What Is the Netra Tantra?

Talk in Hindi · 9 min · 18 August 2023 · नेत्र तंत्र क्या है?

Summary

Of the tantric schools, Yogi Shri finds the Netra Tantra (Shri Netra Tantram) the one best suited to ordinary people: simple on the surface, but very deep. To see why, he contrasts two ways Indian philosophy has worked with the mind.

Vedanta proceeds by analysis. It separates the seer from the seen, again and again, until only the witness remains and the seen is declared illusion; its goal, moksha, is described as the state of the soul after death. Tantra proceeds by acceptance. If everything is the creation of the divine, the divine is present in everything, even in matter. God is then both beyond the world and within it — and so freedom becomes possible in this life: jivan mukti, liberation while living.

Behind both lies the question he calls the heart of Indian thought: is my existence dependent on anything else — or is complete freedom possible? India alone, he says, answered yes.

Key points

• The Netra Tantra: simple in form, great in depth.
• Vedanta analyses — seer and seen are separated until only the witness remains.
• Tantra accepts — the divine is both transcendent and immanent.
• The tantric aim is jivan mukti: freedom while alive.
• The central question of Indian philosophy: is complete freedom possible?

Go deeper

• Tantra — the teaching
• Course: Ashtanga Yoga (Shri Netra Tantram)