"Tantra means Purity"

 

    

    For tantra the division into good and bad is impurity. Before it you are pure, after it you are pure; in it you are impure. But knowledge is a necessary evil, you cannot escape it. One has to go through it; that is part of life. But one need not remain in it always, one can transcend it. Transcendence makes you again pure and innocent. If divisions lost their meaning, if the knowledge which differentiates between good and evil were no more, you would again look at the world from an innocent attitude.

    Jesus says, ”Unless you become like children, you cannot enter into my kingdom of God.” Unless you become like children... this is the purity of tantra.

    Lao Tsu says, ”One inch of division, and heaven and hell are set apart.” No-division is the mind of the sage – no division at all! A sage doesn’t know what is good or what is bad. He is like children but unlike them also, because he has known this division. He has passed through this division and transcended it; he has gone beyond it. He has known darkness and light, but now he has gone beyond it. Now he sees darkness as part of light and light as part of darkness, now there is no division. Light and darkness have both become one – degrees of one phenomenon. Now he sees everything as degrees of one; howsoever polar opposite they are, they are not two. Life and death, love and hate, good and bad, everything is part of one phenomenon, one energy. The difference is only of degrees, and they can never be divided. It cannot be demarked, that ”From this point there is division.” There is no division.

    What is good? What is bad? From where can you define them and demark them as separate? They are always one. They are only different degrees of the same thing. Once this is known and felt, your mind becomes again pure. This is the purity meant by tantra. So I will define tantric purity as innocence, not as goodness.

    But innocence can be ignorant – then it is of no use. It has to be lost, you have to be thrown out of it; otherwise you cannot mature. Giving up knowledge and transcendence of knowledge are both part of maturing, part of being really adult. So go through it, but do not remain there. Move! Go on moving! A day comes when you are beyond it.

    That is why tantric purity is difficult to understand and can be misunderstood. It is delicate! So to recognize a tantric sage is virtually impossible. Ordinary saints and sages can be recognized because they follow you – your standards, your definitions, your morality. A tantric sage is even difficult to recognize because he transcends all divisions. So really, in the whole history of human growth we know nothing about tantric sages. Nothing is mentioned or recorded about them because it is so difficult to recognize them.

    Confucius went to Lao Tsu. Lao Tsu’s mind is that of a tantrically awakened sage. He never knew about the word ‘tantra’; the word is meaningless for him. He never knew anything about tantra, but whatsoever he has said IS tantra. Confucius is representative of our mind, he is the archrepresentative. He continually thinks in terms of good and bad, of what should be done and what should not be done. He is a legalist – the greatest legalist ever born. He went to see Lao Tsu, and he asked Lao Tsu, ”What is good? What ought one to do? What is bad? Define it clearly.”

    Lao Tsu said, ”Definitions create a mess, because defining means dividing: this is this, and that is that.” You divide and say A is A and B is B... you have divided. You say A cannot be B; then you have created a division, a dichotomy, and the existence is one. A is always becoming B, A is always moving into B. Life is always becoming death, life is always moving into death, so how can you define? Childhood is moving into youth and youth is moving into old age; health is moving into disease and disease is moving into health. So where can you demark them as separate?

    Life is one movement, and the moment you define you create a mess, because definitions will be dead and life is an alive movement. So definitions are always false. Lao Tsu said, ”Defining creates non-truth, so do not define. Do not say what is good and what is bad.”

    So Confucius said, ”What are you saying? Then how can people be led and guided? Then how can they be taught? How can they be made moral and good?”

    Lao Tsu said, ”When someone tries to make someone else good, that is a sin in my eyes. Who are you to lead? Who are you to guide? And the more guides there are, the more confusion. Leave everyone to himself. Who are you?”

    This type of attitude seems dangerous. It is! Society cannot be founded on such attitudes. Confucius goes on asking, and the whole point is that Lao Tsu says, ”Nature is enough, no morality is needed. Nature is spontaneous. Nature is enough, no imposed laws and disciplines are needed. Innocence is enough; no morality is needed. Nature is spontaneous, nature is enough. No imposed laws and disciplines are needed. Innocence is enough. Knowledge is not needed.”

    Confucius came back very much disturbed. He could not sleep for nights. And his disciples asked, ”Tell us something about the meeting. What happened?” Confucius answered, ”He is not a man, he is a danger, a dragon. He is not a man. Never go to that place where he is. Whenever you hear about Lao Tsu, just escape from that place. He will disturb your mind completely.”

    And that is right, because the whole of tantra is concerned with how to transcend the mind. It is bound to destroy the mind. Mind lives with definitions, laws and disciplines; mind is an order. But remember, tantra is not disorder, and that is a very subtle point to be understood.

    Confucius could not understand Lao Tsu. When Confucius left, Lao Tsu was laughing and laughing and so his disciples asked, ”Why are you laughing so much? What has happened?”

    Lao Tsu is reported to have said, ”The mind is such a barrier to understanding. Even the mind of a Confucius is a barrier. He could not understand me at all, and whatsoever he will say about me will be a misunderstanding. He thinks he is going to create order in the world. You CANNOT create order in the world. Order is inherent in it; it is always there. When you try to create order you create disorder.” Lao Tsu said, ”He will think that I am creating disorder, and really, he is the one who is creating disorder. I am against all imposed orders because I believe in a spontaneous discipline which comes and grows automatically. You need not impose it.”

    Tantra looks at things in this way. For tantra, innocence is spontaneity, SAHAJATA – to be oneself without any imposition, to be simply oneself, growing like a tree. Not the tree of your garden, but the tree of your forest, growing spontaneously; not guided, because every guidance is a misguidance. For tantra, every guidance is a misguidance. Not guided, not guarded, not directed, not motivated, but simply growing.