Tantra

“This is the map to turn you ON, and to turn you IN, and to turn you BEYOND.” 

Someone once told me the best books are gifted… After receiving “Tantra: The Supreme Understanding,” I would have to agree! Tantra has been an area that has always fascinated me – a topic that I have always known I would go deeper into when the time was right. Around my birthday, I usually like to read a book that is more philosophical, it is an opportunity to grow in an area of my life. When a friend gave me this book a few days before my departure to Mexico (where I spent time leading up to my birthday), I knew the time to delve into Tantra had finally come.

Contrary to popular belief, Tantra is less about sex and more about cultivating a way of being. While it teaches reverence for the body, love, respect for the body, and gratitude for the body, its true essence lies in its non-ego-oriented nature. At its core, Tantra is about melting into the source of being, a state that can be reached by remaining loose and natural.

Remain loose like water, not fixed like ice. Remain moving and flowing; wherever nature leads you, go. 

The author of this book, Osho, is undoubtedly a controversial figure (and rightly so!). However, as with many teachings, I choose to focus on the parts that resonate with me, that move and inspire me. There are certainly elements I disagree with, such as Osho’s repeated need to diminish yoga in comparison to Tantra. It’s an unnecessary contrast that weakens his own message and makes him seem less like the detached, fluid thinker he advocates for.

Osho

That said, the first two chapters contain some of the most profound insights I’ve ever read on how to be in this life. His breakdown of the mind is particularly powerful – he argues that the mind is not a singular entity but rather an accumulation of thousands of thoughts, which only create the illusion of being one fixed thing. Learning to relate to the mind in this way, in my opinion, can create a profound shift. It has helped me feel less judgmental about my not-so-occasional monkey mind during meditation, personally the most valuable lesson from these pages.

It is just like clouds: clouds move. They can be so thick that you cannot see the sky hidden behind. The vast blueness of the sky is lost; you are covered with clouds. Then you go on watching: one cloud moves and another has not come into the vision yet…and suddenly a peek into the blueness of the vast sky.

The same happens inside: you are the vast blueness of the sky, and thoughts are just like clouds hovering around you, filling you. But the gaps exist; the sky exists. To have a glimpse of the sky is satori, and to become the sky is samadhi. From satori to samadhi, the whole process is a deep insight into the mind, nothing else.

Mind doesn’t exist as an entity – the first thing. Only thoughts exist.

The second thing: the thoughts exist separate from you, they are not one with your nature; they come and go. You remain; you persist. You are like the sky: never comes, never goes, it is always there. Clouds come and go, they are momentary phenomena; they are not eternal. Even if you try to cling to a thought, you cannot retain it for long; it has to go, it has its own birth and death.
Thoughts are not yours; they don’t belong to you. They come as visitors, guests, but they are not the host.

Receive them, take care of them, but don’t get identified with them; otherwise, they will become the masters.

The mind becomes the problem because you have taken thoughts so deeply inside you that you have forgotten completely the distance, that they are visitors, they come and go. Always remember that which abides: that is your nature, your tao. Always be attentive to that which never comes and never goes, just like the sky. Change the gestalt, don’t be focused on the visitors, remain rooted in the host; the visitors will come and go.

I highly recommend giving this book a read and focusing on the many pearls of wisdom it offers. There are some beautiful takeaways and always remember, Be Loose, Natural, Just Look At The SKY.