YOGASVARUPE
Tantra and its tantrics
Tantra is defined as a medium or technology to expand our consciousness and liberate the soul from suffering. In tantra, it was always needed a guru or a parampara who will initiate the energy to become a technology to attain supernatural forces. this was never possible without someone having experience with that and knowing how to create the bridge. Tantrics are the special people who relate many various sciences of tantra for healing, helping, manifesting, invoking, ceremonies, rituals to be conducted. Tantrics was the medium of common people to guide their energy and set initiations or intentions in their life from the divine.
There had to be a bridge between connecting the divine and the individual and tantric were doing that. Through tantra, one can connect and walk over the path of tantric tradition to release its absolute value.
Its states that one has to live that tradition in order to receive these abilities from the divine. It had a completely practical approach.
Of courses, there were people who lived in their daily life and can’t develop those skills so they would seek the advice of the tantric. everyone cannot choose this path so there were skilled people who helped another common man to invoke or praise the higher element.
There had to be a bridge between connecting the divine and the individual and tantric were doing that. Through tantra, one can connect and walk over the path of tantric tradition to release its absolute value.
Its states that one has to live that tradition in order to receive these abilities from the divine. It had a completely practical approach.
Of courses, there were people who lived in their daily life and can’t develop those skills so they would seek the advice of the tantric. everyone cannot choose this path so there were skilled people who helped another common man to invoke or praise the higher element.
The Tantric or the practitioner of Tantra uses various ritual tools available to him, so as to attain his goal through the practice of tantra. These include the following:
- Yoga - Yoga, asanas or yogic postures, meditation, and pranayama, or breathing techniques help the practitioner completely focus and concentrate on the divine.
- Mantras - Mantras or chants help him visualize and evoke the divine power, giving it form and potency. Mantras also help the follower harness the true power of cosmic vibrations. Daily Mantroccharana (chanting of Mantras) helps the aspirant create a strong identification with a deity so that the form becomes his "Ishta-Devata" or "prime meditational deity".
- Mudras - Tantrikas believe that Mudras or gestures further enhance his attempts at attaining control over himself and over the mystical forces of nature as well.
- Mandalas and Yantras - Mandalas and Yantras, which are various diagrammatic representations of the forces of the universe, are believed to further aid the seeker and help him achieve spiritual and magical powers.
- Pooja: special offering to the stones, temples houses with chanting, flowers, and positive thoughts.
- Ceremonies: invoking the element of fire or water, rituals are done to praise the element for the betterment of life, sometimes to remove negativity
Regular Tantric rituals
The regular rituals in Tantrism include poojas or prayers being offered, making use of Mantras, Yantras, and Mandalas. Both Hindu and Buddhist yoga traditions make use of these tools for prayers.
In the Hindu tradition of Tantra, specific deities such as Shakti, Shiva, and Kali are invoked during prayer. Specific Yantras and Mandalas are used as prescribed, in order to invoke the power of these deities.
As Tantra mainly focuses on Advaita (non-dualism), Shiva and Shakti are viewed as a single aspect of Para Shiva or Para Brahma, the Supreme One. Hence, though the followers may worship their Ishta Devata externally with flowers, incense, chants, and so on, they essentially try to visualize themselves as the deity or experience the darshan of their deity.
In the Hindu tradition of Tantra, specific deities such as Shakti, Shiva, and Kali are invoked during prayer. Specific Yantras and Mandalas are used as prescribed, in order to invoke the power of these deities.
As Tantra mainly focuses on Advaita (non-dualism), Shiva and Shakti are viewed as a single aspect of Para Shiva or Para Brahma, the Supreme One. Hence, though the followers may worship their Ishta Devata externally with flowers, incense, chants, and so on, they essentially try to visualize themselves as the deity or experience the darshan of their deity.
Secret Tantric rituals
The secret aspect of Tantric rituals, also called Vamamarga, is totally removed from conventional norms of Hindu worship. While secret rituals may also include many aspects of conventional worship, it mainly deals with sensate rites, involving all the senses. Hence, this kind of worship would include themes such as feasting (representing sustenance); intercourse (embodying sexuality, fertility, and procreation) and urination, defecation and vomiting (symbolizing removal of wastes). Hence, Tantra involves the devotee working along with Nature and not against it.
The Panchatattva ritual
Since the Panchatattvas or five elements are vital to Tantric worship, the secret ritual of Shakti and Shakta involve the worship of the Panchamahabhutas or the five elements. This Chakrapuja ritual, as it is also referred to, takes place with men and women sitting in a Chakra or circle, with the Shakti (female devotee) sitting at the Shaktats (male devotees) left-hand side. There are various types of Chakrapuja, each bestowing different kinds of benefits on the follower.
Types of tantrics
Saktism
Kalikula: The siddhis - or magical powers - play a large part in this text. The main Tantrikas rites are called the six acts (shatkarma) of pacifying, subjugating, paralyzing, obstructing, driving away, and death-dealing. But the Kulachudamani includes others such as Parapurapraveshana, which is the power of reviving a corpse; Anjana, which lets a sadhaka see through solid walls; Khadga which gives invulnerability to swords; Khecari, which gives the power of flying and Paduka siddhi, magical sandals which take you great distances, rather like seven-league boots.
Shri Vidya: Tantric religious system devoted to the Goddess as Lalitā Tripurasundarī (Beautiful Goddess of the Three worlds) In the principally Shakta theology of Śrī Vidyā the goddess is supreme, transcending the cosmos that is her manifestation. She is worshiped in the form of a mystical diagram (Sanskrit: yantra), a central focus and ritual object composed of nine intersecting triangles, called the Shri Yantra or Śrī Cakra
Shri Vidya: Tantric religious system devoted to the Goddess as Lalitā Tripurasundarī (Beautiful Goddess of the Three worlds) In the principally Shakta theology of Śrī Vidyā the goddess is supreme, transcending the cosmos that is her manifestation. She is worshiped in the form of a mystical diagram (Sanskrit: yantra), a central focus and ritual object composed of nine intersecting triangles, called the Shri Yantra or Śrī Cakra
Shaivism
Agora: believes in getting into total darkness by all means, and then getting into light or self-realizing. Though this is a different approach from other Hindu sects, they believe it to be effective. They are infamously known for their rituals that include such as shava samskara or shava sadhana (ritual worship incorporating the use of a corpse as the altar) to invoke the mother goddess in her form as Smashan Tara (Tara of the Cremation Grounds).
Siddha yoga: A central element of the Siddha Yoga path is shaktipat-Diksha, literally translated as “initiation by a descent of divine power,” through which a seeker’s Kundalini Shakti is awakened by the Guru. Once active, this inner power is said to support the seeker’s steady efforts to attain self-realization.
Siddha yoga: A central element of the Siddha Yoga path is shaktipat-Diksha, literally translated as “initiation by a descent of divine power,” through which a seeker’s Kundalini Shakti is awakened by the Guru. Once active, this inner power is said to support the seeker’s steady efforts to attain self-realization.
Pashupata Shaivism was a devotional (bhakti) and ascetic movement. Pashu in Pashupati refers to the effect (or created world), the word designates that which is dependent on something ulterior. Whereas Pati means the cause (or principium), the word designates the Lord, who is the cause of the universe, the pati, or the ruler. To free themselves from worldly fetters Pashupatas are instructed to do a pashupata vrata. Atharvasiras Upanishsad describes the pashupata vrata as that which consists of besmearing one's own body with ashes and at the same time muttering mantra — "Agni is ashes, Vayu is ashes, Sky is ashes, all this is ashes, the mind, these eyes are ashes.
Natha yogi: Nath tradition has extensive Shaivism-related theological literature of its own, most of which is traceable to the 11th century CE or later. However, its roots are in far more ancient Siddha tradition.
Their unconventional ways challenged all orthodox premises, exploring dark and shunned practices of society as a means to understanding theology and gaining inner powers. They formed monastic organizations, itinerant groups that walked great distances to sacred sites and festivals such as the Kumbh Mela as a part of their spiritual practice.
Natha yogi: Nath tradition has extensive Shaivism-related theological literature of its own, most of which is traceable to the 11th century CE or later. However, its roots are in far more ancient Siddha tradition.
Their unconventional ways challenged all orthodox premises, exploring dark and shunned practices of society as a means to understanding theology and gaining inner powers. They formed monastic organizations, itinerant groups that walked great distances to sacred sites and festivals such as the Kumbh Mela as a part of their spiritual practice.
Vaishnavism
Pancaratra around the ideas of Narayana and the various avatars of Vishnu as their central deities Literally meaning five nights (pañca: five, rātra: nights), Pancaratra doctrine was against monistic spiritual pursuits and non-Vedic.
The Pancaratra theology developed over time. It presents a dualistic theory on how creation manifested from a godhead, as the Purusha-Prakriti and as the masculine-feminine manifestations of the divine.
Para: the invisible, eternal supreme;
Vyuha: the invisible, impermanent supreme in form;
Vibhava: also called the Avatharam, are the incarnations of the supreme in various yuga (eras in Hindu cosmology) such as the Dashavatara;
Antaryamin: not directly perceptible but can be inferred, the aspect of supreme whose presence can be felt by the devotee;
Archa: visible icon form, filled with symbolism, consecrated in temples or revered images inside the home (Shalagrama, conch shell, festive decorations), a means to remember and meditate on the supreme.
Pandit: is a person with specialized knowledge or a teacher of any field of knowledge in Hinduism.
Swami: is an honorific given to an ascetic or Bairagi who has been initiated into a religious monastic order.
Vyuha: the invisible, impermanent supreme in form;
Vibhava: also called the Avatharam, are the incarnations of the supreme in various yuga (eras in Hindu cosmology) such as the Dashavatara;
Antaryamin: not directly perceptible but can be inferred, the aspect of supreme whose presence can be felt by the devotee;
Archa: visible icon form, filled with symbolism, consecrated in temples or revered images inside the home (Shalagrama, conch shell, festive decorations), a means to remember and meditate on the supreme.
Pandit: is a person with specialized knowledge or a teacher of any field of knowledge in Hinduism.
Swami: is an honorific given to an ascetic or Bairagi who has been initiated into a religious monastic order.