Mantra, Yantra, Tantra: What These Words Actually Mean

Mantra, Yantra, Tantra: What These Words Actually Mean

Author Name:Siddha Tantra Arts

Youtube Channel Url:https://www.youtube.com/@SiddhaTantraArts

Youtube Video URL:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOmll5GQhXE



Transcript:
(00:00) sound, form, and the doing. Three doers in one room. Mantra, yantra, tantra. Now, listen to the end of those words. Tra, tra, tra. Now, that ending is there for a reason. In Sanskrit, it's a very old ending. Tra, and that means instrument. A means. The thing you do something with. So, the language is telling you a secret uh that almost nobody says out loud.
(00:43) These are not separate ideas. The mantra, yantra, tantra, they are three tools for one job. And once you see that, then it creates a new understanding. You have perhaps heard these words in your life. And in many places, these are strung together like a slogan on a poster. And uh it's never clear what it means.
(01:16) So, let's talk about it one at a time. Mantra. And in plain language, people think that mantra is a phrase that you repeat. In Siddha Dharma, it is understood as a living force in the form of a sound. And the first part, man, it is the same root as the mind. A mantra is an instrument for the mind. Man, mind. Tra, instrument.
(01:49) Every sound does something. It can move you, a sound. It can make you peaceful. It can agitate you. Some sound can make you angry, irritated. So, different sound can do different thing to the mind. And the Sadhus have spent a lifetime finding which sound held in which way with the what intention opens >> [music] >> what realm or what door in a person, within a person.
(02:23) So, that is why the tradition is very careful about how a mantra is passed on. When the mantra is received properly and is lived with, then it stops being something that you just simply say. Then the mantra starts to reorganize you from the inside. Mantra is the sound body of the practice itself. Then yantra. If a mantra is the sound, yantra is the form.
(02:59) A precise shape that can hold the same energy, but in the eye instead of the ear, from the sensory perspective. And uh of course, there is a lot of understanding about yantra, like a map and the deity. But uh the word yantra that yan comes from a root to hold or to harness or to control. So, yantra means a device, literally.
(03:36) A machine. And there's nothing superstitious about machines. It rests on a very ordinary, but important principle about you, also. The mind takes the shape of it keeps looking at. Look at chaos all [music] day and you become chaotic. And if you give the mind a true form to settle on, something like a beautiful yantra, like a Sri Yantra, which has a built around a single point at its center, then you slowly your inner world it starts to arrange itself around that order.
(04:18) Order, harmony, and the Sri Yantra. So, the yantra is the form uh the body of the practice. Then the third, the tantra. And tantra is the most misread when one hears the mantra, yantra, and the tantra. And in tantra, the root is tan to stretch, to extend, to weave. So, the tantra is the loom. The whole thing is a woven on.
(04:51) So, in this triad, the mantra, yantra, and the tantra, the breathing patterns, the locks, the bandha, the inner fire, the awareness, the awareness that moves the energy through you. So, mantra sets the frequency. Yantra gives a form to hold on. And the tantra is the hand that do the building. If you only had the blueprint and the material and never picked up the tools, nothing would ever get built.
(05:33) So, in a real sadhana, the three, the mantra, yantra, and tantra are not separate exercises. They happen together. There is a form holding your gaze. There's a sound carrying the field. And the practice that is moving the energy [music] through the body. The form holds the space. The sound charges it. And the doing moves it. That's it.
(06:07) So, the Siddhas were not on or are not burning incense in the dark or hoping for the best. So, the Dharma is very precise. Three instruments, one craft. In a way, this is like engineering. Just turned more inward. On the on the one instrument you can never put it down. You mantra, yantra, and tantra. Sound, form, and the doing.
(06:39) Three doers in one room. And the room is your own depth. So, that is a bit introduction on mantra, yantra, and tantra.