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पंचम खण्ड / २८६
अर्चनार्चन
Our ancients knew it very well that the mind which is by its very nature savage, unsteady, and vicious, can be restrained and disciplined by doing certain bodily acts again and again. These acts were included in tantric sadhana with the aim of influencing, improving, purifying and enlightening the mind. This was called the state of chittashuddhi. It was, indeed, a wonderful discovery on the part of the ancient masters of Tantra that chittashuddhi can be tremendously helped to come about through doing some simple looking acts regularly and religiously.
Tantric sadhana is a passage from the gross to the subtle, from the superficial to the essential and from the apparent to the real. Tantra is a realistic doctrine, It does not look upon the world of objects and persons as illusory. It advocates the use of images, idols, pictures, and diagrams for concentrating the mind. When a sadhaka applies his mind to these instruments and forgets the world around him, he learns to internalise his mind. Just as counting, addition, and subtraction can be taught to a child with the help of marbles, balls, or coloured objects, so Tantra utilises image (murti) of the deity of one's choice (ishta-devata) and prescribes such acts as invoking the deity, waking it, feeding it, and offering flowers, bath, and so on, By doing these acts the mind of the sadhaka is trained to get attached to the deity, thus giving up attention from all else. Thus one can learn to do concentration (dharana) and contemplation (dhyana) progressively. Otherwise these two acts are almost impossible in the case of the common man. And Tantra is meant for all, including the common man. But Tantra does not ask the sadhaka to stay where a beginning is made. It advocates a steady progress of the mind from the gross image to its inner power, from the things used in worship to what they signify. Tantric Sadhana is based on the belief that a passage from the gross to the subtle is possible, and it gives due importance to such a passage. It is true, of course, that many of us do not actually show any such progress and we get caught up in the preliminaries and crudities only. But that is not a shortcoming of Tantra itself.
The real trouble is that most of us have only a very mild curiosity and very weak will to achieve the final goal of self-realisation. So we either do not make a start at all, or if we do, then we do not march on for long. For those who tread the path of Tantra with firm resolve a really wonderful experience of the subtle state of unification of the mind with the deity becomes a reality. But we must give the tantric sadhana a fair chance. Then it does not fail.
The most remarkable philosophic presupposition of tantric sadhana is the reconciliation of monism and dualism. Monism is the doctrine that there is only one single basic reality underlying the multifarious universe. Only that absolute reality is what exists. The multitude of objects of
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