Sri Yantra

What happens when contraction and expansion take place at the same time? Perhaps it is these circumstances that can create something truly new.

A contraction to a nothing/ a small still point of concentrated energy, and then an explosion into a new creation.

The Tantric tradition speaks of prakasha and vimarsha. Prakasha is the unmanifest light/source. Vimarsha is its manifestation, the forms light takes.

Everything is said to come from the still point/ the unmanifest source.

Sri Yantra shows this process. The still point in the middle symbolizes the source. The triangles that flow outwards symbolize the manifestation.

This contraction is referred to in the Tantric tradition as nimesha, the expansion as unmesha.

Contraction (nimesha) creates structure and form. The expansion (unmesha) dissolves these structures to an infinite potential of possibilities, but also to formlessness.

This can be likened to quantum physics. Where a particle does not appear to manifest until a certain path is determined, i.e. when a restriction is created.

It is sometimes put so that the electron has no definite position before the measurement, but gets a position through the measurement. This is called the electron’s wave function collapsing.

But who/what chooses the new that is born in our lives? The free will, dharma (life task), karma (unpaid debt).

The Tantric philosophy says it depends on where you are in your development.

An interesting thought that one finds in many mystic traditions, as well as the Tantric, is that it is only when your will is in unity with the cosmic will, that your will is truly free. This is because your quest for happiness before is veiled by illusion, and that it can only be achieved by the cosmic will. As soon as you realize this, you also realize that the cosmic will and your deepest will, are one.

Up to this point of insight, our lives are a circle of confused actions and unsatisfactory results.