Letter to the Tantrikas

Being a Tantrika in the heart of society, in the midst of everyday life, means welcoming each situation that provokes me as a chance to face up to my own limits and restrictions. If I have the ability to do that then in fact I have the best possible tool, given by the universe directly to me, to use to gain a little more room, a little more freedom. Each time I dare to watch what gets to me and welcome it without judging, I discover a little more space within myself. When I resist, though, right away I close up the space of my heart and spirit a little, I limit and turn in on myself a little more. This movement of retreat makes me more rigid. I lose the bodymind’s fluid nature and I go on inexorably building my armor. This armor protects me from uncomfortable situations but gradually it isolates me, until I come to feel miserably alone and abandoned. To the extent that I protect myself from the world, the world can no longer reach my heart. In the end I’m the one who abandons the world by refusing to let myself be destabilized, by refusing my vulnerability.

Welcoming each situation, to a Tantrika, doesn’t mean a kind of idiotic passive fatalism which puts up with whatever happens out of sheer principle. It’s not a Yes in which I let myself be swallowed up and abused by a situation to the point of annihilation or exhaustion. Accepting what comes up for a Tantrika means an active and multidirectional Yes, an all-encompassing Yes which perceives and listens to each situation as a whole. It’s a kind of total presence which can welcome your own reaction as well as that of the other person. Welcoming, for a Tantrika, is rediscovering the ability to open his or her mind and heart wholly and completely, so that what appears to be contradictory can reunite in the center, in the source which gives birth to all differentiations and pairs of opposites. In this position of total openness no point of view remains, to be defended and maintained at any price. I rediscover my capacity to accept every manifestation of reality. I leave behind the mind which opposes and differentiates to find the mind which unites. I leave the heart which closes and protects itself from the world to find the heart which opens wide enough to encompass all opposites.

To be a Tantrika is to find wonder in any situation. You become creative in the midst of everyday life. No need to write insipid poetry or daub at a canvas to maintain my artistic pretensions. I can be the artist of my own daily routine. When I dare to be less predictable to my cat, my children, my partner or my boss, I sow a seed, a spark of color in grey ordinariness… this greyness where there is no more room for the extraordinary, where boredom dominates because I’ve gotten so predictable and rigid that nobody is surprised by me any more, not even myself. I get so scared and protective that I stop taking any risks at all, I become the bureaucrat of my daily routine and I can’t stand to be bothered or detoured. But if I dare to wake up each morning knowing nothing, I have fresh new eyes for everything around me. Like a painter or writer before a blank canvas or page, each morning I plunge into my breathing, into complete presence to find just the right word or act—the one that corresponds to the moment, not some mechanical one that has fermented so long in my body-mind system that it practically stinks of mold.

To be a tantrika is to use every situation in daily life to deepen awareness and presence. I feel each drop of water on my skin when I take a shower, I feel the breeze as I walk to work. For a few minutes I let my gaze dissolve in the azure sky. I let myself be invaded by the sound of a siren from the tips of my toes to the top of my skull… to be a Tantrika is to integrate the entire field of sensory experience into the Way. I don’t split reality into two categories, the sacred and the profane. I consider every experience to be sacred to the extent that there is presence and awareness. The quality and depth of that presence depend on my ability to leave the sensation pure—that is, empty of all commentary, empty of arrogant grabbing of every experience to make it mine. If I find the openness and the courage to offer the whole of my being to silent listening through all the senses, I discover that life is saturated with the absolute. As a result my anxiety calms down, I discover organically that there is nothing to change, nothing to suppress, nothing to get rid of, since everything is an expression of the divine. In this state of deep, complete relaxation, my body and mind lose their limits and unite naturally with the all.

To be a Tantrika is to rediscover the desire to play, the lightness of a child—and to do something silly at least once a day. It is to stop taking myself so seriously and thinking I’m so important. I have the courage to see my pretension, thinking I know what’s best for the whole planet. I rediscover the modesty of being in a state of “I don’t know”. This way I drop the habit of accumulating information and knowledge limited by my own point of view. I let my discursive, chatty intelligence calm down bit by bit and finally shut up by refusing to feed it. When my inner discourse and commentary on the world stop, I can finally reach intuitive intelligence. This is knowledge which has found its universality once again, because it no longer needs to slice the world up into separate and opposing notions. I move into knowledge which has no limit. My understanding is direct, intuitive; it is born from contact with what is. It emerges from my sensitive perception and my all-inclusive listening. This knowledge is not obscured by a cloudy filter of concepts, judgments and beliefs, which robs me of the original essence of reality. It has rediscovered its fluid nature, its freshness and its harmony with the world.