The Deity Within You

What is your first feeling when you hear that you are divinity itself?

Shame? Confusion? A feeling of biting into a forbidden apple?

Maybe you believe it is egotistical and arrogant to think of yourself in such terms.

Usually, this is what your mind tells you to feel because we tend to experience ourselves as highly constricted and limited beings that aspire to one day become divine or transcendent. Our minds, which were carefully conditioned over years of religious or cultural ideas, tend to think that it is very humble to think of ourselves as struggling, small humans that can hope to have a glimpse of heavenly grace.

This is not so in tantra. In tantra, which is a faster path, we begin at the end: We visualize ourselves as if we were a fully enlightened Buddha; as if we are already gods and goddesses. In this way, there is no waiting, and the future is now.

Instead of feeling that we admire spiritual beings external to our own being, while we are still swimming in the muddy waters of the earth, we learn to identify with these beings in a way that makes us realize they are our very own selves.