Spiritual Tantra is a path of transformation and realization that uses embodied existence and lived experience rather than rejecting them, seeking integration of the whole being and, in nondual traditions, direct recognition of the unity of individual and universal consciousness.
"Women must discover the divine female essence within themselves."
"remembering one's ultimate identity as a deity."
~ Miranda Shaw, Passionate Enlightenment: Women in Tantric Buddhism, p. 43, Princeton University Press
"Tantra means 'continuum,' like a stream, of which there are three types:
base, path, and fruit."
~ 14th Dalai Lama, commentary in The Great Exposition of Secret Mantra, translated/edited by Jeffrey Hopkins.
"All that exists, has ever existed or will ever exist, is one infinite divine Being, free and blissful, whose body is the universe and whose soul is consciousness."
"Tantrik practice seeks nothing less than a total integration of our being."
~ Christopher D. Wallis, Tantra Illuminated.
"One of the main tantric techniques enables us to handle pleasure in a positive way...to take pleasure as the path to enlightenment."
~ Lama Thubten Yeshe, teachings on The Fundamentals of Tantra.
"Though primordially we are not separate, not recognizing me, you experience me externally."
~ Yeshe Tsogyal, quoted from her traditional teachings
"The term Tantra is a combination of two words namely, Tanoti and Trayate which stand for expansion and liberation respectively."
"Here it is an expansion of mind and liberation of energy."
~ Encyclopaedia of Tantra
"The feminine principle is spirit, soul and essence."
"something she is"
"Divinity, which is the Goddess, is intrinsic to her being"
~ Loriliai Biernacki, Renowned Goddess of Desire: Women, Sex, and Speech in Tantra, Oxford University Press.
"We are not two, yet you look for me outside;
when you find me within yourself,
your own naked mind..."
~ Yeshe Tsogyal, in Women in Praise of the Sacred
"Practice constantly to absorb the manifested,
The world of form merges into the void
The void dissolves, the One ineffable remains"
~ Lal Ded, Lalla-Vakh, translation by Neerja Mattoo
Divinity is not elsewhere. The Goddess is intrinsic. The practitioner and the divine are not ultimately separate. The manifested world is not simply something to escape. Practice transforms perception until one's already-present divine or awakened nature is directly recognized.
