What is a tantric path?

 

[StarryNightshade]

What is a tantric path?

I take it as a path which is more meditative, a focus on the material world as a key part of one's path to liberation, a recognition of the fiercer aspects of the gods and of the darker aspects of humanity, an overall more mystical bent, duality in practice with the goal of absolute non-duality, and so on.

At least, that's how I see it. I could be 100% wrong.

 

[Jainarayan]

What is a tantric path?

I've never understood what tantra is. I read Tantra: Path of Ecstacy by Georg Feuerstein, a novice-oriented book, and I still didn't understand.

 

[SomeRandom]

What is a tantric path?

That, my dear Vinyaka, is the million dollar question. It has stumped theologians and scholars for centuries. According to some scholarship (admittedly Western) the so called "Tantric Paths" have been swapping ideas with and influencing the Vedic Paths and vice versa since the disagreement some had in abandoning worldly desires/possessions altogether to follow spirituality, some 5 or 6 thousand years ago (presumably.) And as far as I can tell, that is really the only major difference between the two. The "traditionalists" hold that worldly desires or goals at the very least distract one from spiritual goals and true realization. Meanwhile the Tantrics believe you can have both. I guess Tantrics might also be a bit more inclined towards non traditional ideas as well, since a common belief is that the Tantric Path should offer a devotee great freedom as that will lead to true self realization. In that sense, you may find more........experimental things being practiced among some schools. But that is rather a gross generalization. And usually done so in order to break down barriers the mind has constructed (social, animal, primal etc.)
And whilst Tantric schools borrow freely from the Vedas, and have always done so, the Vedic paths sometimes see their Tantric brethren as unorthodox or non Vedic. But you know, opinions and all.

In reality there are so many different interpretations, schools and belief systems among so called "Tantrics" that it rivals even the vast organized mess of it's siblings in other Hindu schools. And both Tantrics and Non Tantrics often criss cross and swap ideas and philosophy so frequently and so liberally hardly anyone even notices. Even the schools who wanted to distance themselves from the "Tantrics" engaged in it without realizing. Because the divide was more propaganda driven than it was by actual philosophical debates.

I think because in Hinduism in general there isn't much stock put into the divides of differing schools/denominations and because our goals are common, we tend to cross pollinate without really thinking much of it. So if you think about it, it kind of makes sense that it's hard to define exactly what is a "Tantric Path" specifically. Because we all, in our own way, tend to borrow from many different Gurus and schools at any given time. We tend to identify the schools easily with who the devotee sees as the "Supreme." But how do you do that when the "Tantric Paths" can have any interpretation of the supreme (though admittedly Shakti tends to make more appearances in that area) and still consider themselves a Tantric?

So what is a tantric path? Whatever the hell the devotee makes of it, I suppose.