Pulling from the ideas in my last post on transcendence in the Kali Yuga (if it's truly possible in an era where we are so attached to the physical reality, especially these dense bodies), transformation was suggested as a companion approach, rather than relying on transcendence alone as the path of relationship with God and survival of the soul at death.
In his Yoga of Power, Evola offers one specific technique for transforming the dormant energies in the body:
"...the Tantras have claimed for themselves the dignity befitting a 'fifth Veda.' that is, a further revelation beyond what is found in the traditional four Vedas. To this they added a reference to the doctrine of the four ages (yugas) of the world. It is claimed that the teachings, rites, and disciplines that would have been viable in the first age (the Krita or Satya Yuga)\,the equivalent of Hesiod's 'golden age') are no longer fit for people living in the following ages, especially in the last age, the 'dark age' (Kali Yuga, the 'Iron Age,' 'the age of the Wolf' in the Edda). Mankind in these later ages may find knowledge, a worldview, rituals, and adequate practices for elevating humans over and beyond their condition and for overcoming death (mrityun javate), not in the Vedas and in other strictly traditional texts, but rather in the Tantras and the Aganas. It is stated therefore that only Tantric practices based on shakti (shakti-sadhana) are suitable and efficacious in our contemporary age: all the others are considered to be as powerless as a snake deprived of its poison."
With Tantra, action replaces contemplation. Much like Yoga requires determined practice, Tantra calls the initiate onto a path of direct experience.
However, at least in the West, Tantra is [likely mis]understood as some kind of orgiastic event, delighting in sensory pleasure, probably due to commercialism and the sweeping contemporary watering down of all attempts at divinity and union, but I'm not yet sure.
My knee-jerk concern is this: would this approach not be to further bolster the self, the ego, activating the sensory pleasures and steering away from self-purification? If this transformation is to unlock the dormant energies the body possesses, absorbing and transforming them into personal power, how does this contribute to union with God? Is it self-focused like so many of the modern/digital spiritualities this article so elegantly calls attention to?
Though it does seem if this path were to be taken, the power it could unlock in the individual would require as a precursor, a properly initiated person, who could wield the power wisely, that is- for transcendence, otherwise the approach is dangerous.
I don't have an answer yet; much more to learn.
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| Michelangelo's Dream. Painted by Joseph Noel Paton (1821–1901) |
"It is therefore not enough to abide by the theory of the identity between the deeper self (atman) and the principle of the universe (brahman) and 'to remain idle,' vaguely thinking of the conscious ether.' The Tantras deny the value of knowledge to this. In order to obtain true knowledge, one must be transformed by action..." - Julius Evola, The Yoga of Power
