Students of both Non-dual Anuttarayoga Tantra and Nirvanalaksanayogayoga Tantra noted a few similarities in certain aspects. We attribute the small similarities to an early treatise of Sautrāntika (an early Wayist-Buddhist movement) which, at the time of the breakaway from Buddhism was used by Tibetan scholars to formulate their system. We also see overlaps between the dula and non-dual schools in our tradition, especially expressed in the work of Bodhidharma, a 5th or 6th-century Wayist teacher.

Nirvanalaksanayogayoga Tantra cannot be compared to today’s understandings of tantric traditions because of three reasons:

1. Few people understand the eastern tantric traditions at all
2. Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra is in a class all on its own. It is older than most known tantric systems and is styled as a holistic therapeutic discipline (which incorporates medicine).
3. Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra belongs to the Wayist tradition and other tantras belong to many different traditions, each with its own aims, definitions, terminology, emphases, techniques, and wisdom.
4. Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra is practised not only in the monastic (ashram) setting but it comes to completion only as the devotee engages with society at various levels. For that reason especially, devotees of this tantra are carefully selected because in the wrong hands the power one holds over one's lower self and that of others should never be used in the wrong way.

What Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra has in common with later tantric traditions are:

1. The quest for enlightenment
2. The adjective tantra

On the left hand

Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra is a Path of radical transformation therapy for advanced devotees. This Path can be taken only when guided by expert teachers who have all the keys, training and insight into the mysteries. It is believed that the teacher Iesous re-formalized and taught Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra when he and Mari were holed up in his cell in an esoteric Buddhist monastery in Chitral, Northern India. Following Iesous’ incident at the monastery in Chitral, he instituted Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra first among the Kalasha people (of what is now known as Afghanistan/Pakistan) and the communities of Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh. It is known that 3^rd century Gnostic Wayists practiced this tantra and that the clergy of Original Church of the East in Kashmir and Baghdad were trained in the tradition. Nirvanalaksanayoga was blamed by a Roman philosopher for "moral decline" when the Bacchae cults incorporated ecstatic elements and entheogen somas of this tantra in their ceremonies (source uncertain).

On the right hand

Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra is soul-physicians training, a system of healing soul, mind and body. A popular version of these healing skills is today practised as Pneumatherapy, translated as spirit-therapy. Training centers such as PrajnaParamita School specialize in this training, available to the public-at large.

Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra’s heroine champion was Mari of Magadha, the first ever disciple to learn this at the feet of the Master. Wayists believe Mari was transformed into Bodhisattva Tara after the 2^nd coming of Iesous (in spiritual form as Lord Avalokiteshvara). While incarnated, Acharya Mother lived Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra as she traveled and taught throughout Palestine, Syria, Northern Africa and before she died in Kashmir. She lived a dedicated life as a devotee, practicing as spiritual healer and foremost example of transformation.

Wayist tantra may be unique or it may be a prototype to later tantras of Vajrayana, Saktism, Shaivism, and Vaishnavism. In India, Wayism broke with Buddhism early in the 2^nd  century when Sautrāntika transformed into Wayist esotericism.

The word tantra comes from the weaver’s trade. A tantra is a weaver’s loom with warp already in place according to the Plan. Before the 6^th century, the word tantra was used mostly to denote the weaver’s framework (a planned system) upon which one weaves the vision and final product. Another meaning is possible here. To create the therapeutic model, or system, the originators had to loan from other traditions on one hand and had to bring in unorthodox aspects on the other hand—weaving a syncretistic matrix for a therapeutic regimen.

The first treatise of tantra, such as that of Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra, were textbooks, technical manuals for use only by ordained Acharyas in the tradition. Later (6^th century), the word tantra could also have the meaning of a manual; a textbook of instruction. At this time, people would make a difference between Sutras and Tantras as different types of literature. It may be worth the mention that the word sutra also means to be sown together (a collection of homogenous material) while tantra was at the time relegated to the category of woven together (from different materials).

Tantra, therefore, is a guide. A pattern upon which the devotee weaves her personal enlightenment. It is for this reason that this tantra is so very secretly guarded and veiled in the esoteric tradition. It is custom made. Each devotee has her own unique weave. The master is skilled in adapting the loom to the individual. An outsider who may hear some teaching from a devotee knows nothing of the system, of the tantra, but hears only that particular individual devotee's experience of a scenario. No outsider can take the "manual" and apply it just as the manual to launch and fly the rocket to the moon does not enable one to construct a rocket without guidance.

Tantric teaching is most often cryptic and mysterious by design because the master will unlock one of the many levels of meaning of the text for the individual student. 

Considering the above, it is appreciated that such a tantra does not lend itself to being taught in large groups. It is best taught and best learned in a one-on-one master-teacher relationship. This makes it expensive. Few people can afford to buy so much time and dedication from a master. A master can hardly ever be rewarded for the deep commitment required to advance a student in this discipline. For this and other pragmatic reasons, masters are very, very selective whom they would accept as students. 

Words cannot speak to metaphysical reality, and this problem is exponentially compounded as we endeavor to the higher philosophy in the domain of tantra. For this reason, Wayist Tantra leads the esoteric way of doing away with sutras and scripture as sources of learning. Learning and evolution are taken inside, in the inner depths of the beast whom we are, where we challenge our demons and install our angels in their place in the soul.

Additionally, Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra is a therapeutic system applied by a skilled therapist whom honed his/her skills through years of practice and apprenticeship. Although this does not happen in Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra, no one can simply pick up the mnemonic-style class notes and assume to use that to start a practice. Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra involves physical, mental, soul and spiritual healing and above all, radical transformation. Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra is a rapid Path that accomplishes in a few months what may otherwise take several lifetimes. Only a handful of Acharya and intern teachers available to endeavor on behalf of students. The ancient tradition to pay these specialists very little for their dedicated attention and the many years of study keeps the number of practitioners low, and their profiles even lower.

During 2016, International Association of Wayist Organizations took a decision to increase the number of interns and trainees to carry forward the tradition and its healing wisdom by making training more accessible. During phase one of the plan already in implementation, English language course material will be prepared, the need to be fluent in Sanskrit will be phased out and mid-level students will practice as intern physicians, enabling them to earn a living.

Success as a human being is the standard. For some devotees this translates into material wealth, for some it is mastery over soul faculties of self and other, for some it means being able to one day teach this tantra, but what all have in common is the bliss, the happiness, the contentment, and the opportunity to choose enlightenment when the time is right.

Our language is insufficient to speak to the depth and breadth of bliss. Wayist Tantra is said to be punyabharita ( पुण्यभरित ) which means ‘abounding in the bliss of holiness’. In the tradition, this tantra is referred to as Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra, which means the Tantra which has complete bliss as its characteristic mark. This bliss is the epitome of happiness which all humans inherently seek; even though they do not yet know even the feeling, the experience, nor the taste or smell of the bliss.

The use of soma entheogens is inherent in Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra from the beginning. The Lord’s teachings that revolve around the deep meaning and healings of the Lotus is part and parcel of higher Wayist endeavors of the soul.

Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra praxis leads one to step into a deeper awareness of metaphysical reality. This reality can only be experienced when lived — it cannot be understood in any other way. This tantra reprograms the mind and hones the senses to experience life in all its mundane and subtle offerings as energy that exhilarates the soul beyond the parameters known to natural human beings and their philosophical minds, science, texts, rhetoric, and language.

Reality and the experience of it is an evolving process. Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra trains the brain and its resultant mind to transcend its former self to awaken to new metaphysical experiences. Enlightenment is a process marked by thousands of moments of awakening.  As the deep-sleeper slowly awakes from her dream world, for her, the process by which her reality changes are marked by increasingly clearer understandings, awakenings. Her process of awakening is taken to a next level when she drinks her cup of morning tea, and Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra is that cup of tea for advanced souls. It fully awakens you to the new reality.

Experience has to do with perception; or point of view. Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra completely transforms how the adherent views…everything. Thereby, Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra changes one’s experience of life and metaphysical reality.

Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra non-dualism starts with a dualism. It is defined as the belief that we are individual soul beings in process of metamorphosis to spiritual beings, upon which we will exist for eons before our perfection becomes such that we become one with the Perfect Source. We are destined to become one with the One as our essence is the energy that emanates from That One — in that, there is a non-dualism. However, between now and when the eons pass. When we will become one with the One. We have an amazing and beautiful existence ahead of us as individual soul/spirit beings elsewhere in the universe. Wayism concerns itself with that intermediate time; between now and then. Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra awakens us to that reality.

Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra leads us to fully embrace metaphysical reality and realize the voidness. The nothingness. The sunayata. The changing nature and impermanence of material existence. This is called the process of liberation that is marked by moments of moksa which culminates in the final moksa, or release from samsara or rebirth on earth.

Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra leads devotees to carefully, systematically, under guidance, when the time is right, challenge all taboos and break down all totems for devotees to emerge as their true authentic self; having conquered all notions of the organic world and its bodies having any significance in who you are. This is the ultimate Path to the discovery of the real you. The Self.

Devotees are initially empowered as Parinaamika, that is, you become an Acharya’s object subject to evolution. You are an object to be studied and improved, you are a project of a wise one, the notion of self and ego is slowly (sometimes quickly) transformed. Later, the devotee is empowered as Sadaananda, that is, you have become one that feels and gives bliss. From this stage on, your Path progresses in service to natural beings as your transformation/metamorphosis continues. One may choose the path to material wealth; because it is sunyata and it will serve self and others well. One may choose the path to material poverty; because it is sunyata and will serve self and others well. Nevertheless, contentment is a state of bliss common to all.

Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra was by no means the first spiritual/religious system to not discriminate based on gender. Ancient Greco-Roman cults of the 1^st century preceded Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra in this respect.

Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra in its present form (for the past 2,000 years aprrox.) was conceived from Iesous’ purpose to spiritually and morally free women from patriarchal and male-dominated societal institutions. The foremost student, devotee, and Acharya of Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra was a woman. The first community of devotees were women; congregating around Acharya Mari. From day one in the present regime, the yogini was established as one with the potential to not only attend and excel but also to lead and teach.

Then, we have the matter of yoni worship aimed at mid-level devotees. At the time, there were thousands of yogis and Buddhist monks on the verge of enlightenment, drawn down by one thing—the yoni. Being men, they naturally spent years of their meditating lives clearing their minds of their various desires and self-admoshments regarding women. In those societies, male experiences of the perceived power that women held over them, simply because of hormones and YinYang energies, brought about severe societal rules to keep woman away from the male sphere. Notions of women being dirty (menstruation and the 'messy affairs' of childbirth) abounded. Women’s superior intuitive skills earned them labels as evil, demons, witches and more. Women were not educated and they were therefore regarded as less intelligent. A woman’s ability to survive in society was directly linked to a husband. The plight of widows was engineered to be frightening and terrible—you cannot create circumstances for the one who cooks the meals to consider it viable to poison the husband. Long story short, women were considered dirty, despicable and dangerous—yet men desired them with all their being, yogi or monk notwithstanding. Because of the fear (fear turned to mysoginy) of women, and women being denied access to mystical traditions, neither man nor woman would find the peace required to set foot on the final quest for enlightenment. It was an impasse brough about by patriarchy.

The Master knew, with the lack of love and respect prevalent in those societies, nobody, not even the highest advanced devotees could graduate from the School of Life. To remedy the situation the Lord started the process to free women and train menfolk to get over that culturally-conditioned mindset that prohibits enlightenment.

Furthermore, the Master needed a "boot camp therapy" to train and liberate the men who were to lead Wayism into the future. Yoni worship and all that comes with it was invented for this very reason.

The regime classified under YoniLinga worship involves deeper things one cannot discuss here. For the sake of the point at hand, suffice it to mention that yogis spent a long time learning to see all women as goddesses, all women as Mother God the Yin of the YinYang. In this spirituality, women were not anymore considered unclean and yogis were smelling, tasting, listening to, feeling and literally worshipping women in all and every aspect of their being. Yogini were trained as teachers in this skillset.

Yogini, on the other hand, had their own culturally-conditioned issues to overcome in this regard. The regimen termed YoniLinga worship cures issues on both sides of the gender line. In fact, it transcends gender; one of the many small deaths we have to bring about in our transformation.

Nirvanalaksanayoga Tantra takes a therapeutic approach to transformation. Its aim is to heal, to bring about that metamorphosis which heals the ailment samsara. Its interventions in the soul are therapeutic in nature. The Parinaamika is trained as a healer in the Bodhisattva Path and as Sadaananda she serves humankind as teacher, healer, companion and sojourner.

Soma is central to Nirvanalaksanayoga tantra. Soma is the name of an ancient regime of spiritual medications. There are many different somas with different applications. Somas are plant-based and ingredients are harvested with accompanying ritual, at the prescribed moon cycles and times of day, and prepared according to ancient stipulations. Somas for ritual use are today described as entheogenic compounds. Soma is made available to patients in clinic and devotees in attendance at rites.

By Acharya Yajn (Jean duPlessis), 2016

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