Tilopa

“Something about Tilopa before we enter into this beautiful phenomenon. Nothing much is known about Tilopa, because nothing in fact can be known about such persons. They don’t leave a trace, they don’t become a part of history. They exist by the side, they are not part of the main traffic where the whole humanity is moving; they don’t move there. The whole humanity moves through desiring, and persons like Tilopa move into desirelessness. They simply move away from the main traffic of humanity where history exists.

And the more away they go from the traffic, the more mythological they become. They exist like myths, they are no more events in time. And this is as it should be, because they move beyond time, they live beyond time — they live in the eternity. From this dimension of our common humanity, they simply disappear, they evaporate. The moment when they are evaporating, only that moment we remember, that much they are part of us. That’s why nothing much is known about Tilopa, who he is.”
– Tantra: The Supreme Understanding, Chapter #1

“Tilopa is difficult to comprehend, but Tilopa is rare. Patanjali’s understanding is common — that’s why there is so much influence of Patanjali all through history. People like Tilopa have simply disappeared without leaving any trace on the human mind, because they couldn’t find affinity with you.”
– Tantra: The Supreme Understanding, Chapter #6

“But Tilopa is incomparable. Jesus is nothing…. The tantra masters are simply wild flowers, they have everything in them. You must have seen Bodhidharma pictures; if you have not seen, look again — so ferocious that if you meditate on Bodhidharma’s picture in the night, alone, you will not be able to sleep: he will haunt you. It is said of him that once he looked at anybody, that man would have nightmares continuously. He would haunt him; the very look, so ferocious. When Bodhidharma or Tilopa spoke, it is said their speaking was like a lion’s roar, a thundercloud, a tremendous waterfall — wild, fiery.

But if you wait a little and don’t judge them too soon, you will find within them the most loving of all hearts. Then you will feel the music, the melody in them. And then suddenly you will realize that they have not denied anything; they have absorbed everything, even ferociousness. A lion is beautiful, even its ferociousness has a beauty of its own. You take the ferociousness out of a lion and he is just a stuffed lion, dead.”
– Tantra: The Supreme Understanding, Chapter #5

“A Tilopa knows no trembling, no fear, and he never goes to pray to God, “Protect me”; he is protected. What is his protection? Understanding is his protection. He has lived all, he has moved to the farthest corner into evil, and he has lived the divine, and now he knows both are two aspects of the same. And now he is neither worried about good nor worried about bad; now he lives a loose and natural, simple life, he has no predetermined concepts. And he is unpredictable.”
– Tantra: The Supreme Understanding, Chapter #10