Tantrism: Its Secret Principles and Practices

@ http://www.amazon.com/Tantrism-Its-Secret-Principles-Practices/dp/0850302730

Author: Benjamin Walker
Paperback: 176 pages
Publisher: Aquarian Press (1982)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0850302730
ISBN-13: 978-0850302738


Customer Reviews:

Religions that teach Tantra really are cesspools, September 25, 2011
By josey

I was in a Tibetan Buddhist religion for a while; I quit when I learned what my teacher was teaching from the Kalachakra Tantra, and his lying about it caused me to search for the facts.

The first book I bought was the "Commentary of the Kalacakra Tantra" by Geshe Lharampa Ngawang Dhargyey, a forbidden book that somehow made it onto Amazon, and it goes into detail of the sexual tantric practice.

This book, "Tantrism, Its Secret Principles and Practices" by Benajmin Walker goes much deeper into the tantra teachings. It is a small book but every page is filled with shocking information, more so than the Kalacakra book. I also learned that the two other Hindu yogi groups that I had been in years ago, taught Tantrism but in secret. Wish I had this book years ago as it would have saved me a lot of heartache.

The Kalacakra as presented by the Dalai Lama is that it teaches peace, but if you actually read it you will find that it is a prophecy of a battle that will take place one day when Buddhists will kill non Buddhists and only they will survive. The Kalachraka Tantra is not just translated as "time" but can also mean, "black", "death", or "fate." Even the Bhagavad Gita has a battle, but in the book "Buddhist Warfare" the author said that Gandhi actually believed that Hinduism was a peaceful religion, so he decided to reinterpret the Gita, as not as a real battle, but as a battle within each of us over good and evil.

Tibetan Buddhists will claim that you can't understand these tantra practices because they are written in the Twilight Language, but the "Commentary" book I mentioned, it translates the Twilight language. And as Walker said; "The writings are often so explicit that it would be stretching one's imagination too far to read them in any other way." I thought that also when reading the Commentary book, especially when it says that you will eventually need a real consort and not just visualizations in order to become enlightened.

The Commentary says that after being taught the precepts and the Bodhisattva Vow, when you are ready to take the empowerments you can now drink wine, eat beef, and eventually have sex with women. Walker's book goes deeper into the subject matter. Many of the practices are so degrading, that I can't imagine posting them here; it was hard enough reading them. Some include eating feces, drinking menstrual blood, eating corpses, etc. to name a few.

Here are some excerpts from his book:

"Forbidden sexuality, including incest and adultery can and indeed must be practiced. Meats like beef, taboo to the Hindu, must be eaten. Alcoholic liquor, so hateful to the orthodox must be drunk. A tantric precept says, `By drinking and drinking and drinking again, rolling on the ground, rising and still drinking, a man saves himself from rebirth.'

"Success with women and the ability to satisfy any number of them was the most coveted goal. This woman-subduing power was aimed at reducing females to a state of insane and demonic desire that only the tantric could assuage. Women could be tormented beyond endurance so they would come in hundreds with disheveled locks, their bodices bursting with ardor for the tantric, however decrepit, old, ugly or impotent he might be.'

...As a cult obligation, followers are enjoined to carry out acts of a progressively more and more anti-social nature, to tell lies in preference to the truth, to steal what belongs to others, to commit robbery and violence, and in the final phase, to commit murder.

...In certain forms of tantric initiation, the candidate is asked whether, for the sake of the goddess, he would be prepared to kill anyone, even members of his own family."

"Tanriks are men of strange and malignant force, and it is widely believed in India that it is dangerous to thwart or provoke them, for they are malicious in the extreme." This is true because I have had a couple threaten me if I spoke out about the teachings.

How did Tantra really come to Tibet: When the King of Tibet asked Padma-sambhava, the Buddhist master who brought Tantric teachings to Tibet, to teach Buddhism, he had no idea that they were other than the real teachings of Buddha. When the King's chief wife learned what they entailed, she called a meeting to voice her distaste for the teachings and concluded, "This is no religion, but the evil India has taught Tibet." It took hold in Tibet just as it had in India as as it is now taking hold in the West.

I also thought that the last chapter of the book, the Comments, had a wealth of information on the dangers of meditation, Hatha Yoga, and other practices that have found their way into the west through the tantric teachings, and so all I can say is that I would give this book more than 5 stars, if I could. You will learn more about Hinduism and Tibetan Buddhism that you ever wanted to know. But most of all it may help someone to not make the mistake of joining such groups and end up being disappointed, distraught or even harmed.