According to the Tantra, the Ultimate Reality is Chit, or
Consciousness,
which is identical with Sat, or Being, and with Ananda, or Bliss. This
Ultimate Reality, Satchidananda, Existence-Knowledge-Bliss Absolute, is
identical with the Reality preached in the Vedas. And man is identical
with this Reality; but under the influence of maya, or illusion, he has
forgotten his true nature. He takes to be real a merely apparent world
of subject
and object, and this error is the cause of his bondage and suffering.
The
goal of spiritual discipline is the rediscovery of his true identity
with the
divine Reality.
For the achievement of this goal the Vedanta prescribes an austere
negative method of discrimination and renunciation, which can be
followed by
only a few individuals endowed with sharp intelligence and unshakable
will-power. But Tantra takes into consideration the natural weakness of
human beings, their lower appetites, and their love for the concrete.
It
combines philosophy with rituals, meditation with ceremonies,
renunciation
with enjoyment. The underlying purpose is gradually to train the
aspirant
to meditate on his identity with the Ultimate.
The average man wishes to enjoy the material objects of the world.
Tantra bids him enjoy these, but at the same time discover in them the
presence of God. Mystical rites are prescribed by which, slowly, the
sense-objects become spiritualized and sense attraction is transformed
into a
love
of God. So the very "bonds" of man are turned into "releasers". The
very
poison that kills is transmuted into the elixir of life. Outward
renunciation
is not necessary. Thus the aim of Tantra is to sublimate bhoga, or
enjoyment
into yoga, or union with Consciousness. For, according to this
philosophy,
the world with all its manifestations is nothing but the sport of Siva
and Sakti, the Absolute and Its inscrutable Power.
The disciplines of Tantra are graded to suit aspirants of all degrees.
Exercises are prescribed for people with "animal", "heroic", and
"divine"
outlooks. Certain of the rites require the presence of members of the
opposite
sex. Here the aspirant learns to look on woman as the embodiment
of the Goddess Kali, the Mother of the Universe. The very basis of
Tantra
is the Motherhood of God and the glorification of woman. Every part of
a
woman's body is to be regarded as incarnate Divinity. But the rites are
extremely dangerous. The help of a qualified guru is absolutely
necessary.
An unwary devotee may lose his foothold and fall into a pit of
depravity.
According to the Tantra, Sakti is the active creative force in the
universe.
Siva, the Absolute, is a more or less passive principle. Further, Sakti
is as
inseparable from Siva as fire's power to burn is from fire itself.
Sakti, the
Creative Power, contains in Its womb the universe, and therefore is the
Divine Mother. All women are Her symbols. Kali is one of Her several
forms. The meditation on Kali, the Creative Power, is the central
discipline
of the Tantra. While meditating, the aspirant at first regards himself
as one
with the Absolute and then thinks that out of that Impersonal
Consciousness
emerge two entities, namely, his own self and the living form of the
Goddess.
He then projects the Goddess into the tangible image before him and
worships
it as the Divine Mother.
Sri Ramakrishna set himself to the task of practising the disciplines
of
Tantra; and at the bidding of the Divine Mother Herself he accepted the
Brahmani as his guru. He performed profound and delicate ceremonies in
the Panchavati and under the bel-tree at the northern extremity of the
temple compound. He practised all the disciplines of the sixty-four
principal
Tantra books, and it took him never more than three days to achieve the
result promised in any one of them. After the observance of a few
preliminary
rites, he would be overwhelmed with a strange divine fervour and would
go into samadhi, where his mind would dwell in exaltation. Evil ceased
to
exist for him. The word "carnal" lost its meaning. The whole world and
everything in it appeared as the lila, the sport, of Siva and Sakti. He
beheld
held everywhere manifest the power and beauty of the Mother; the whole
world, animate and inanimate, appeared to him as pervaded with Chit,
Consciousness, and with Ananda, Bliss.
He saw in a vision the Ultimate Cause of the universe as a huge
luminous
triangle giving birth every moment to an infinite number of worlds. He
heard the Anahata Sabda, the great sound Om, of which the innumerable
sounds of the universe are only so many echoes. He acquired the eight
supernatural powers of yoga, which make a man almost omnipotent, and
these he spurned as of no value whatsoever to the Spirit. He had a
vision of
the divine Maya, the inscrutable Power of God, by which the universe is
created and sustained, and into which it is finally absorbed. In this
vision
he saw a woman of exquisite beauty, about to become a mother, emerging
from the Ganges and slowly approaching the Panchavati. Presently she
gave
birth to a child and began to nurse it tenderly. A moment later she
assumed
a terrible aspect, seized the child with her grim jaws, and crushed it.
Swallowing it, she re-entered the waters of the Ganges.
But the most remarkable experience during this period was the awakening
of the Kundalini Sakti, the "Serpent Power". He actually saw the Power,
at first lying asleep at the bottom of the spinal column, then waking
up and
ascending along the mystic Sushumna canal and through its six centres,
or
lotuses, to the Sahasrara, the thousand-petalled lotus in the top of
the head.
He further saw that as the Kundalini went upward the different lotuses
bloomed. And this phenomenon was accompanied by visions and trances.
Later on he described to his disciples and devotees the various
movements
of the Kundalini: the fishlike, birdlike, monkeylike, and so on. The
awaken-
ing of the Kundalini is the beginning of spiritual consciousness, and
its
union with Siva in the Sahasrara, ending in samadhi, is the
consummation
of the Tantrik disciplines.
About this time it was revealed to him that in a short while many
devotees
would seek his guidance.