IS IT POSSIBLE TO FIND A SYNTHESIS BETWEEN YOGA AND TANTRA? DOES ONE LEAD TO ANOTHER?
No, it is impossible. It is as impossible as if you try to find a synthesis between man and woman. Then what will be the synthesis? – Third sex, an impotent person, will be the synthesis and that will neither be man nor woman. Rootless, that man will nowhere be…
Tantra is absolutely opposite, diametrically opposite than yoga. You cannot make any synthesis. And never try such things because you will be more and more confused. One is enough to confuse you; two will be too much. And they lead in different directions. They reach the same summit; they reach the same peak. Synthesis is there at the top, at the climax, but at the foothill, where the journey starts, they are absolutely different. One goes to the east, another goes to the west. They say goodbye to each other; they have their backs to each other. They are like man and woman – different psychologies, beautiful in their difference.
If you make a synthesis, it becomes ugly. A woman has to be a woman – so much of a woman that she becomes a polarity to man. In their polarities they are beautiful because in their polarities they are attracted to each other. In their polarities they are complementary, but you cannot synthesize. Synthesis will be just poor, synthesis will be just powerless. There will be no tension in it.
At the peak they meet, and that meeting is an orgasm. Where man and woman meet, when their bodies dissolve, when they are not two things, when yin and yang are one, it becomes one circle of energy. For a moment, at the summit of bio-energy, they meet and then they fall again.
The same is with tantra and yoga. Tantra is feminine, yoga is male. Tantra is surrender, yoga is will. Tantra is effortlessness, yoga is effort – tremendous effort. Tantra is passive, yoga is active. Tantra is like the earth, yoga is like the sky. They meet, but there is no synthesis. They meet at the top, but at the foothill where the journey starts, where you all are standing, you have to choose the path.
Paths cannot be synthesized. And people who try that, they confuse humanity. They confuse very deeply and they are not a help; they are very harmful. Paths cannot be synthesized – only the end. Path has to be separate from another path – perfectly separate, different in its very tone, being. When you follow tantra, you move through sex. That is tantra’s path; you allow nature a total surrender. It is a let-go, you don’t fight, it is not a path of a warrior. You don’t struggle; you surrender wherever nature leads. Nature leads into sex you surrender to sex. You completely move into it with no guilt, with no concept of sin.
Tantra has no concept of sin, no guilt. Move into sex. Just remain alert, watching what is happening. Be alert, mindful of what is going on. But don’t try to control, don’t try to contain yourself; allow the flow. Move into the woman; let the woman move into you. Let them become a circle and you remain a watcher. Through this watching and let-go, tantra achieves a transcendence. Sex disappears. This is one way to go beyond nature because going beyond sex is going beyond nature.
Whole nature is sexual. Flowers are there because they are sexual. All beauty exists because of some sexual phenomenon. A continuous game is on. Trees are attracting others, birds are calling others. Everywhere a sexual game is on. Nature is sex, and to achieve to the supersex is to go beyond sex. But tantra says use sex as a step. Don’t fight with it: go beyond it, using it. Move through it, pass through it, and attain to the transcendence through experience. A watchful experience becomes transcendence.
Yoga says don’t waste energy: bypass sex completely. No need to go into it: you can simply bypass. Conserve energy, and don’t be be-fooled by nature. Fight nature, become a willpower; become a controlled being not floating anywhere. The whole yoga methods are how to make you capable so that there is no need to let go into nature, no need to allow nature to have its own way. You become a master and you move on your own against nature, fighting nature. It is a way of the warrior – the impeccable warrior who continuously fights, and through fighting transcends.
These are totally different. Both lead to the same goal: choose one; don’t try to synthesize. How can you synthesize? If you go through sex, yoga is dropped. How can you synthesize? If you leave sex, tantra is dropped. How can you synthesize? But remember, both lead to the same goal: transcendence is the goal. It depends on you – on your type. Are you a warrior type, a man who fights continuously? Then yoga is your path. If you are not a warrior type, if you are passive – in a subtle way feminine, you would not like to fight with anybody, really non-violent – then tantra is the path, and because both lead to the same goal, there is no need to synthesize.
Synthesizers, to me, are always almost wrong. All Gandhis are wrong; whosoever synthesizes is wrong, because it is synthesizing allopathy with ayurvedic; it is synthesizing homeopathy with allopathic; it is synthesizing with Hindu and Mohammedan; it is synthesizing Buddha and Patanjali. No need to synthesize. Each path in itself is perfect. Each path in itself is so perfect, it doesn’t need anything to be added to it; and any addition can be dangerous because a part may be functioning in a particular machine… may become a barrier into another.
You can take a part from an Impala car. It was functioning well into it, and you can put it into a Ford and it may create problems. A part functions in a pattern. A part depends on the pattern, on the whole. You cannot use simply a part anywhere. And what do these synthesizers do? They take one part from one system, another part from another system; they make a hodge-podge, and if you follow these fellows you will become a hodge-podge. No need to synthesize. Just try to find out your type, feel your type, and there is no hurry; watch and feel your type.
Can you surrender? – Surrender to nature? – Then surrender. If you feel it is impossible, “I cannot surrender”, then don’t be depressed because there is another path which needs no surrender in this way, which gives you all the opening to fight. And both lead to the same at the peak, when you have reached the Gourishankar. By and by, as you reach nearer and nearer to the peak, you see others are also reaching who were traveling on different paths.
Ramakrishna tried one of the greatest experiments in the whole history of humanity. When he became enlightened, after his enlightenment, he tried many paths. Nobody has done that ever because there is no need. You have attained to the peak; why be worried whether other paths lead to it or not? But Ramakrishna did a great service to humanity. He came back down to the foothill again and tried another path – whether it also leads to the top or not. He tried many, and each time he reached the same point.
This is his simile – that at the foothill, paths are different. They move in different directions, even look opposite, contradictory. But at the top they meet – synthesis is at the top. At the beginning, diversions, multiplicity; in the end, unity, oneness.
Don’t bother about synthesis. You simply choose your path and stick to it. And don’t be allured by others who will be calling to you to come to their path because it leads. Hindus have reached, Mohammedans have reached, Jews have reached, Christians have reached and the ultimate truth has no conditioning that if you are a Hindu only then you will reach.
The only thing to be worried about is to feel your type and choose. I am not against anything; I am for everything. Whatsoever you choose, I can help you that way. But no synthesis Don’t try for synthesis.
Tags: No Synthesis Patanjali
