"Tantra Has Methods"

So tantra is not concerned with your so-called morality. Really, to emphasize morality is mean, degrading; it is inhuman. If someone comes to me and I say, ”Leave anger first, leave sex first, leave this and that,” then I am inhuman. What I am saying is impossible. And that impossibility will make that man feel inwardly mean. He will begin to feel inferior; he will be degraded inside in his own eyes. If he tries the impossible, he is going to be a failure. And when he is a failure he will be convinced that he is a sinner.

The preachers have convinced the whole world that ”You are sinners.” This is good for them, because unless you are convinced, their profession cannot continue. You must be sinners: only then can churches, temples and mosques continue to prosper. Your being in sin is their success. Your guilt is the base of all the highest churches. The more guilty you are, the more churches will go on rising higher and higher. They are built on your guilt, on your sin, on your inferiority complex. Thus, they have created an inferior humanity.

Tantra is not concerned with your so-called morality, your social formalities, etc. That doesn’t mean that tantra says to be immoral – no! Tantra is so much unconcerned with your morality that tantra cannot say to be immoral. Tantra gives you scientific techniques for changing the mind, and once the mind is different your character will be different. Once the basis of your structure changes, your whole edifice will be different. Because of this amoral attitude, tantra could not be tolerated by your so-called saints, they all went against it – because if tantra succeeds, then all this nonsense which goes on in the name of religion will have to stop.

Christianity fought very much against scientific progress. Why? Only because if scientific progress is there in the material world, then the time is not very far off when in the psychological and in the spiritual world also science will penetrate. So Christianity started fighting scientific progress, because once you know that you can change matter through technique, the time is not very far off when you will come to know that you can change mind through techniques – because mind is nothing but subtle matter.

This is tantra’s proposition, that mind is nothing but subtle matter; it can be changed. And once you have a different mind you have a different world, because you look through the mind. The world you are seeing, you are seeing because of a particular mind. Change the mind, and when you look there is a different world. And if there is no mind... that is the ultimate for tantra, to bring about a state where there is no mind. Then look at the world without a mediator. When the mediator is not, you are encountering the real, because now no one is between you and the real. Then nothing can be distorted.

So tantra says that when there is no mind, that is the state of a Bhairava – a no-mind state. For the first time you look at the world, at that which is. If you have a mind, you go on creating a world; you go on imposing, projecting. So first change the mind, then change from mind to no-mind. And these one hundred and twelve methods can help each and everyone. Any particular method may not be of use to you. That is why Shiva goes on relating many methods. Choose any one method which suits you. It is not difficult to know which suits you.

Try to understand each method and how to choose for yourself one method which can change you and your mind. This understanding, this intellectual understanding will be a basic necessity, but this is not the end. Whatsoever Tantra talk about here, try it.

Really, when you try the right method it clicks immediately. You try them. Just play with them – go home and try. The right method, whenever you happen upon it, just clicks. Something explodes in you, and you know that ”This is the right method for me.” But effort is needed, and you may be surprised that suddenly one day one method has gripped you.

So while Tantra is talking here, parallel to it go on playing with these methods. Tantra says playing because you should not be too serious. Just play! Something may fit you. If it fits you, then be serious, and then go deep into it – intensely, honestly, with all your energy, with all your mind. But before that just play.

While you are playing your mind is more open. While you are serious your mind is not so open; it is closed. So just play. Do not be too serious, just play. And these methods are simple, you can just play with them.

Take one method and play with it for at least three days. If it gives you a certain feeling of affinity, if it gives you a certain feeling of well-being, if it gives you a certain feeling that this is for you, then be serious about it. Then forget the others, do not play with other methods. Stick to it – at least for three months. Miracles are possible. The only thing is that the technique must be for you. If the technique is not for you, then nothing happens. Then you may go on with it for lives together, but nothing will happen. If the method is for you then even three minutes are enough.

So these one hundred and twelve methods can be a miraculous experience for you, or they may just be a listening – it depends on you. Tantra describes each method from as many angles as possible. If you feel any affinity with it, play with it for three days. If you feel that it fits, that something clicks in you, continue it for three months. Life is a miracle. If you have not known its mystery, that only shows that you do not know the technique for how to approach it. 

Shiva proposes one hundred and twelve methods. These are all the methods possible. If nothing clicks and nothing gives you the feeling that this is for you, then there is no method left for you – remember this. Then forget spirituality and be happy. Then it is not for you.

But these one hundred and twelve methods are for the whole humanity – for all the ages that have passed and for all the ages that have yet to come. In no time has there ever been a single man, and there will never be one, who can say, ”These one hundred and twelve methods are all useless for me.” Impossible! This is impossible!

Every type of mind has been taken into account. Every possible type of mind has been given a technique in tantra. There are many techniques for which no man exists yet; they are for the future. There are many techniques for which no man exists now; they are for the past. But do not be afraid. There are many methods which are for you.