In The Tantric View

In the Tantric View is a Tantra Quote from a Tantra System Scholar

“In the Tantric View, there are two goals in human life: worldly success and spiritual liberation. The former consists of learning how to successfully negotiate the challenges of embodiment. Creating sufficient harmony and balance in relation to one’s work, family, mental and physical health, and so on gives rise to worldly happiness, the ability to simply enjoy life (bhoga). Unlike all the pre-Tantric forms of yoga, the Tantra does not reject this goal, but actually provides tools to achieve it.

The second goal, or purpose, of human life is seemingly very different: to achieve a spiritual liberation that entails a deep and quiet joy that is utterly independent of one’s life circumstances, a joy in simply existing, free from all mind-created suffering (mokṣa).

Tantra does not see these goals as necessarily mutually exclusive: you can strive for greater happiness and success (bhoga) while at the same time cultivating a practice that will enable you to deeply love your life even if it doesn’t go the way you want (mokṣa). It’s a win–win proposition.

But the tradition correctly points out that unless the former activity (bhoga) is subordinated to the latter (mokṣa), it is likely that pursuit of bhoga will take over. That outcome is potentially regrettable for two reasons: first, if you haven’t cultivated mokṣa (spiritual liberation) and your carefully built house of cards collapses, as can happen to any of us at any time, you will have no inner ‘safety net’ to catch you.”

― Christopher D Wallis, The Recognition Sutras: Illuminating a 1,000-Year-Old Spiritual Masterpiece

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