You Are Not Book.indb - Stephen H. Wolinsky Ph. D.

The Veil of the Concept of Mantras—Yantras—Tantras / 133
PATH OF ECSTASY IS A GREAT TRAP. Why? 1) Because an
“I” is seeking or doing it to get something, which is an “I”
wanting a permanent state, yet all states are transient—nonpermanent;
2) All ecstasy is sense-dependent; 3) The ecstasy
“supposedly” is the vehicle to THAT; but, at best, the vehicle
leads to Samadhi with seeds; 4) There is a high probability,
as in all systems, of getting attached to the vehicle—in this
case, it is a vehicle of pleasure; 5) One must ask oneself this
question: Can Tantra “the expansion of knowledge” lead an “I”
beyond the concept of knowledge itself, or does it lead an “I”
into more subtle “spiritual” concepts that are mirage-based?
and finally, 6) There is a strong chance, as most of us have
seen through the years, that desire for sex gets “spiritualized”
as Tantra in order to justify, reframe or give sexual desire
some “spiritual” purpose.
To illustrate, why is it that all gurus “I” have known, regarding
sexual Tantra, chose young, beautiful girls? If it is all
ONE SUBSTANCE, why would it matter to the “Enlightened
Guru,” who is just doing it for the disciple (a young woman)?
Why didn’t he choose a woman 40, 50, 60, or 70 years old?
Is it sex or Tantra? I’ll vote that it is sex masquerading as,
and spiritualized as, Tantra.
In this way, Tantra and the search for ecstasy can become
an illusion within the context of the mirage, and hence, among
yogis in India, it is often times referred to as “the left-handed
path,” denoting its illusory nature, “as if” to take a wrong
turn.
THE TAnTRiC pATH
The Tantric Path is the utilization of daily experience to
realize the underlying consciousness or VOID. In the Tantra
Asana, it says “One rises by that which one falls.” However,
along the way it is quite easy to get ensnared or entrapped
into the desire for the ecstasy of the bodily experience of
sensation or into the ecstatic experience itself, simply because