Content of this Blog
Story of You & Me
Allow me to take you back to your initial days of Life. Imagine yourself as a child born in this world somewhere to a couple. You came into this physical world, which is filled with vibrant colors, shapes and forms, with unlimited curiosities and endless possibilities.
As you began to grow, you observed patterns in anything and everything around you. The sounds, the colors, the shapes, certain way of speaking, behaving, socializing and many such factors came into your learning domain.
Slowly you learnt to be a boy or a girl. You learn your cultural, social, religious and traditional identities. With every lesson you learnt, a layer of new identity was established as “This is Me”. All the limited identities starting from physical to spiritual is nothing but the lessons learnt or told to you.
At first these identities are the potential blankets that provide you a sense of existence. As you grow, the same identities make you feel limited. Because you learn as a grown up that the world is full of possibilities and much more than what you think it is.
Boxed in these invisible walls built by social norms, your world seemingly becomes much smaller day by day. Each time you try to step out of these walls, your responsibilities, your identities and relations might pull you back into the box with equal strength of logic and rationalities.
This is exactly when you realize that the same blankets that once gave you the comfort of identities, name, fame and help you navigate through the world is also a self-created chain, limiting our abilities to grow, express and experience life to its fullest.
Thus, begins the journey of spiritual inquiry for many. Tantra Yoga, as a spiritual and psychological system, offers profound insights on how we can unlearn and deconstruct the limited identities and gain access to higher dimensions of existence.
The Construct of Identities
Vijnana Bhairava Tantra states an example of a mirror to illustrate the construct of limited identities. Just as a mirror exists within the image reflected in it and yet it is free of all limited images reflected on it, so are you! While existing within the limitations, are beyond those limited identities.
All the Limited Identities are nothing but the socio-cultural influences on your mind that helps you to remain conscious of your existence. Yet, they become a hurdle when you aspire to know more about yourself and inquire more about existence. You, and many like you often tend to remain ignorant about existence beyond limitations and hence “Ignorance Is Bliss”.
The Role of Conditioning
Kularnava Tantra states “The sense of bondage is limitation and the sense of freedom is Liberation”. This is so practical in our day to day life. It is only when you are no longer told what to do, when to do, how to do and why to do that you actually feel liberated from responsibilities and all that makes you feel limited or bound.
In other words, to be liberated is to know what your actual motive of living is. It is only when you have the clarity of what you ‘have’ to do rather than what you ‘like’ to do with your life, that you will be able to create space for liberation and freedom.
In other words, it is to recognize, realize and execute your “Dharma” without any external force or compulsion. Bingo!! The actual Dharma of every soul is to be liberated from all limitations.
Whether you want it or not, like it or not, aspire for it or not, the soul (Psychic Being) will one fine day realize its unlimited nature. But as a human you have a choice to speed up this process, reduce the mysterious karmic imprints and hence it is important to inquire more than enquiring about anything and everything.
Sri Aurobindo in his epical work “Savitri” has explained this natural process of evolution from limitation to liberation in a few lines on pages 314-315 (13th line 314 page to 4th line page 315) of any edition.
Raising Beyond Dualities
The Spanda Karikas, commentaries on Shiva Sutras of Shaiva Tantra states that “Only the vibrations of consciousness remain, when the opposites and dualities dissolve.”
In other words when our life, actions, thoughts and words align with the purpose and process of evolution, we grow beyond the dualities and develop a supramental ability to cognize and experience our existence beyond limitations.
When we align and allow the transformative power of evolution to work, we break through the conditioned self, unleashing the full potential of the self.
Practices for Deconstruction
- Abhyasa-Vairagyabhyamtanniroddhah (Contemplation & Commitment)
- Ekatatvabhyasah (One-pointed Awareness)
- Kriya Yogah ( Consistency, Self-Awareness and Self-Devotedness)
- Vipaksha badhane Pratipaksha bhavanam (Reforming and replacing limited thoughts, words and actions with the unlimiting qualities).
Each and every practice will be explained in detail in upcoming posts.
The Conclusion
Vijnana Bhairava Tantra, Shakta school of Tantra and many yogic practices state that deconstruction of limited identities is possible only when we acknowledge the limitations and work through them. As we free ourselves from these socio-cultural constructs, we discover that the infinite self is beyond all labels and roles, transcending the very structures that once defined us.
