Tantra and the Void

“One should concentrate on this universe as nothing but void,” (Vijnana Bhairava Tantra).

The repeated emphasis on “the void” within many of the tantras can leave the impression that Tantra is a transcendentalist spiritual philosophy. This is perhaps confounded by the fact that most examples of traditional tantra that are still in practice today are Buddhist schools.

But whilst many tantras did advise practitioners to meditate on “the void” and to concentrate on becoming “the void”, this was not to encourage escapism. Far from it, Tantra takes a sensual and experiential approach toward spiritual development. So, what is “the void” that we are supposed to be meditating upon?

It is in fact an analogy. Much like the analogy I use on this site the term “void” is used to help practitioners understand the nature of something that is beyond conceptualisation. In the tantric world the void was simply another one of the natural elements that constituted all matter and existence: “Thou art Earth, Thou art Water, Thou art Fire, Thou art Air, Thou art the Void,” (Mahanirvana Tantra).

As such, it was a suitable substance to be used as an analogy. Most early practitioners were landlocked, many were probably unable to swim and the technology to visualise the ocean floor was centuries away. So, where I use the analogy of bowls on the bottom of an ocean, filled and surrounded by water, to help visualise the spiritual energy of shakti, the tantras use the void: “As the void inside a jar remains the same ever after the jar is broken, so the Soul remains the same after the body is destroyed” (Mahanirvana Tantra).

As an element, the void not only exists between and around all objects, it also exists above, under and even inside all objects. For people used to the concept of the void this would be the ideal element to help understand the omnipresence of shakti energy: “The Spirit, the eternal witness, is in its own nature like the void which exists both outside and inside all things, and which has neither birth nor childhood, nor youth nor old age, but is the eternal intelligence which is ever the same, knowing no change or decay,” (Mahanirvana Tantra).