Exploring Tantric Ecstasy: Releasing The Limitations Of Maya

How do we experience our infinite selves alongside our physical selves every day? We must understand the tantric teaching of how our physical (and limited) selves are created within Maya. There are 5 "fetters" or limitations that allow our Divine Selves to experience this world. Unattended, these create all of our human suffering. However, with understanding and the journey to wholeness, we can transcend them allowing ourselves full access to our infinite selves while fully enjoying this wonderful experience on Earth.

Transcript

Today we're talking about living in ecstasy from a tantric perspective and it's all about releasing the limitations of maya.

So first of all if you imagine what maya is,

Maya is this world we live in and we can look at it from a spiritual perspective.

Some people call it our spiritual training ground.

That's why it's so filled with difficulty.

That's why it's so filled with struggle and all that because we're here to actually learn something.

We're here to actually do something.

It's not meant to be a utopia but the challenge is sometimes we get caught in the limitations of maya.

We get caught in this world and the suffering and the struggle and we maybe forget why we ever came here.

Another reason I want to talk about this is in the tantric perspective and of course we're talking way beyond sexual intimacy or relationships.

We're talking about the tantric perspective,

Living a tantric life.

Well the foundation of that is to integrate the divine and the physical into our day-to-day lives.

Now philosophically we say ah yes of course I will remember that I am a spiritual being,

Having a human experience and we have all these little scripts that we hear all the time and we say yeah and then something happens and we forget all the spiritual scripts.

You know we get that phone call from our ex and we're suddenly furious and we've forgotten everything.

So there are some things that are sort of easy to say,

Harder to do and what we're going to talk about today will help us understand how do we actually do that?

How do we remember that we are divine and physical?

Because the tantric journey is not about completely transcending our experience.

That's not it.

This is not about never having a job or making money or having sex or caring about politics or caring about fitness.

It's not about that.

These are not lowly aspects of life.

These are life.

This is important.

Our physical life matters.

Our relationships matter.

Everything we do matters but how do we also bring a divine perspective to each aspect of that life?

So if we back up to a tantric worldview,

This is in many schools but say specifically Kashmir Shaivism.

Not that that matters but just if you're interested in diving deeper.

The worldview is that there was once God or there is God in the Hindu tradition.

This is Shiva Shakti and Shiva Shakti in its wholeness is not masculine and feminine or anything else.

It's just Shiva Shakti.

So Shiva Shakti in wholeness and oneness,

This is where we have omniscience,

Omnipresence,

Omnipotence,

Wholeness,

All-knowing,

All-powerful,

Everywhere pervasive and wholeness.

This is this aspect of reality and for whatever reason we decided to experience duality.

So Shiva Shakti separated into two,

One called Shiva,

One called Shakti.

In many ways not in the context of this talk right today,

This is the masculine and feminine duality that is always desiring wholeness again because they are all existing at the same time.

So there's almost this memory of wholeness that we are always trying to bring back together.

So how does this duality exist?

How does an omnipotent,

Omniscient entity,

Energy,

Force experience a human reality in maya?

Well one way of looking at it is what they call the fetters or the conchicas or the veils of reality or the shells.

These are all just different words they use for the five veils,

The five conchicas.

And what are they?

And we're going to talk about them all in detail.

The first is,

I'm going to tell you the Sanskrit just because it might be interesting to play later.

Kala and kala is limited power.

So it's kind of like in the in the movies,

You know,

God wants to come down to earth but they can't be all-powerful because then they're not having a human experience.

So they limit the power possible.

They limit what's possible in a day.

Okay so there's one.

So then there's vidya,

Incomplete knowledge.

So the omniscient whole consciousness,

God says,

Well I don't really want to know everything.

I don't want to know what you're thinking.

I don't want to know every single thing in the universe.

Otherwise I'm not really going to play the human game.

So we have limited knowledge.

Then we have something called raga,

Which is desire.

And desire for all intents and purposes,

Raga,

Is the belief that we are not complete,

That we are incomplete,

That we are imperfect.

If we come to earth and we're all like I'm all that,

I'm perfect,

I'm good,

We're just going to sit and chillax for the rest of our life.

We're not going to actually want to go out and do stuff because we're not going to try to fill something.

The fourth fetter is kala,

Which is time.

The illusion of time.

The very idea that there is a past,

Present,

And future.

There's no such thing in all created oneness.

All things are happening right now.

And on some level we know this also.

And the last one is called nyati.

And nyati is kind of a strange one to get our heads around.

But in some ways it's space because we're no longer omnipresent.

We're not everywhere any longer.

We don't have this pervasive consciousness.

We now believe that oh I'm here and you're over there.

And because you're over here and I'm here,

What I do affects you.

So now there's causality,

There's karma,

There's all that kind of thing,

Right?

These five fetters create our reality.

So we can imagine how these five fetters create suffering and challenges.

How often do we feel challenged because I just can't do what I want to do,

Or I just don't know enough,

Or you know it's like I just want and I want all these things and I never feel satisfied.

You know there's not enough time for anything.

So if we get lost in that,

Of course life becomes a lot of suffering.

So there's another way to look at it.

And we're going to look at all five fetters and then kind of go beyond.

The tantric view,

The original tantric teaching of the kanchikas,

The fetters,

Is that shivashakti took itself in all of its wonder and oneness and omnipotence,

Omnipresence,

Shrunk itself down to a single dot,

To nothingness.

It actually shed all of that power,

All of that awareness.

It shed everything.

And what it did is it added back the kanchikas.

The kanchikas.

It added back a little bit of power,

A little bit of knowledge,

A little bit of self.

It added back time.

It added back space and said,

Go play for a while.

See what this is like.

But what's interesting is because we were given a little bit,

We still remember that we are shivashakti.

We remember that we are divine.

So there's always this desire to expand.

There's always the desire to be able to do more,

To be able to know more,

To find the thing that will fill us,

To transcend time and remember what it is when all time exists right now.

And this is a very beautiful way of understanding this from a tantric perspective,

Because suddenly we remember that we are all that.

But we also realize that the limitations in the fetters,

They're also there for our enjoyment.

We can see them as points of suffering,

But they're also there to give us an enjoyable human experience.

One of my favorite examples of this is when I was first studying this,

When I first discovered it,

Of course,

I live in Canada.

And so Canada is famous for hockey.

I'm not actually a sports person.

So this could be hockey or football or anything at all.

But let's imagine that,

You know,

One of our most famous hockey players is Wayne Gretzky.

And let's imagine that Wayne Gretzky has a niece.

I have no idea what Wayne Gretzky's family is,

But let's say he has a niece who plays hockey and she's 10 years old.

And her team says,

Oh,

Could you get your uncle Wayne to play with us one day?

Wouldn't that be fun?

So Wayne Gretzky,

Of course,

He's a nice guy.

So he's yeah,

Sure,

Of course,

You know.

So off he goes.

Now,

If he played in his true professional hockey ability,

That wouldn't really be any fun for anybody.

It wouldn't be fun for him.

He wouldn't actually have to try.

It wouldn't be fun for those kids because he would just skate circles around them and they would just become pylons.

So they would say,

You know what?

What if you,

What if we tie your right arm behind your back and you have to play with your left hand and we block one of your eyes and you can only skate backwards?

Well,

Suddenly everybody's having fun.

Gretzky's actually got this great challenge that he's got to actually try and he's got to expand in other ways.

The kids are having a great time because they can actually maybe get the puck every so often.

It's fun.

This is our goal.

This is our goal in life is to recognize the limitations,

The handicaps,

Whatever you want to call them.

But also remember that we are professional hockey players at all times and that's a really interesting dance to play in.

So let's talk about each one of these.

Kala,

Limited power.

So on a bad day we think to ourselves,

Well I can't do that.

Someone says,

Well why don't you do this?

Well,

I can't do that.

I can't.

I don't have that ability.

I don't have the strength.

I can't do that.

Is it true?

Really?

If an alien came and possessed your body,

Could you do it?

Probably.

But there's a limitation there.

There's something that's telling us that I can't.

But of course,

Let's think about the benefit of not being able to do everything.

So I love to write books.

I actually right now,

I'm in the process of writing five more books and I'm really enjoying them.

They're kind of,

I just turn the dial on the various ones every so often.

But what if I could write,

And I don't know when they'll come out,

Maybe it'll take me three years for these new books to come out.

There's kind of a joy in that.

There's a joy in the process.

There's a joy in the in the fact that time exists and that I have limited knowledge,

That I have to actually research and I have to do this and I actually,

There's only so many things I can do in a day.

So if I was all powerful,

I could write 500 books a day.

But then it wouldn't be any fun to write books anymore.

There's a real benefit to actually not being able to do things.

This is connected with something called Kriya Shakti.

Now Kriya Shakti,

Kriya is a very,

Very common Sanskrit word used in many,

Many ways,

Especially in yoga.

But essentially Kriya means action.

And Shakti is the energy,

It's intelligence,

It's all those things.

So Kriya Shakti is how we expand Kala,

How we expand this limited power.

It's by doing things.

It's through creativity.

It's through manifesting.

It's through inspiration.

But this is how we actually expand it.

Just through doing,

Just through trying,

Through trial and error.

That is how we expand Kala.

Just keep trying,

Just keep doing it.

Whatever,

Yeah,

Persistence,

Just keep doing it.

We don't have to be right.

We're expanding the We're expanding the power of ability.

And then bit by bit,

We keep expanding a bit more,

And then a bit more,

And then a bit more.

And the great thing is it doesn't matter where we start.

It doesn't matter whether we come from a very disempowered place,

Maybe from our childhood,

From all those things.

We just keep expanding.

That's the only goal.

Vidya.

Vidya is incomplete knowledge.

And again,

What would life be like if you knew everything?

And this is everything.

Good,

Bad,

And ugly.

Everyone's thoughts,

Everyone's everything.

What would it be like to walk around like that all the time?

Be weird,

Right?

Be weird,

Right?

And it's almost like you kind of think to yourself,

Well,

I'd actually like to limit that.

I'd like to actually just know more about my own experience.

I don't really want to know what you're thinking.

I just want to know what I'm thinking,

And then we can communicate.

That's actually more down the line that I'd like.

And yet we could suffer because of a lack of knowledge.

But the reality is we can learn anything.

We can always expand our knowledge.

Always.

And if there's anything that tells us we can't,

We have to look at that.

Because this is what we're here for.

We're here to expand our knowledge.

So the other interesting aspect about Vidya,

About this limited knowledge,

It also is interpreted as incomplete knowledge.

And that's really,

Really important.

Because the problems that we have,

The struggles that we have,

Don't necessarily come from what we don't know,

Or the fact that we have limited knowledge.

The problem comes when we believe that what we know is all that there is to know.

That's the problem.

But when we understand that I know this much,

But there's actually so much more I could know,

Then my limited knowledge is just fine.

Then it's fine.

It's almost like understanding that there is a greater context for what I understand in the world.

And I am just understanding a microcosm of this great big world of all the things that we can possibly know.

As long as we understand what we know within the framework of a greater context,

We are just fine.

Because again,

Then what does that do?

It sets us up to say,

I'd like to understand the greater context.

You know,

This is where jnani yoga comes from.

It comes into play.

The desire for truth.

You know,

Right now,

One of my great passions is studying my magic bookshelf.

Because I'm so intrigued to know where this tantra that I teach,

That I understand,

What is the greater context?

Where does it really come from?

It's great to know anything.

But it's even more interesting when we when we start to sort of expand into the bigger picture.

The third one,

Raga,

Desire.

Now,

Desire in life,

In this way,

As a limitation,

As a kanchika,

This is the root of it,

Is the belief that we are incomplete,

Or we are imperfect.

So we all know this suffering,

We all know this lack of self worth,

Or this feeling that there's just not enough,

You know,

All that kind of thing.

Some people describe this as a non specific craving for worldly desires,

In order to fill a void inside.

A non specific craving.

All we know is I'm looking for something to make me feel complete,

To make me feel whole,

There's got to be something out there,

That's going to make me feel whole.

This is raga.

Now again,

We can get caught up in the I know I'm not complete.

I'm not okay,

There's something wrong with me,

Like we can go there.

But what if we know that we simply we aren't incomplete.

There's just a journey to take back to our wholeness.

Every time we feel a desire,

Every time we have that desire,

That we want something,

We simply trace it back to its source.

We simply trace it back to that,

Oh,

I want that because I want that wholeness.

And we kind of sit with that desire and go,

Oh,

Yeah,

I remember because it's almost like we think,

Oh,

If I just go and have this thing,

What will I feel like,

When that makes me feel whole?

Like,

Let's say,

For example,

It's even money.

When I think you know what,

If I just made six figures,

Now think about this in the fantasy realm.

Because we all know that once we make it doesn't necessarily work that way.

But in the fantasy realm,

I desire all this money.

Oh,

I am going to feel so good.

I am going to feel complete.

Feel that because that is our real self.

There's nothing wrong with that,

As long as we remember what we're seeking.

In the tantric perspective,

If we begin as a dot,

And we're added parts of ourself back,

And the goal is to become whole,

This is our desire to express ourselves in our wholeness.

This is our journey to satya,

Our journey to wholeness,

Our journey to bring all of our parts back together and feel that wholeness.

We talk about this all the time.

My desire to express myself,

My desire for people to see me,

My real self.

It's good.

It's what makes us go and take art classes so we can express ourselves through color,

Or go out and take dance classes so we can express ourself through movement.

It's a good thing.

As long as we don't get caught up believing that when I satisfy that worldly desire,

And I don't feel whole,

As long as we're okay with that,

That we kind of enjoy the desire.

But deep down we also know that I am still in this limited form,

And that's okay because it still makes me want to go dancing,

And it makes me want to make love,

And it makes me want to eat chocolate.

It makes me want to travel to Spain and have some interesting experience.

It's all good.

Then there is kala.

It's sort of like kala.

It's like a K with an A with a bar on top.

That's limited power.

Kala with the bar over the second A.

This is time.

This curious illusion of time that we live within.

The very idea that there is a past,

Present,

And future.

Isn't that curious?

Of course,

Where can this cause suffering?

Because we get attached to the positive and negative things in our past and in our future,

And we actually don't live right now.

In the past,

We could be attached to anger we felt in a previous time,

Resentment for a previous action,

Or even happiness.

Because if we get attached to the happiness of our past,

We live in nostalgia.

And one says,

Oh,

There's nothing wrong with that.

There's nothing wrong with looking back on good times,

Right?

But we're talking about attachment.

I'm talking about are we cultivating happiness now?

Or are we living in the past?

Are we grasping a previous time when I was successful,

Or I was in school,

Or I was married,

Or the kids were small,

Or whatever?

Am I grasping for that in the past?

Because this moment right now is all that exists.

They really are memories,

Shadows.

And it's really,

Really important that we live here now.

But then maybe there's positive and negative things in this illusory future.

But what if this doesn't happen?

And what if this does happen?

And what if that,

And oh my God,

And if I do that thing,

And then this could happen,

And oh,

You know,

And then we got all stressed out.

We got all stressed out.

And it's not real.

None of it is real.

Or maybe we're like,

You know,

One day I'm going to have this thing,

And I'm going to do this thing in one day.

Now,

If you're taking action in this moment to make that dream happen,

Awesome,

Possum.

But if we're just kind of like,

Well,

You know,

Maybe one day things will change,

But we're not doing anything in this moment,

Then we are also grasping to a future.

But all the power lies right here.

So it's a very interesting thing,

This concept of time.

And of course,

We all know how to transcend time.

Even though we know that we all have a past,

And we all have a future,

We all also know that this moment is all that there is.

And so we study ways to come back into this moment.

We breathe,

We come back into the breath.

One of my favorite Buddhist mantras is present moment,

Only moment.

And they would do a walking meditation,

Where they would walk and they would say present moment,

Only moment,

Present moment,

Only moment.

And this is a very powerful mantra.

We're going to come back to that at the end.

So the last fetter,

The last kanchuka,

Is nyati.

It's interpreted sometimes as causality.

It's also interpreted as space.

So nyati is the contraction of consciousness.

If we had godlike consciousness,

We would be aware that all things are one,

That we are everywhere,

All the time.

That's not really helpful when we want to have a human experience.

So this is the contraction of the idea of that consciousness that says,

Actually,

I'm just in this body,

In this space,

Right here.

This is where the time-space continuum comes into play,

That we are experiencing life through time,

But we are also in space.

And what's interesting about nyati is it also is connected with this idea of causality,

Because suddenly all of us are like pinballs in a pinball machine,

That I do something that affects you,

And you do something that affects them,

Because we're now experiencing each other as separate in space.

So now there's this idea of,

This is where karma comes from.

Because I've done something to you,

And you've done something back to me,

Or whatever,

And now we have this curious pattern happening,

That can only happen in space.

It can only happen when we're separate.

If we're all just one,

And there is no space,

There's no causality,

Because I'm just doing it to me.

There isn't even me to do it to,

Because I'm just everything.

So it's interesting,

Because the limitation of nyati is when we feel bound to circumstances.

I feel stuck in this place.

I can't leave.

I can't change.

I am bound to this family.

I am bound to this job.

I am bound to this country.

I am bound to this culture.

I am bound to this country.

I am bound to this karma.

I am bound to this pattern.

I cannot change it,

Because I am here.

This is where I am.

I can't do anything about it.

So of course,

What's the answer?

Is we expand our possibilities,

That maybe I'm not limited in this space.

Maybe I'm not limited in this job.

Maybe I actually could be somewhere else.

I could have a different relationship.

I could live in a different country.

I could choose something outside of this pattern,

Outside of this karmic pattern,

However you understand that.

I just understand it as a pattern of energy that we continue until it's complete.

Positive or negative,

It's not a thing.

So it's just an interesting thing,

Right,

To transcend that,

To say,

I see where I am right now.

I see that I feel stuck in this place.

What would it feel like if I was in another place?

That's interesting.

What would it feel like if I was in that place over there?

That's interesting.

And as soon as we expand to the idea that we actually could be in a different place,

Choice now exists.

Now suddenly,

Anything's possible.

So if I choose to stay in this relationship,

Whether it's the best or everything I've ever wanted to be,

I know I could change.

I know I could do something different,

But I'm choosing to stay.

Or maybe there's this job that it's not great.

I make a lot of money,

But yeah,

I know I could change jobs,

But you know what?

I'm going to stay.

Or maybe I have a job that I love the people,

But I don't make enough money.

And I could change jobs so I could make more money,

But I like the people and that really is important to me.

So I'm going to do this other thing on the side to pay the rent.

It changes everything.

We fully accept the limitation.

We fully accept our space and time.

Awesome.

So one of the most important things we can do for ourselves to be able to both transcend all of these fetters and fully live in them is to develop that witness mind,

To develop that neutral mind,

The ability to sit and observe ourselves and say,

Wow,

I'm really living in the past right now.

Wow.

I'm really living in a future that isn't happening.

Wow.

I'm really stuck on this idea that I'm not that intelligent or I don't know stuff or,

Or I'm really powerless.

Hmm.

That's interesting.

Well then you know what?

Who told me that I couldn't learn anything?

Who told me that I couldn't do this?

There's a beautiful movie called The Sessions.

It's actually a movie about a sexual surrogate where her work with a man who had really bad polio and lived in an iron lung.

Like he literally lived inside this machine that breathed him.

So he couldn't use,

I don't think he had any use of his arms or legs,

But he could type with this pen in his mouth.

And the man wrote books.

He lectured at universities.

He was,

He did all these things,

Even though he didn't have any of this ability.

And it's just an amazing thing to think that I can always learn something.

I can always expand my abilities to do things.

I can always expand my sense of self and I can always make choices and changes,

But it's really important.

This is why we meditate.

This is why we do the yoga to be able to separate ourselves from the parts of us that are enmeshed and entangled and super attached to these limitations.

And as soon as we have a moment of clarity,

A moment that we say,

Oh,

These don't own me.

I am also all that.

And it's also extremely humbling.

It's not like we walk around going,

I am literally all powerful.

I'm just playing this little game right now.

But you know what I mean?

Like we can also go,

Wow,

What a journey this is.

How epic is this?

That I get to try to reclaim all of this.

What a gift.

Karma.

Is it real or imagined?

It's a funny question,

Right?

Because we have to ask ourselves,

What's real?

What does reality mean?

If we assume that our experience here in Maya is real,

Then karma is real.

If we imagine the reality is that we are having this experience right now,

We all are here chatting right now.

If we believe that we are truly real,

If this experience is real,

Then karma is real.

The best explanation I ever heard was actually by Osho.

And he said that karma is simply unfinished business.

And you can imagine that.

It's kind of like,

Imagine you have a lifetime where you're painting your masterpiece,

But you never get to finish it because war breaks out and I don't know,

Something happens.

And then you're born into this life and for some reason,

All you want to do is paint.

You just have to paint.

You have this great desire to paint.

It's just unfinished business.

Maybe you had a past life where you were severely oppressed,

Whether it's by government,

By royalty,

By relationship,

By family.

And in your deepest heart,

You'd always wanted to overcome oppression.

You wanted to be powerful again.

But it never came to light in that lifetime.

So you came back again in order,

But the desire was to overcome the oppression.

So we did it again.

And then maybe you got a little bit stronger.

And then we do it again,

And we get a little bit stronger.

And we do it again,

And we get a little bit stronger.

And then one day,

We make whatever the choice is,

And we get out of that cycle,

And we go on to something else.

And that makes total sense to me.

It's just simply energy passing and us having the experiences that we want to have.

But it's an interesting thing to ask,

Is it imagined?

That perhaps all of our thoughts,

Our limitations,

Our karmas really are in our mind.

And therefore,

They are changeable.

We can change what we imagine.

So thank you so much for being here.

And I hope you have a wonderful day.

Reviews

Te amo Katrina, eres una inspiración para mi en la lejanía 💫

I've listened to this lovely talk twice now. Thank you so much 💝
Present moment,p wonderful moment. --T.N. Hahn

What good teaching Katrina about the purpose of being human. It makes so much sense. Thank you for sharing this ancient wisdom and making it so relatable to us today.