#8 – Tantra Explained

This episode is taken from a series of lectures given by Dr Swami Shankardev to a yoga group in 2005. It focuses on tantra.

He briefly describes the difference between yoga and tantra and how tantra fits into the profound philosophical systems of India.

Out of the myriad systems that arose over the millennia, 6 systems, called the shad darshana, became the most famous. The six systems are:

1. Gautama’s Nyāya
2. Kanāda’s Vaisheshika
3. Kapila’s Sāmkhya
4. Patanjali’s yoga sutras
5. Jaimini’s Pūrva Mīmāmsā
6. Bādarāyana’s Uttara Mīmāmsā (also called Vedānta)

Tantra lies outside of these six. It is a vast sprawling amorphous system that enables you to liberate energy to expand your consciousness so that you see that everything in existence has consciousness at its center.

The tools of tantra are mantra and yantra, name and form. By vibrating matter with a mantra, a name of the divine, the power within a sacred form or symbol, a yantra, is liberated. The world is seen to shine with divine radiance. You become a seer. Consciousness’ is then experienced as the eternally unchanging reality, all-knowing and full of bliss.

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