Tantra and Religion Lessons
Islam and Tantra - Jade Lotus
At first glance, Islam and Tantrism might seem an unlikely pair for comparison: the former known for its austere simplicity and uncompromising monotheism, the latter presenting a plethora of rituals, mantras, and deities. But looking beneath the surface at the underlying philosophical principles will reveal that the two share much in common.
Both Islam and Tantrism are spiritual paths that arose at the same point in history to allow access to the Divine Reality for ordinary people in the latter age of the world. Both are world-affirming, life-affirming, in contrast to world-denying and life-denying creeds. They see creation and the body not as illusion or evil, but as a positive revelation of the Divine that assists in spiritual realization. Both are socially egalitarian and accord high status to women and the Feminine, in contrast to the milieus they arose in.
Both are paths that lead to the Divine not by shunning or negating this body, but by working through it. The body and the world, when approached in the right way, can become not obstacles, but the very vehicle to the Divine. Life in the world can be sacralized by the divine presence: one needn't be a monk, or a highly spiritually perfected ascetic saint or anchorite, to experience the divine presence. Women are sacred, sex is sacred, eating is sacred, the earth is sacred, the whole world can be transfigured: "and the earth shines with the glory of its Lord (wa-ashraqat al-ardu bi-nûri rabbihâ)," as the Qur’ân ecstatically proclaims (39:69).
Salvation for fallen humanity in the Kali Yuga
Islam arose in the seventh century after Christ, and the early texts of Tantrism date from approximately the same time (6th-8th centuries). While Islam is a continuation of the revelations of earlier prophets, its practical approach to worldly and spiritual life contrasts with that of earlier dispensations; for example, the complex Halakhic laws governing Jewish life are very much simplified in Islam. The spiritual life has been made much easier to follow, as the Qur’ân promises: "We make easy for you the way to ease," and Prophet Muhammad said that this way of ours is meant to be easy. No priesthood is required to fulfill any rites, for each individual Muslim man and woman is his or her own priest. The heroic spiritual qualities required of earlier peoples are not required for salvation in Islam, as Allah allowed for the fallen condition of humanity in this late stage of the world and opened access to the highest spiritual realization for all peoples.
Similarly, Tantra is understood as a divine concession to the conditions of the Kali Yuga. In contrast to Brahminism where access to the Divine was controlled by a priestly élite, Tantrism is a way open to anyone of any caste, any station in life. Whereas in the early ages, great rigor and austerities were imposed on spiritual seekers, and superhuman efforts were required, Tantrism like Islam does not demand of people more than they can bear, but takes people as they are and shows them the way to ascend spiritually.
World-affirmation and life-affirmation
Islam has a totally different orientation from the Manichean type of attitude that the world is evil. Rather, the Qur’ân emphasizes that all of creation holds signs for people with hearts, for those who contemplate, signs that show the truth of the Creator and inspire us spiritually. All of virgin Nature becomes transparent, showing the glory of Allah shining through in every stone, every leaf, every creature. The world is not a barrier to the Spirit when understood by people whose hearts are clean and virtuous. Thus Muslims are not to flee the world and withdraw to monasteries and nunneries; they are encouraged to engage fully in life, to marry and earn a living, to work for good in society. In this way spiritual values are infused throughout the entire civilization. The Muslim esoteric orders, the Sufis, although committed to a holy life, are just as engaged in the life of this world as other Muslims, and through their prayers and remembrance of Allah in the midst of it alchemically transmute earthly life into something sacred.
The Tantric attitude toward the world or phenomenal existence also values it as a vehicle for the spiritual life. Tantra presented an alternative to the life-denying Hindu doctrine that negated the world as mere illusion. As the classical Tantric dictum says, "What is here is elsewhere. What is not here is nowhere." Mâyâ itself, often translated as "illusion," is in fact the creative, feminine power of the Divine and is related eytmologically to the root mâ, meaning to measure. Far from being mere illusion, it is the power that through cosmological measurement generates this world and constitutes its substance. Far from being unreal, it is in a sense consciousness veiling itself. Spirit, Mind, and Matter are ultimately one, the two latter being the twin aspects of the Fundamental Substance or Brahman and Its power or Shakti.
The ancient Dravidian tradition was always life-affirming, as the ancient Tamil book of wisdom, the tirukkuraL, demonstrates. Its author tiruvaLLuvar was a member of the lowest caste, the Paraiyans, and his Dravidian vision of the virtuous life is in sharp contrast with that of Vedic Brahminism in its affirmation of worldly life as sacred for everyone. The lowest castes of the ancient Dravidians were essential to the sacred functions that upheld the state and the social order; they fulfilled the roles of sacred drumming and communication, and tiruvaLLuvar continues this perspective in his writing. This world-affirming Dravidian tradition is at the source of Tantra as well, and as such both are congruent with Islam.
The sacred body
Islam does not condemn the body as a hindrance to the spiritual life, but on the contrary ennobles it as a vehicle to ultimate realization. In Islamic the pleasures of the body are not denied or repressed but integrated into a wholesome way of life. As the Prophet said, your body has its rights over you. The spiritual significance of the body in Islam is shown through the bodily postures used in praying salât: each of them is potent with cosmic symbolism, so that the body itself is transfigured into a spiritual expression. Thus Islamic prayer is congruent with hatha yoga, which is a branch of Tantric yoga. Islam's unitary, holistic view of the body and spirit is evident in the alchemical saying of the Shi‘ite Imams, "arwâhunâ ajsâdunâ wa-ajsâdunâ arwâhunâ" (our spirits are our bodies and our bodies are our spirits). In Islamic spirituality, God-consciousness effects an alchemical transmutation on matter so that the body and its pleasures are seen as a sacred divine gift.
An early Islamic classic, Rasâ’il Ikhwân al-Safâ’ (The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity), discusses the metaphysical significance of the human body as a microcosm corresponding to the macrocosm of the whole of creation. Our inner understanding of our bodies is therefore a key for the understanding of the world of nature, as is our comprehension of the rapport between the soul and the body, their complementarity and integration into a whole. The great Sufi sage Muhyî al-Dîn Ibn al-‘Arabî developed many such themes dealing with the body, including sexuality, on the deepest level of their significance in his writings. He says that the body is the seat of the highest reality created by Allah in the whole universe, the rûh or the Spirit of Allah Himself which He blew into Adam's body. Altogether the Islamic teachings about the body emphasize its Divine Origin—that is, being created by Allah and possessing the greatest significance for the understanding of the human state.
The Tantric body is considered to be the manifestation of the Divine. The basic tenet of Tantrism is that matter, and therefore the body, is also a manifestation of shakti power, that is, the power emanating from the feminine aspect of Divine Reality. Hence, the body must not be opposed or despised. The body itself is a form of consciousness so veiled that we get the appearance of insensibility, inertia, and mere mechanical energy. But this is only an appearance. One can contemplate even in the gross body the consciousness that underlies its reality. The practice of kuNDalini yoga unites the creating and sustaining shakti of the whole body with the Lord Consciousness. The yogi makes Her introduce him to Her Lord, and enjoys the bliss of union through her. In kuNDalini through the very pulse of life in the body we realize Universal Life. Therefore, the body is to be respected and revered. To deny it is to deny the Divine Life that flows through it; it is to deny the unity of spirit, soul, and body and to forget that it is the manifestation of the Divine Feminine power, Shakti. From the perspective of Tantrism, because the physical, spiritual, and mental cannot be separated, all being aspects of the one all-pervading consciousness, the body must also be considered in spiritual realization and therefore has profound religious significance.
One striking congruence between Islam and Tantra is in the symbolism of the Prophet's night journey to Heaven (al-mi‘râj). He mounted on a female riding beast with the head of a woman and ascended through the seven heavens to the Divine Presence. The kuNDalini is a feminine force (shakti) that ascends through the seven cakras to divine realization.
Islam and the Divine Feminine
So often has Islam been portrayed as an exclusively masculine, patriarchal faith that many have never suspected the central importance of the Feminine in Islam and would be astonished to realize that it has been there from the beginning. Perhaps in part due to the metaphysical interiority of the Feminine, this aspect of Islam has lived a largely hidden existence — but it is no less vital for that. In recent years there has been much discussion and controversy over how to reshape Christianity to include the Feminine on the divine level, but in Islam that has never been an issue, for the feminine element in Islam has always been present, especially in Sufism.
Although both masculine and feminine equally have their origin in the Divine, I would like to take a special look at the feminine in Islam to help redress the balance because the feminine side of Islam has been mostly overlooked so far. Moreover, in the sources of Islam and in the Sufi tradition growing from there, we find a distinct, explicit preference for the feminine aspect of Allah, especially the nature of ultimate Divine Reality as essentially feminine.
The Polarity of Divine Majesty and Beauty
The distinction between male and female is not just a biological accident but a very profound element of the human state. It goes back from the biological through the psychological and the spiritual to the Divine Reality itself. On the highest level of the Divine Reality, Allah is perfectly One. The root of the duality between the masculine and feminine is found in the divine nature itself. Allah's Essence transcends all duality, all relationality, so it is beyond male or female. But even on the level of the Divine Nature, there are the roots of the masculine and the feminine. On the highest level, Allah is at once Absolute and Infinite. These two attributes are the supreme archetypes of the masculine and the feminine. "Masculine" and "feminine" are not simply equivalents of the human male and female, since all men and women have elements of both masculinity and femininity within them. That Allah is Absolute is the principle of masculinity, and that Allah is Infinite is the principle of femininity. Allah has revealed Himself in the Qur’ân in the names of rigor and mercy, known as the names of Majesty (jalâl) and Beauty (jamâl). The Generous, the Merciful, the Forgiving are names of mercy or Beauty, while the Enumerator and the Just are names of rigor or Majesty. On the level of the names are the principles of the masculine and the feminine: the names of Majesty are the prototype of masculinity, while the names of Beauty are the prototype of femininity.
Vis-à -vis the world, Allah is Creator. This divine function is on the masculine side, representing the aspects of action, force, movement, rigor; Allah as Lawgiver. But then there is the uncreating aspect of Allah. Allah is not exhausted by His creation of the world. Allah is more than the creator of the world: al-Khâliq, the Creator, is only one of the divine names. The Divine Reality did not completely participate in the act of creation. Allah is Infinite and the world is finite. The non-creating aspect of Allah corresponds to the Divine Femininity. It is this to which Sufi poetry so often refers in the feminine. The images of the beautiful Beloved are referring to the metacosmic aspect of the Divine, not the creating aspect.
That is why Ibn al-‘Arabî says Allah can be feimine in terma of Divinity Feminine Terms of Divinity
Some of the key terms associated with the Divine are in the feminine gender in Arabic. Three of them are essential to understand the feminine dimension in Islam. One of Allah's names is al-Hakîm, the Wise; Wisdom is hikmah. In Arabic to say, for example, "Wisdom is precious," you could repeat the feminine pronoun: al-hikmah hiya thamînah, literally "Wisdom, she is precious." This has resonance with the forgotten Christian mystical tradition, in which Wisdom is personified as a woman, the divine Sophia, associated with the Virgin Mary. The second term is rahmah (mercy), related to the most important name of God after Allâh: al-Rahmân, the All-Merciful, related to the word for 'womb', rahim, the source of life. The source of life is the Divine Mercy and the feminine aspect of it is very evident. The third, the most remarkable of all, is the word for the Divine Essence itself: al-Dhât, which is also feminine. In that the Divine Essence is Beyond-Being, unmanifest and transcending all qualities, it may be understood as Feminine. The renowned Sufi master Najm al-Din Kubra wrote of the Dhât as the "Mother of the divine attributes." According to a commentary on Ibn al-‘Arabî's Fusûs al-hikam, a hadith of Prophet Muhammad "gave priority to the true femininity that belongs to the Essence." Ibn al-‘Arabî himself wrote that "I sometimes employ the feminine pronoun in addressing Allah, keeping in view the Essence." On this metaphysical plane, femininity corresponds to interiority and masculinity to manifestation. In the traditional Islamic city, beauty is interiorized. All human beings contain both elements within themselves, in their souls and bodies and psyches. The perfection of the human state, al-insân al-kâmil, means the perfection of both masculine and feminine qualities together, the prototype of both male and female. In Sufism, men and women perform exactly the same rites and worship, so the perfection of human spirituality is equally accessible to men and women—unlike in Theravada Buddhism, in which a woman must be reborn as a man to attain nirvana.
Female Imagery of the Divine Beloved in Sufi Poetry
Sufi literature has the greatest discussion of femininity in Islam. Sufi stories have transformed ordinary love stories into the most sublime levels of meaning. The love story of Layla and Majnun is the best-known of all. It originated as a simple love story in Arabia, but Sufi literature elaborated it into the most beautiful love story ever put into Persian poetry. It symbolizes not only the love of man and woman in Allah, but the love of man for Allah. In these poems the heroine is elevated to symbolize the Divine Reality itself. The Divine Reality is spoken of in terms of female beauty. The hero goes in quest of the Divine, which is a masculine act. In contrast to Christian mysticism, in which God is actively masculine and the devotee is passively feminine, Sufi love stories depict the Beloved as a woman who is a Presence waiting in stillness while the hero is in quest for her.
The name Laylá comes from the word layl meaning 'night'. Night represents the Unmanifest. In the Arabian desert, the night is a reality without boundaries: forms are dissolved, no sand dunes or camels or anything else visible, all is formless, nothing but darkness. This is direct symbolism of the unmanifested aspect of the Divine Nature, Allah as Unmanifest. Blackness absorbs all light, as it is above manifestation, so it symbolizes the Beyond-Being. In the poem, Layla was named for the blackness of her hair and the beauty of the night. By extension, it in fact refers to the beauty of the Divine Reality beyond this world, beyond the act of creation, and therefore the supreme goal that the Sufi seeks to reach. The name of Majnûn literally means 'crazy', but here it means someone not in an ordinary state of mind, symbolizing a person in quest of Allah. In this world in which most people forget Allah, the person who remembers Him is considered crazy. As the male figure, Majnûn symbolizes the aspect of yearning and striving, going out in quest of Layla, while she is just sitting and combing her hair. The one who undertakes the journey, longing and crying for Layla, is the soul of the Sufi. Allah as the Beloved in Sufi literature, the ma‘shûq, is always depicted with female iconography.
Although Islam is aniconic and does not make images of Allah, verbal depiction exists. Sufi literature is replete with this imagery of our experience of Allah as the vision of the Beloved and union with the Beloved. An elaborate vocabulary developed in which every part of a woman's body, especially the face, symbolizes the Divine Reality. For example, the eyebrows are likened to a bow that shoots the arrow of the eye's glance, the arrow of the love of Allah into our hearts and makes us go beyond ourselves. Like the eyes of veiled women in traditional Islamic culture, where all you can see are their beautiful dark eyes: their whole vocabulary of love has to be expressedthrough a single glance. The ruby-red lips with their red color symbolize wine. Wine is used in Sufi literature to symbolize going beyond our ordinary consciousness into union with the Divine. Although wine is forbidden in Islamic law, there will be pure wine to drink in Paradise. Since Sufis experience Paradise here in this world by having inner experience of the higher levels of reality, the wine of Paradise is accessible symbolically through Sufism. Here, the redness of this wine is conjoined with the color of a woman's lips. At the same time, the kiss of the lips is an erotic symbol of union and intimacy.
For example, Rumi said in the Masnavi:
Kings lick the earth whereof the fair are made;
For God hath mingled in the dusty earth
A draught of beauty from His choicest cup.
'Tis that, fond lover—not these lips of clay—
Thou art kissing with a thousand ecstasies,
Think, then, what it must be when undefiled!
The Vision of God in Woman
There was a question long debated in Islam: can we see Allah? The Prophet said in a hadith: "In Paradise the faithful will see Allah with the clarity with which you see the moon on the fourteenth night (the full moon)." Theologians debated what this could mean, but the Sufis have held that you can see Allah even in this world, through the "eye of the heart." al-Hallaj said in a poem: "ra’aytu rabbi bi-‘ayni qalbî" (I saw my Lord with the eye of my heart). The Sufis said that since you can have the experience of Paradise even in this world, you can have the vision (ru’yah) of Allah. They have always described this theophanic experience as the vision of a woman, the female figure as the object of ru’yah. The Tarjumân al-ashwâq, Ibn al-‘Arabî's collection of love poems composed after meeting the learned and beautiful Persian woman Nizam in Mecca, is filled with images pointing to the Divine Feminine. The last chapter in his book Fusûs al-hikam relates that man's supreme witnessing of Allah is in the form of the woman during the act of sexual union. The contemplation of Allah in woman is the highest form of contemplation possible:
As the Divine Reality is inaccessible in respect of the Essence, and there is contemplation only in a substance, the contemplation of God in women is the most intense and the most perfect; and the union which is the most intense (in the sensible order, which serves as support for this contemplation) is the conjugal act. referred to as both huwa (He) and hiya (She). Allah as Mother
In contrast to Christianity, Islam has never depicted God as Father. Such a comparison is completely outside the boundaries of Islamic discourse. However, Muslims have always found it easy and natural to speak of the maternal qualities of Allah.
Prophet Muhammad was the first to use the example of mothers to illustrate Allah's mercy. After a battle, the Prophet and his Companions came upon a group of women and children. One woman had lost her child and was going around looking for him, her breasts flowing with milk. When she found her child, she joyfully put him to her breast and nursed him. The Prophet asked his Companions, "Do you think that this woman could throw her son in the fire?" They answered "No." He then said: "Allah is more merciful to His servants than this woman to her son." (From the hadith collection of al-Bukhari).
Another al-Bukhari hadith describes how during the Muslim conquest of Mecca a woman was running about in the hot sun, searching for her child. She found him, and clutched him to her breast, saying, "My son, my son!" The Prophet's Companions saw this, and wept. The Prophet was delighted to see their mercy, and said, "Do you wonder at this woman's mercy (rahmah) for her child? By Him in Whose hand is my soul, on the Day of Judgment, Allah shall show more rahmah toward His believing servant than this woman has shown to her son." Jalal al-Din Rumi, in an amazing passage of the Masnavi on the Return to Allah, made reference to the story of the infant Moses and addressed Allah directly as "Mother":
On Resurrection Day, the sun and moon are released from service:
and the eye beholds the Source of their radiance,
then it discerns the permanent possession from the loan,
and this passing caravan from the abiding home.
If for a while a wet nurse is needed,
Mother, return us to your breast.
I don't want a nurse; my Mother is more fair.
I am like Moses whose nurse and Mother were the same.
(Masnavi, V:701)
The Ka‘bah in Mecca, the very heart and pivot of the Islamic world, naturally is associated with feminine imagery, veiled in the black color of the Feminine Beyond-Being. Medieval writers and poets have often compared the holiest shrine of Islam to a veiled bride or a desired virgin, especially when on the pilgrimage. Their goal was to touch and kiss her beauty mark, the black stone. Khaqani was the Persian poet who most frequently employed this symbolism in his pilgrim poems. But another look at the Ka‘bah can come from the root of its name in the Arabic language. Although the word ka‘bah itself means 'cube', it is very close to the word ku‘b meaning 'woman's breast'. This turns out to be an appropriate metaphor, as indeed the Ka‘bah nurtures with the milk of spiritual blessing all the faithful who come to touch and kiss it. Consider also the eminently feminine Yoni form of the Black Stone's setting.
The Prophet's Feminine Soul
Prophet Muhammad's soul had a deeply feminine nature within. When his Companions asked him whom he loved most in the whole world, he answered it was his wife, ‘Â’ishah. They were surprised to hear him announce love for a woman, as this was a new concept to them; they had been thinking in terms of the manly camaraderie between warriors. So they asked him which man he loved most. He answered Abû Bakr, ‘Â’ishah's father, a gentleman who was known for his sensitive personality. These answers confounded the Companions who until then had been brought up on patriarchal values. The Prophet was introducing reverence for the Feminine to them for the first time.
Surah 109 in the Qur’ân, al-Kawthar, gives an especially revealing look into the Prophet's feminine soul. It was revealed because his enemies had been taunting him that he had no sons, only daughters, while they had been given sons to perpetuate their patriarchal ways. Allah revealed this message of consolation to the Prophet: "We have given thee al-Kawthar ... surely the one who hates thee will be cut off (from progeny)." What is al-Kawthar? A sacred pool of life-giving water in Paradise—a profoundly feminine symbol. It represents a heavenly exaltation of the Feminine over patriarchal society. The name of Kawthar is derived from the same root as kathîr 'abundance', a quality of the supernal Infinite, the Divine Feminine.
Woman as Creator
One of the most outright declarations of the Divine Feminine in all Sufi literature is in Rumi's Masnavi. In a passage praising the feminine qualities of kindness and gentleness, a passage that is increasingly well-known in these days of the resurgent Feminine, he says:
Woman is the radiance of God, she is not your beloved.
She is the Creator—you could say that she is not created.
(Masnavi, I:2437)
The Primacy of the Feminine in Islam
Seen from the exterior, Islam may appear as a masculine-dominated faith. That is because its external aspects, such as the sacred law that governs the social order, are a manifestation of Allah's jalâl attributes. The hidden side of Islam, little known to the outside world, lives and breathes the values of interiority, the loving, forgiving, merciful Divine Presence that draws hearts closer, the infinite jamâl aspects of Allah's Beauty. The eternal primacy of Allah's feminine nature is established in a hadith qudsi: "My mercy precedes My wrath" (rahmatî sabaqat ghadabî). Beyond all, the infinite eternal mystery of Allah's uncreated Essence is the Divine Feminine that is the ultimate spiritual Reality, calling to the souls who love Allah to come home and find perfect peace.
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