TANTRA
THE SUPREME UNDERSTANDING
“This is the map to turn you on,
to turn you in,
and to turn you beyond`Osho, Tantra the Supreme Understanding, 263 pages, pb. Euro 16.95 - order here
The tradition of Tantra, or Tantric Buddhism, existed in India as early as the 5th century AD. In this all-time bestseller, Osho discusses the mystical insights found in the ancient Tantric writings, and the many significant Tantric meditation techniques that are as relevant to the modern-day seeker as they were to those in earlier times. As always, Osho brings his own unique blend of wisdom, humor, and thought-provoking inspiration to even this complex subject, making it accessible to the widest possible audience.
from Tantra Supreme Understanding, chapter1:
IN HIS SONG OF MAHAMUDRA, TILOPA SAYS:
MAHAMUDRA IS BEYOND ALL WORDS AND SYMBOLS, BUT FOR YOU, NAROPA, EARNEST AND
LOYAL, MUST THIS BE SAID:
THE VOID NEEDS NO RELIANCE, MAHAMUDRA RESTS ON NOUGHT. WITHOUT MAKING AN
EFFORT, BUT REMAINING LOOSE AND NATURAL, ONE CAN BREAK THE YOKE -- THUS
GAINING LIBERATION.
The experience of the ultimate is not an experience at all -- because the
experiencer is lost. And when there is no experiencer, what can be said
about it? Who will say it? Who will relate the experience? When there is no
subject, the object also disappears -- the banks disappear, only the river
of experience remains. Knowledge is there, but the knower is not.
That has been the problem for all the mystics. They reach to the ultimate,
but they cannot relate it to those who are following. They cannot relate it
to others who would like to have an intellectual understanding. They have
become one with it. Their whole being relates it, but no intellectual
communication is possible. They can give it to you if you are ready to
receive; they can allow it to happen in you if you also allow it, if you are
receptive and open. But words won't do, symbols won't help; theories and
doctrines are of no use at all.
The experience is such that it is more like an experiencing than like an
experience. It is a process -- and it begins, but it never ends. You enter
into it, but you never possess it. It is like a drop dropping in the ocean,
or, the ocean itself dropping into the drop. It is a deep merger, it is
oneness, you simply melt away into it. Nothing is left behind, not even a
trace, so who will communicate? Who will come back to the world of the
valley? Who will come back to this dark night to tell you?
All the mystics all over the world have always felt impotent as far as
communication is concerned. Communion is possible, but communication, no.
This has to be understood from the very beginning. A communion is a totally
different dimension: two hearts meet, it is a love affair. Communication is
from head to head; communion is from heart to heart, communion is a feeling.
Communication is knowledge: only words are given, only words are said, and
only words are taken and understood. And words are such: the very nature of
words is so dead that nothing alive can be related through them. Even in
ordinary life, leave aside the ultimate, even in ordinary experiencing when
you have a peak moment, an ecstatic moment, when you really feel something
and become something, it becomes impossible to relate it in words.
...
When for the first time something starts happening which is beyond words,
life has happened to you, life has knocked at your door. And when the
ultimate knocks at your door, you are simply gone beyond words -- you become
dumb, you cannot say; not even a single word is formed inside. And
whatsoever you say looks so pale, so dead, so meaningless, without any
significance, that it seems that you are doing injustice to the experience
that has happened to you. Remember this, because Mahamudra is the last, the
ultimate experience.
Mahamudra means a total orgasm with the universe. If you have loved somebody,
and sometimes you have felt a melting and merging -- the two are no more two;
the bodies remain separate, but something between the bodies makes a bridge,
a golden bridge, and the twoness inside disappears; one life energy vibrates
on both the poles -- if it has happened to you, then only you can understand
what Mahamudra is. Millions and millions times deep, millions and millions
of times high, is Mahamudra. It is a total orgasm with the whole, with the
universe. It is melting into the source of being.
And this is a song of Mahamudra. It is beautiful that Tilopa has called it a
song. You can sing it, but you cannot say it; you can dance it, but you
cannot say it. It is such a deep phenomenon that singing may convey a little
tiny part of it -- not what you sing, but the way you sing it.
Many mystics have simply danced after their ultimate experience; they could
not do anything else. They were saying something through their whole being
and body; altogether, body, mind, soul, everything involved in it. They were
dancing; those dances were not ordinary dances. In fact, all dancing was
born because of these mystics; it was a way to relate the ecstasy, the
happiness, the bliss. Something of the unknown has penetrated into the known,
something of the beyond has come to the earth -- what else can you do? You
can dance it, you can sing it. This is a song of Mahamudra.
And who will sing it? Tilopa is no more. The orgasmic feeling itself is
singing. It is not a song of Tilopa; Tilopa is no more. The experience
itself is vibrating and singing. Hence, the song of Mahamudra, the song of
ecstasy, ecstasy itself singing it. Tilopa has nothing to do; Tilopa is not
there at all, Tilopa has melted. When the seeker is lost, only then the goal
is achieved. Only when the experiencer is no more, the experience is there.
Seek and you will miss it -- because through your seeking the seeker will be
strengthened. Don't seek and you will find it. The very seeking, the very
effort, becomes a barrier, because the more you seek, the more the ego is
strengthened: the seeker. Do not seek.
This is the deepest message of this whole song of Mahamudra: do not seek,
just remain as you are, don't go anywhere else. Nobody ever reaches God,
nobody can because you don't know the address. Where will you go? Where will
you find the divine? There is no map, and there is no way, and there is
nobody to say where he is. No, nobody ever reaches God. It is always the
reverse: God comes to you. Whenever you are ready, he knocks at your door;
he seeks you whenever you are ready. And the readiness is nothing but a
receptivity. When you are completely receptive there is no ego; you become a
hollow temple with nobody in it.
Tilopa says in the song, become like a hollow bamboo, nothing inside. And
suddenly, the moment you are a hollow bamboo, the divine lips are on you,
the hollow bamboo becomes a flute, and the song starts -- this is the song
of Mahamudra. Tilopa has become a hollow bamboo, and the divine has come,
and the song has started. It is not Tilopa's song, it is the song of the
ultimate experience itself. . .
Osho Mahamudra meditation
from this book
Exerpt from Chapter 6
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