With speed and a different dimension –vertical – time becomes irrelevant. Time is relevant with a bullock-cart; it is a bullock-cart world. Tilopa is a vertical mind, a vertical consciousness. That is the difference between Tantra and Yoga: Yoga is horizontal and Tantra is vertical. Yoga takes millions of lives to reach; Tantra says within a second. Tantra says time is irrelevant; don’t bother about time. Tantra has a technique, a method – which Tantra says is a no-method, a no-technique – through which you can suddenly surrender everything and take a jump into the abyss.
Yoga is effort; Tantra is effortlessness. With effort, with your tiny energy, and your tiny ego, you fight with the whole. It will take millions of lives. Then too it doesn’t seem possible that you will ever become enlightened. Fighting with the whole is stupid; you are just a part. It is as if a wave is fighting with the ocean, a leaf is fighting with the tree, or your own hand fighting with your body. With whom are you fighting?
Yoga is effort, intense effort. And Yoga is a way to fight the current, to move against the current. So whatsoever is natural, Yoga has to drop; and whatsoever is unnatural, Yoga has to strive for. Yoga is the unnatural way: fight with the river and move against the current. Of course, there is challenge and the challenge may be enjoyed. But who enjoys the challenge? – your ego does.
It is very difficult to find a yogi who is not an egoist, very difficult, rare. If you can find a yogi who is not an egoist, it is a miracle. It is difficult because the whole effort creates the ego, the fight. You may find humble yogis, but if you watch a little deeper, in their humbleness you will find the most subtle ego hidden, the most subtle ego. They will say, “We are just dirt on the ground.” But look in their eyes – they are bragging about their humility. They are saying, “There is nobody more humble than us. We are the humblest people.” But this is what ego means.
If you move against nature you will be strengthened in your ego. That is the challenge, that’s why people like challenges. A life without challenges becomes dull because the ego feels hungry. Ego needs food, challenge gives food; so people seek challenges. If there are no challenges, they create them; they create hurdles so that they can fight with the hurdles.
Tantra is the natural way; the loose and the natural is the goal. You need not fight with the current; simply move with it, float with it. The river is going to the sea so why fight? Move with the river, become one with the river: surrender. Surrender is the keyword for Tantra; will is the keyword for Yoga. Yoga is the path of will; Tantra is the path of surrender.
That’s why Tantra is the path of love – love is surrender. This is the first thing to understand; then Tilopa’s words will become very, very crystal-clear. The different dimension of Tantra has to be understood – the vertical dimension, the dimension of surrender, of not fighting, of being loose and natural, relaxed – what Chuang Tzu calls, “Easy is right.” With Yoga, difficult is right; with Tantra, easy is right.
Relax and be at ease, there is no hurry. The whole itself is taking you on its own accord. You need not make any individual striving, you are not asked to reach before your time, you will reach when the time is ripe – simply wait. The whole is moving; why are you in a hurry? Why do you want to reach before others?