What does tantra mean by mind purification as a prerequisite for progress? Tantra does not mean ordinary purity. We usually classify things as nice or negative. Division can be for any reason. Whether hygienically, morally, or otherwise, we split life into good and bad. We usually mean purity as goodness, with no “bad” attributes and only “good” qualities. For Tantra, good and bad are meaningless. Tantra rejects dualism and division. In Tantra, what is purity? “is a pertinent question. Saints say anger, sex, and greed are wrong. Gurdjieff says negativity is harmful, negative emotions are terrible, and positivity is wonderful. Though they may disagree, Jainas, Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, and Mohammedans all define good and wrong. Some things are harmful, others excellent. So defining purity is easy for them. Whatever they consider nice is pure, whatever they consider bad impure. However, Tantra faces a major issue. Tantra does not superficially separate good and evil. What’s purity? Dividing is impure, while living without division is pure, says Tantra. Tantra defines purity as undifferentiated innocence. You call a child pure. Why call him pure when he’s angry and greedy? What is childlike purity? Innocence! Children have no mental boundaries. The child doesn’t know good from bad. That ignorance is innocence. He has no intent to be angry; it is a simple act. Anger passes. Nothing remains. The child acts as if the rage never existed. The purity is unchanged. Since children have no mind, they are pure. The youngster becomes more impure as their thinking expands. Then rage will be considered, not spontaneous. The youngster may suppress rage if the situation precludes it. Sometimes buried rage is transferred to another scenario. He will get upset when he shouldn’t because he needs to release his buried fury. Due to mind entry, everything becomes polluted. We can call a child a thief, but a child doesn’t think things belong to them. He doesn’t consider taking your watch, money, or anything else theft because he doesn’t believe things belong to anyone. Even your non-theft is tainted by the mentality. Tantra says someone is pure when he becomes a child again. Of course, he’s not a youngster, just like one. Differences and similarities exist. Regaining innocence is comparable. Someone is childlike again. A child is nude but doesn’t feel it because they don’t know their bodies. His nakedness differs from yours. You notice the body. The sage must regain innocence. Returning nude, Mahavira Again, nakedness is innocent. He has forgotten his body and is no longer it. One major distinction is that the youngster is unaware, hence innocent. But the sage is wise, therefore his innocence. The infant will realise his physique and feel nude. He will conceal, feel guilty, and humiliation. It will dawn on him. This is his ignorance-based innocence. Knowledge destroys. The biblical tale of Adam and Eve leaving Eden means that. Like children, they were naked. They had no awareness of the body, anger, greed, lust, sex, or anything else. They were unaware. Like children, they were innocent. However, God forbade them from eating the tree of knowledge’s fruit. They ate the forbidden tree of knowledge because forbidden things are tempting. Anything banned is appealing! They lived in a large garden with limitless trees, but the forbidden tree of knowledge was the most essential. It was forbiddenness that attracted and invited. The tree seemed to hypnotise them. They couldn’t avoid eating. Beautiful narrative because the tree is called the tree of knowledge. After eating knowledge, they were no longer innocent. Then they realised they were naked. Eve went to hide her body immediately. Body awareness made them aware of everything—anger, lust, greed, etc. They were expelled from the garden as adults. Knowledge is sin in the Bible. They were expelled from the garden and punished for knowing. They cannot enter the garden until they are pure and unknowing again. They can only enter God’s kingdom again if they become innocent. The whole thing is human history. All children are exiled from the garden, not only Adam and Eve. Every child is innocent and unaware. He is ignorantly innocent. This cannot continue. You cannot trust it unless it is pure wisdom. You’ll have to eat knowledge eventually. Knowledge must be eaten by all children. It was simple in Eden with just the tree. Schools, colleges, and institutions replace trees. Each child must pass and lose his innocence. The world and existence require knowledge. You need wisdom to live there. When information arrives, division occurs. You start separating good and bad. Tantra considers good and bad impurities. Pure before, pure after, impure in. You cannot avoid information, a necessary evil. Life need it. However, one can transcend it. Transcendence restores innocence. If divides disappeared and good and evil were no longer discerned, you would see the universe innocently. Jesus says, “You cannot enter my kingdom of God unless you become like children. ” This is the purity of Tantra. Lao Tzu says, “One inch of division, and heaven and hell are set apart. ” Sages have no divisional thinking! Sages don’t know right from wrong. He is like children yet different since he has seen division. He has crossed this division and gone beyond it. After experiencing darkness and brightness, he has moved on. He now perceives darkness and light as one. Darkness and light are now degrees of one. Now he sees everything as degrees of one, not two, no matter how contrary. Life and death, love and hate, good and bad—all are one energy. Only degrees differ, and they can never be split. “From this point there is division. ” There is no division. What’s good? What’s bad? Definition and separation come from where? They’re always one. Just different degrees of the same. After experiencing this, your mind becomes clear again. This is Tantra purity. My definition of tantric purity is innocence, not virtue. If innocence is ignorant, it’s useless. You can’t mature without losing it and being booted out. Giving up information and transcending it are part of maturing and becoming an adult. So go through it, but leave. Move! Continue moving! One day you’re done. Tantric purity is hard to grasp and misinterpret. Very delicate! Tantric sages are nearly impossible to identify. Regular saints and sages obey your standards, definitions, and morality. Tantric sages are hard to spot since they transcend all divisions. Thus, tantric sages are unknown to human history. Due to their difficulty to identify, they are never mentioned or recorded. Confucius visited Lao Tzu. Lao Tzu thinks like a tantric sage. He never heard of tantra; it’s meaningless to him. He never studied Tantra, yet his words are Tantra. The arch-representative of our intellect is Confucius. He constantly considers good and bad, right and wrong. The greatest legalist ever was born. He visited Lao Tzu and inquired, “What is good? ” What should one do? What’s bad? According to Lao Tzu, defining creates confusion as it involves dividing things into things like A and B. Saying A cannot be B creates a duality, yet existence is one. Always becoming B, always heading towards B. How can you describe life when it’s continually dying? Childhood becomes youth, youth becomes old age, and disease becomes health. You can tell them apart where? Once you define, you create a mess because definitions are dead and life is alive. Definitions are always wrong. Thus, Lao Tzu advised against defining since it promotes untruth. Do not speak good and bad. ” Confucius asked, “What are you saying? Then how can people be guided? How can they be taught? How to make them good? Lao Tzu observed, “When someone tries to make someone else good, that is a sin. Who will you lead? Who should you lead? greater guides cause greater confusion. Leave everyone alone. Who are you? This mindset looks risky. It is! Society cannot be built on such views. Confucius asks, and Lao Tzu answers, “Nature is enough, no morality is needed. ” Nature acts spontaneously. No laws or discipline are needed—nature is plenty. Morality is unnecessary; innocence is enough. Nature is sufficient and spontaneous. Laws and punishments are unnecessary. Innocence suffices. Knowledge is unnecessary. ” Confucius returned distraught. No sleep for nights. Tell us about the meeting, his disciples begged. What happened? Confucius replied, “He is a dragon, not a man. Not a man. Avoid his location. Whenever you hear about Lao Tzu, leave. Tantra is about transcending the mind, hence he will utterly upset your mind. The mind will be destroyed. Mind is order, with definitions, laws, and disciplines. Tantra is not disorder, however that is a nuanced point. Confucius didn’t get Lao Tzu. After Confucius went, Lao Tzu laughed and laughed, so his disciples inquired, “Why? ” What happened? According to Lao Tzu, “The mind is such a barrier to understanding. Even Confucius’ intellect is a hurdle. He doesn’t understand me, thus anything he says about me will be misinterpreted. He believes he can bring order to the globe. No one can order the planet. Order is intrinsic and constant. Lao Tzu stated, “He will think that I am creating disorder, and really, he is the one creating disorder. ” I believe in spontaneous discipline that evolves naturally, hence I oppose all instructions. You need not impose it. ” Tantra thinks this way. Tantra defines purity as spontaneity, sahajata—being oneself without imposition, flourishing like a tree. Not your garden tree, but your forest tree, growing spontaneously without guidance, because all advice is misguided. Tantra views all guidance as misguided. Growing without direction, guarding, or motivation. Inner law suffices; no other law is needed. If you need another law, it means you’ve lost touch with the inner law. Thus, reality is not forced. To achieve the genuine inner law, you must reestablish equilibrium, move to the centre, and return home. Morality and religions impose order and goodness from above, from without. Remember that religions, morals, priests, and popes view you as evil. They don’t believe in human or inner goodness. They think you are bad and that you can only be good if you are taught to be good. You’re horrible for priests, religious folks, and moralists. Outside forces will enforce goodness. They will bring order to your chaos. Because they have ordered and disciplined for generations, they have made the world a jumble, a confusion, a madhouse. Teaching so much has driven the students nuts. This is different: Tantra trusts your goodness. Tantra claims virtue is innate in everyone. It is! You’re good! Nothing is terrible because you need natural growth, not imposition. Tantra considers wrath, sex, and greed beneficial. Only your lack of self-centeredness prevents you from using them. Not all anger is terrible. Anger causes chaos because you’re not inside. Being present inside turns rage into health. Anger creates excellent energy. Everything is good. Tantra holds that all things are good. Nothing is bad or impure. Tantra believes in divine existence, not devils. No religion exists without the devil. They need God and Satan. Do not be misled if their temples just have a God. The devil hides behind that God because no religion can survive without him. Something must be rejected, fought, and destroyed. Part is approved, not all. This is fundamental. Religions only half accept you. We accept love, but not hate. And this is a big problem because when you kill hate, you destroy love too, since they are not separate. “We accept your silence, but we do not accept your anger. ” Lose your anger, and you die. Your silence will be that of a dying man. Silence is death. Evil and divinity are always divided in religions. They recognise the divine and fight evil—it must be destroyed. If someone truly follows them, he will conclude that destroying the devil destroys God. No one follows them because the teaching is nonsensical. What’s everyone doing? Everyone’s lying. That causes hypocrisy. Religion caused that hypocrisy. You become a hypocrite because you cannot follow their instructions. If you obey them, you die; if not, you feel bad for being irreligious. So now what? The cunning mind compromises. It keeps claiming, “I am following you, ” yet does whatever it wants. You keep repeating greed, wrath, and sex are sins while continuing to do them. Hypocrisy. No one is honest; the world is hypocritical. Everyone is dishonest till these religions disappear. It’s ironic that all religions teach honesty but are the foundation of dishonesty. You become hypocrites because they teach you impossible things you cannot perform. Tantra says to accept or reject totally; there is no in between. Man is organic and whole. Nobody can separate it. You cannot say, “We will not accept this, ” because what you reject is naturally linked to what you embrace.
Total Acceptance and Non-Division: The Meaning of Tantric Purity – Vigyan Bhairav Tantra
