body and health in yoga, Ayurveda, and Tantra

ody and philosophies of healing 33
distinct from Brahman, nor is prakÓrti unconscious (jaÓda) as it is for Yoga.
As part of Brahman, prakÓrti is conscious, and by means of prakÓrti, Brahman
manifests itself in the form of all the constituents of the manifest
universe. 56 Tantra’s metaphysical presupposition that matter possesses
consciousness is crucial: classical Yoga assumes that matter is unconscious,
and aims for realization of Self as not-matter, but T¯antric yoga
utilizes the body as an instrument of liberation, and reveres its material
nature as both conscious and sacred.
While T¯antric metaphysics is non-dualistic (advaitin), and regards
Brahman, known as Param Íiva, as the one Reality, it allows for the apparent
difference of the one Absolute and the multifarious manifest
world. Íiva and Íakti are separable in empirical and cognitive analysis,
but their identity is knowable through higher knowledge offered by T¯antric
mysticism. 57 Tantra is non-dualistic like Ved¯anta, rather than dualistic
like Yoga, but while Ved¯anta ultimately relegates the manifest world
to the status of māyā or illusion, Tantra considers the manifest world as
fully real. Ved¯anta regards māyā as “that power (Íakti) of Brahman by
which the world of multiplicity comes into existence.” 58 Tantra shares
this interpretation, but not Advaita Ved¯anta’s understanding of māyā as
the illusory ground and nature of subject-object distinctions.
What is meant by calling the world an illusion and at the same time ascribing
existence to it? The answer is that for Advaita Ved¯anta the term
“real” means that which is permanent, eternal, infinite, that which is
trikālābādhyam, never subrated at any time by another experience—and
Brahman alone fits this meaning. The world is not real, but it is not
wholly unreal. 59
For Tantra however, material nature (including the embodied human
being) is a manifestation of Íiva-Íakti, has full reality, and is sacred in its
origin and fundamental nature. The human being as an aspect of creation
is not-different from Param Íiva. This ontological position contributes to
a more body-positive religious practice and soteriological goal than is
found in orthodox Hinduism.
Tantra’s monistic view of the world and Brahman (as Íiva-Íakti) is
free of the metaphysical problems confronted by the dualism of classical
Yoga. Further, even though Tantra is monistic, it is able, unlike Advaita
Ved¯anta, to preserve the particularity of entities. Rather than ascribing to
particular entities a lower ontological status as mere appearances of
Brahman (a consequence of Advaita Ved¯anta’s understanding of māyā)
T¯antric metaphysics does not consider particular entities in the manifest