"Tantra Sutra" : What is Shiva's reality?

Devi asks, ”What is your reality, my lord?” He is not going to answer it. On the contrary, he will give a technique. And if Devi goes through this technique, she will know. So the answer is round-about; it is not direct. He is not going to answer ”Who am I.” He will give a technique – do it and you will know.

For tantra, doing is knowing, and there is no other knowing. Unless you do something, unless you change, unless you have a different perspective to look at, to look with, unless you move in an altogether different dimension than the intellect, there is no answer. Answers can be given – they are all lies. All philosophies are lies. You ask a question and the philosophy gives you an answer. It satisfies you or doesn’t satisfy you. If it satisfies you, you become a convert to the philosophy, but you remain the same. If it doesn’t satisfy you, you go on searching for some other philosophy to be converted to. But you remain the same; you are not touched at all, you are not changed. 

So whether you are a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Christian or a Jain, it makes no difference. The real person behind the facade of a Hindu or a Mohammedan or a Christian is the same. Only words differ, or clothes. The man who is going to the church or to the temple or to the mosque is the same man. Only faces differ, and they are faces which are false; they are masks. Behind the masks you will find the same man – the same anger, the same aggression, the same violence, the same greed, the same lust – everything the same. Is Mohammedan sexuality different from Hindu sexuality? Is Christian violence different from Hindu violence? It is the same! The reality remains the same; only clothes differ.

Tantra is not concerned with your clothes, tantra is concerned with you. If you ask a question it shows where you are. It shows also that wherever you are you cannot see; that is why there is the question. A blind man asks, ”What is light?” and philosophy will start answering what is light. Tantra will know only this: if a man is asking ”What is light?” it shows only that he is blind. Tantra will start operating on the man, changing the man, so that he can see. Tantra will not say what is light. Tantra will tell how to attain insight, how to attain seeing, how to attain vision. When the vision is there, the answer will be there. Tantra will not give you the answer; tantra will give you the technique to attain the answer.

Now, this answer is not going to be intellectual. If you say something about light to a blind man, this is intellectual. If the blind man himself becomes capable of seeing, this is existential. This is what I mean when I say that tantra is existential. So Shiva is not going to answer Devi’s questions, still, he will answer – the first thing.

The second thing: this is a different type of language. You must know something about it before we enter into it. All the tantra treatises are dialogues between Shiva and Devi. Devi questions and Shiva answers. All the tantra treatises start that way. Why? Why this method? It is very significant. It is not a dialogue between a teacher and a disciple, it is a dialogue between two lovers. And tantra signifies through it a very meaningful thing: that the deeper teachings cannot be given unless there is love between the two – the disciple and the master. The disciple and master must become deep lovers. Only then can the higher, the beyond, be expressed.

So it is a language of love; the disciple must be in an attitude of love. But not only this, because friends can be lovers. Tantra says a disciple moves as receptivity, so the disciple must be in a feminine receptivity; only then is something possible. You need not be a woman to be a disciple, but you need to be in a feminine attitude of receptivity. When Devi asks, it means the feminine attitude asks. Why this emphasis on the feminine attitude?