Relationship and Tantra

BY IMRE VALLYON. EXCERPT FROM HEAVENS AND HELLS OF THE MIND

Tantra is relational-consciousness. What is relationship? Relationship is relatedness, a connection or happening between you and some other person or object. If nothing is going on between you and something else, then there is no relationship. You can avoid relationships. The ascetic, the yogi, the sanyasin, the monk, the nun, and the renunciate avoid relationship. They are not related to anybody or anything, and therefore they are "happy". They have no responsibility to anyone or for anyone, so their lives appear free of complications. Although such a life seems ideal - free of distractions and difficulties - it is also insipid and most often useless. Such people live for themselves alone. Sometimes I am asked if enlightened people have emotions, or should they not remain in a state of blissful Nirvana, uncaring and unaffected by the sea of emotions and suffering all around? Yet, if you look at the lives of the Great Ones - the Buddha, the Christ, Krishna, Rama, Mohammed, Mahavira, and the countless thousands of Saints, ancient and modern - their lives were precisely lives of relatedness. They had relational-consciousness. They were concerned for people. They cried and agonized over people. It is true that there are some Saints who enter Nirvana - the Kingdom of God - and become blissfully unaware of the rest of Mankind and its problems. They live in their own private world of Bliss and Transcendental Consciousness. They relate to nobody. But such Saints are rare, because the majority of the Great Ones choose relatedness. If you surrender your ego totally - that is, your whole body and mind structure - and annihilate all vestige of the personal self in you, then it is possible for you to stay in a relative calm all your life, and at death to become absorbed into the Transcendental Bliss of Nirvana. It is also true, however, that if you choose this Path (the Path of the Pratyeka Buddha or Solitary Mystic), then you have to get away from the world. You have to live alone in a cave, or in the desert, or in some lonely spot, and not engage in any human activity. You must remain completely alone, single, solitary, unique. Then your relationship is with the Transcendental alone, with the Absolute, with the Source of your Being. There have been many Saints who lived like this, both in the East and in the West, but they were never the movers and shakers of civilization. They were not the inspirers of the people. The Great Ones were those who stayed with their people, who had concern for them, who suffered with them, who laughed and cried with them. The Great Ones lived and died for others. It is They who have benefited Humanity. Although they walked with the crowd, they were not of the crowd. Although they lived in the world, they were not of the world. The Great Ones retain their egos in order to serve others. Their egos never become totally annihilated - only at times suspended and transcended. Once your ego is destroyed, it destroys also your ability to relate, and you cease to be concerned about others. So the Great Ones did not destroy their egos, but merely suspended them and at times transcended them. In such a way they could remain in the world and function in the world in order to serve Mankind. Such Saints manifested their egos and their Divinity in the same life, in the same person. All of the truly great Saviours and Master Adepts were both Human and Divine. Otherwise they could not have communicated with Humanity at all, nor enlightened others about the causes of suffering.

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