Introduction to Tantra: The Transformation of Desire Read Online Free PDF Page B

a depressing outlook may account for much of the alienation in modern society.
     
    Tantra challenges this unreasonably low opinion of human potential by showing us how to view ourselves and all others as transcendentally beautiful —as gods and goddesses in fact. One of the essential practices at all levels of tantra is to dissolve our ordinary conceptions of ourselves and then, from the empty space into which these concepts have disappeared, arise in the glorious light body of a deity: a manifestation of the essential clarity of our deepest being. The more we train to see ourselves as such a meditational deity, the less bound we will feel by life’s ordinary disappointments and frustrations. This divine self-visualization empowers us to take control of our life and create for ourselves a pure environment in which our deepest nature can be expressed.
     
    Tantric meditational deities should not be confused with what different mythologies and religions might mean when they speak of gods and goddesses.
    Here, the deity we choose to identify with represents the essential qualities of the fully awakened experience latent within us. To use the language of psychology, such a deity is an archetype of our own deepest nature, our most profound level of consciousness. In tantra we focus our attention upon such an archetypal image and identify with it in order to arouse the deepest, most profound aspects of our being and bring them into our present reality. It is a simple truth that if we identify ourselves as being fundamentally pure, strong, and capable we will actually develop these qualities, but if we continue to think of ourselves as dull and foolish, that is what we will become.
     
    To give an example of tantric transformation, we might visualize ourselves as Manjushri, a princely deity usually represented as reddish yellow in color, holding the sword of discriminating awareness in his right hand and a text of Buddha’s Perfection of Wisdom teachings in his left. (This we can do whether we are a man or a woman since tantric visualizations completely transcend our ordinary identification as male or female.) But such a visualized image is not, in fact, the actual Manjushri. Wisdom itself—the completely unobscured insight of a mind that has realized its full potential—is the actual Manjushri, and the purpose of seeing ourselves in the form of this particular deity is to hasten the development of the wisdom already within us. Manjushri’s double-edged sword, for example, symbolizes the ability of enlightened wisdom to discriminate between what is true and what is false by cutting through misconceptions and superstitions. The more closely we identify with such a deity, having become familiar with what each of his attributes stands for, the more deeply we stimulate in our own mind the growth of the qualities he represents.
     
    In the early stages of practice, this process of seeing oneself as a deity is largely artificial. But as we train in deity yoga with the proper perseverance we will be able to perceive this self-generated deity with a clarity far exceeding that of our present self-image. Our mind will actually become the mind of the deity, and our ordinary sensory experiences—what we see, hear, taste, and so forth— will be transformed into the blissful enjoyments of the deity. This is not a fairy tale. Such transformation has been the experience of countless tantric meditators of the past and there is no reason why, if we exert sufficient effort, we should not experience the same transcendental results.
     
    P ROBLEMS OF SELF-EMANATI ON
     
    “But why should I emanate myself as Manjushri or any other deity?” you may ask. “It is already difficult enough for me to emanate myself as a man, or as a woman. So why should I change my appearance and put on another mask, a Manjushri mask?”
     
    What we have to remember is that when we emanate ourselves as Manjushri, it is not to manifest as something different from