Read Introduction to Tantra: The Transformation of Desire for Free Online

what we already are. We already have the profound qualities of such a divine manifestation within us at the moment. The reason we practice emanating ourselves as a deity is so that we can more fully recognize and cultivate these qualities, rather than remaining miserably trapped within the limiting projections of the self-pitying attitude: I am ugly, stupid, weak, and worthless.
     
    You may still wonder, “But how could Manjushri, or any other tantric deity for that matter, be the essence of what I already am? I don’t look like any of these deities; I’m not orange or blue or green; I don’t have more than one face and two arms the way many of them do.” Of course objections like these will arise, but if we are ever going to put them to rest we first have to examine very closely who we think we actually are.
     
    First of all, your present face is not you; your bones and flesh are not you.
    Neither your blood, your muscles, nor any other part of your body are the essence of who you are. To an extent you can say that your body is like a mechanical robot because by itself it is powerless to function. It has to be controlled by something else. And just as it is the computer program that controls the robot and makes it function, it is your mind—or consciousness, psyche, soul, or whatever you want to call it—that gives life to your body.
    Therefore, if you are looking for the essence of who you are, if you want to know what is responsible for how you live your life, you have to look into your mind.
     
    The next thing to realize is that from the time you were born up until now you have manifested in many different ways. None of us is static and unchanging. For example, when you are filled with anger, you look like a demon while at other times, filled with love, you look like a beautiful angel.
    None of these manifestations—whether angry, peaceful, jealous, loving, compassionate, stupid, or wise—arises primarily from your body, from your physical form. They all arise from the power of your consciousness, from the power of your mind. The mind has the ability to generate thousands of different emotions and attitudes, and the body just follows its lead without any choice. Despite this fact, however, we so often identify with our body rather than with our mind. It is as if we think the body were the boss instead of the mind. It is almost as if we become slaves of our body. Just turn on the television for a few minutes and it will be clear how much energy our culture devotes to serving the body and how little to cultivating the mind. No wonder things are so confused.
     
    Putting the body before the mind in this way is not the only mistake we make. We also fail to realize that our gross physical body is not the only body we possess. More will be said about this later (see Chapter 10) but, briefly stated, within the confines of our ordinary physical form exists a subtler conscious body, so-called because it is intimately connected with deep levels of consciousness. It is from these subtler levels that the potential energy of blissful wisdom arises, an energy capable of transforming the quality of our life completely. Tantric deities symbolize the full development of this blissful wisdom energy and that is why we can say that such a deity—no matter what color it is or how many faces it has—represents the essence of who we are and what we can become. Deity yoga, therefore, is not involved with fantasizing about the impossible. Rather, it is an extremely practical method for living up to our highest potential through systematic training and profound transformation of our human consciousness.
     
    Although deity yoga might seem very unfamiliar and impractical at first, we can get a glimpse of how effective it is by thinking of similar techniques that have already demonstrated their value even to the skeptical West. For instance, there are many documented cases where people have cured themselves of cancer and other serious