(Excerpted from two letters written in 2010–2012):
Make your home an ashram
for love, laughter, light and play.
Love adults as if they were children.
Play with children—
they are such great teachers.
Play with elders, too,
as if they were still in the prime of youthful exuberance.
Invite love into your life.
(From an essay written in the early ’90s.):
There are some things I am sure of:
We are going to see beauty, harmony, peace,
abundance and prosperity ascendant in this world,
like never before.
You are going to witness it in your lifetimes.
Love is going to open up in mighty rivers.
Crime will not pay.
Pettiness will vanish.
You will love all as you love your own children.
I love you.
I will give you peace.
That is a promise.
 |
| In the picture (from left to right) VP Raghavan, Saru Haran, Sundara, Balasingam Janahan and Haran Aiya. |
(by Balasingam Janahan):
I was fortunate enough to have known this master—whom I proudly called my Guruji—in the flesh for 27 years. Over the course of those years, he took me on an adventure from which I have yet to return. And that is what the teachings contained herein can do for you. Guruji’s ability to understand the nuances of the body, mind and spirit—and the differences between people hailing from different places and times—enabled him to write various methodologies for understanding the self. You can pick and choose the ones that call out to you and for you, and begin your own journey today.
Guruji saw the divine in every individual he encountered. He saw each of us as a vessel holding and manifesting the divine in some precious and unique way—and therefore he saw each of us as worthy of worship.
In that firm conviction, he marched boldly forward to explain and impart the unorthodox teachings practiced by ancient Tantrikas of yore to all who desired to learn. His calling was to share the authentic, well-guarded teachings of Sri Vidya with any true seeker, so that anyone who wished to could get a glimpse of his experiences for themselves.
And while his efforts did stir up controversy within many orthodox traditions, Guruji never swayed from instilling the teachings that he felt were relevant for this time and age. For he knew, once an individual put the seed of these teachings into practice, that seed would germinate and grow, and—through the compassionate grace of the Divine Mother—the recipient would come to find their own inner guide to reaching their higher purpose.
I think it’s safe to say that Guruji was always a practicing sādhaka. I was a direct witness of him practicing what he preached. His discipline was to wake up at 2 a.m. and commence his sadhana. It would end just at the time when most of us were waking up to start the day. This routine was prolonged even further when he was in the process of building the Sri Meru temple at Devipuram. I watched him use his photographic memory to recall descriptive details of the goddesses he saw in his meditation so that they could be conveyed to the temple sculptors.
Guruji’s total dedication to and focus on this task was unparalleled, and I made it my mission to emulate his example and bring it into my own sadhana. And though I may have had many doubts and setbacks along the path, I am proud to say that there was never a day that I stopped practicing my sadhana—and this was directly due to Guruji’s example, and to the strict disciplinarian I saw in him.
Accordingly, I must inform you that these are the prerequisites to gaining success in the practices compiled in this book. If you are serious about making progress, it is my humble suggestion that you take heed of these steps that the master followed himself:
Choose your sadhana.
Over time, strive to understand and master its details and intricacies.
Persistently continue to pursue your sadhana with laser-like focus.
Realize the fruits of your efforts.
Guruji followed these four steps himself, coating them with a generous dose of discipline—and what he attained from these practices was what many of us disciples saw as effulgence radiating though his eyes.
Toward the later part of his life, I was blessed to frequently visit my master in his hometown of Visakhapatnam, India, where we shared many great meals and conversations. On the last day of one such visit, I was massaging his leg, which was swollen and troubling him greatly. He watched my face intently as I tried to hide my moistened eyes, and finally he said, “I know what you are worried about, Jana. You are afraid of what will become of you after I leave this body, of how you will continue to progress on the path.” Before I could answer him, he smiled, touched my head and said, “Don’t worry. I will always be with you.”
And to this day I truly believe he never left me, and that his energy will continue to vibrate with eternal truth, through the knowledge he gifted to this world.
(by William Thomas):
Thirty years ago, by the strangest of chances, I met Wijayaharan Aiya—a senior disciple of Sri Amritananda Natha Saraswati, or Guruji—on a business matter in upstate New York. It was 1988. Haran said he taught yoga and maintained a small Hindu temple in his converted garage at 33 Park Circle in Henrietta, New York, just outside Rochester. He invited me to come and see it, so I did. And I was blown away—not just by the temple itself, but by the intensity of Haran’s devotion to the Mother Goddess.
I began visiting the temple on a regular basis, and Haran treated me like a member of his own family. We had spiritual discussions, performed pujas, and before long he gave me a simple mantra to practice. One day a few months later he said, “My guru is coming from India. You have to meet him.” I was already so impressed with Haran and his teachings—I remember thinking, what would it be like to meet his teacher?!
Suffice it to say, I wasn’t disappointed. I remember entering Haran’s living room, and there, sitting in an easy chair, was a middle-aged Indian man with a big salt-and-pepper beard, wearing a white dress shirt and a dhoti. I sat at his feet. When my eyes met his, I felt a thrill, a warmth surge through my body. I melted into those eyes. I sensed such pure compassion—such unconditional love—emanating from this gentle, soft-spoken man.
I remember thinking, “This must be what it would have been like to meet Christ.” He asked me how I’d come to be there, and after I told him my story he smiled sweetly and said, “Good.” I told him I was planning a trip to India to see Sai Baba. He said, “Yes, you should.” Then he added, “You are welcome to stay with me and my family while you’re in India.” I was, of course, thrilled to accept his offer.
When I first arrived at Devipuram in November 1989, Guruji was keen to put my video camera to use—it was a rare commodity in India in those days. I recorded videos of daily life at Devipuram. I filmed Guruji performing a Tantric Śakti Pūjā.
As a person, he amazed me. He had a depth that I had never felt from another human being in my entire life. As a teacher, he was highly intelligent and ethical, but without any whiff of superiority—only humility. He treated everyone with kindness and respect. He was always open to new ideas, and he listened to everyone, asking our opinions and treating us all equally. He felt that the Goddess spoke through and guided us all.
Once, he took me on a trip to the area around Devipuram—from the beautiful Araku Valley, to the massive Borra Caves, to mountains in the jungle. At one point we stopped by a large, rushing stream, and Guruji said to one of the temple volunteers, “Please bring me a yantra.” When it was handed to him, Guruji placed it beneath the water and said, “There. Someday someone will find this and build a temple here.”
On the way back to Devipuram, we stopped in the town of Anakapalle to meet his guru—Swami Svaprakāśānanda Tīrtha Haṃsa Avadhūta, or simply Gurugaru. He was like a magic elf from a fairy tale, wraith-thin with an orange tone to his skin. Guruji and Amma kept telling me, “Whatever you do, don’t ask him for anything.” (I later found out that asking Gurugaru for things could go terribly wrong.) Luckily, I followed their advice.
The visit flew by, and when it was time to leave, Guruji said, “I have a gift for you.” And he handed me his own Shiva lingam from his puja room. He said, “This is for you. You are my son now. You may not be my blood relative, but you are my spiritual son.” I was overwhelmed. I’d never met people who showed me so much kindness in such a short amount of time.
Guruji was an amazing spiritual teacher and adept—a unique joining of disciplined scientific genius and a deeply spiritual mindset. He could come down to anyone’s level and communicate clearly. He could describe advanced spiritual concepts and expound on them with pure physics. He could give you an answer on any subject, if he wanted to. He would just close his eyes for a bit, and then come out with a detailed reply. I once heard him talk shop with an aviation engineer, though he knew nothing about building airplanes. Goddess Saraswati gave him the information, he told me later.
At all times, he projected an unmistakable aura of peace and contentment. All you had to do was be in the same room with him and you, too, felt happy, calm and blissful. I remember wanting to ask him so many questions or tell him all about my problems—but when I’d actually get near him, I’d forget or not care anymore; all my stress was gone, and I was happy. The best part was when I did namaskāram—prostrated and touched his feet—that was magical. You could get high from the energy he emanated. It lasted for hours.
But the best thing about Guruji was that he was always approachable, like a loving father and—I have to say—a loving mother, too. For he was, I believe, a living incarnation of the Devi, always guiding his children with love and attention. I was lucky to be tutored by Guruji in Tantric philosophy and practice. On my third trip to India, I came with a close female friend. Guruji took us to the Kāmākhya Pīṭha and guided us through a private Tantric puja. My friend and I sat on his knees as he gave us both the Mahāṣōḍaśī Mantra.693 It was like a dream, like being in another world, surrounded by nonjudgment and unconditional love.
The Sri Vidya teachings of Guruji were, in my opinion, of the highest caliber. He could translate the most esoteric concepts into layperson’s language. But the main thing he taught us was to follow our own intuition, that soft voice coming from within. “Always follow your heart,” he would say. “When Devi is guiding you, you can never go wrong.”
In essence, he was telling us to follow our inner guru and not be dependent upon anyone or anything outside ourselves—which ultimately meant being independent of him as a guru as well. In that sense, his legacy was one of radical freedom. He encouraged all of us to practice and teach in our own way, in our own style—to allow our inner Goddess (or Guru) to guide us along our personal path. In my estimation there will never be another guru like him again.
That is, until he returns.
(from "A Jewel From My Mother's Crown"):
Lakṣmī – Jñāna Śakti
Immediately after the birth process, protection and nourishment has to be given. Where does it come from? It comes from the Mother's breasts as her milk. There she is known as Lakṣmī. She is the ocean of milk that comes from the breasts of the female; there the child feeds. The first milk that comes out of the mother's breasts has immunization properties. Do you know how to make that milk? You ate food and it became milk. That power to give nourishment is what we call Lakṣmī. The nipples through which milk comes is the location of the second aspect of the Mother we worship.
Sarasvatī – Icchā Śakti
Then the child grows and after some time it leaves the mother's breast and looks for outside food. The child is not interested in receiving nourishment from the mother any more. Neither is that mother able to provide it. It receives nourishment from knowledge. Then the third mother comes into existence. That is Sarasvatī. She is in the tongue.
When you are talking, are you aware of where the tongue has to go in order to create a certain sequence or sounds? No, you are not aware. Still that is the function of Sarasvatī, to teach. This learning process starts at the age of about two and a quarter years. The first part is 9 months; the second part is 27 months and the third part 81 months (about 7 years of age) you are taken care of by Sarasvatī, the third mother.
In Devī Bhāgavatam, which describes:
Mahākālī in 1 chapter,
Mahālakṣmī in 3 chapters, and
Mahāsarasvatī in 9 chapters.
The times 1–3–9 are established. Since Mahākālī creates the child in womb in 9 months, the number of months each mother takes to do her work is given as:
9 × 1 = 9 months (Mahākālī)
9 × 3 = 27 months (Mahālakṣmī)
9 × 9 = 81 months (Mahāsarasvatī)
In the Devī Mahātmyam, in the first part there is only one chapter, the second part has three chapters and the third part has nine chapters, where you have to dance your way through life with happiness and pleasure. For that you have too many obstructions to your progress. In this part you will find a great battle being waged against all the demons and how the Devīs overcome them one by one. The worst of these demons is Raktabīja. Raktabīja means the triggering of one thought from another.
Icchā, Jñāna, and Kriyā Śakti
The Icchā Śakti is located as Sarasvatī at the tip of your tongue. Worship of the face gives you will power and emotional intelligence called Icchā Śakti. Especially when you concentrate on the eyebrow center = ājñā cakra, it develops your power to control yourself and others.
Jñāna Śakti is worshipped in the heart center, and
Kriyā Śakti is worshipped in the yonī.
If you want to manifest or create a physical form, worship of the yonī brings this power into you. All your fears and sexuality are located in the first two cakras. Worship is paying attention to feeling of respect; it removes your negativities and paves the way to power and love. Worship of the heart center gives you the blessings of knowledge, protection, immunity, wealth and prosperity.
The Lalitā Sahasranāma talks in detail about these various aspects. There is a mantra appropriate to worshipping the Devī in the heart center, and that is Rāja-Śyāmala. There is a mantra which corresponds to the Ājñā center which is called Vārāhī. There is a mantra corresponding to the Brahmarandhra, the Sahasrāra cakra, and that is a single letter mantra called Sauḥ.
It is Para. It is the hissing sound of the kuṇḍalinī snake as it rises up the spinal cord. When it reaches the Sahasrāra it opens its hood up and implodes the cosmos into you. Viṣṇu is sleeping under the hood of the serpent Śeṣa. It means that the cosmos and cosmic consciousness (Viṣṇu) is under the protection of this Kuṇḍalinī force. It is both a creative and a destructive force. It creates order and destroys disorder.
The Symbolism of the Snake
The symbolism of the snake is a universal archetype over the ages in various cultures. Imagine a snake crawling over your body and that you are a small child and that you are not aware that it is a snake. Or you have not learned to name it as a snake. What do you find? You find a supreme pleasure in its touch. It coils around your limbs and a beautiful massage is being given to you by the snake. In this situation you are not naming it and not identifying it with a situation that is potentially dangerous. You play with it.
This is the nature of Śivā. The moment you associate that situation with the notion of fear that it can kill you, then the fear is related to the Mūlādhārā cakra. On the one hand there is pleasure and on the other hand there is fear. This combination of the pleasure–fear complex is what is symbolized by the snake.
If you look at the philosophical structure behind this, you find that the snake is something that moves in a wavy, curvy fashion, not straight. They say that when you are drunk you move in a wavy fashion, you are not clear in what direction you are moving. If this snake becomes drunk, what does it do? It moves straight.
The mind and its thought patterns are like the snakes, going hither and dither in wavy fashions. But when the mind becomes steady and one-pointed, when it flows relatively straight, then it is “drunken”. This is the drink that they refer to in the tantrā. The drink, the ambrosia which makes your mind one-pointed and straight.
The Kuṇḍalinī Śakti is flowing up the suśumṇā channel instead of going round the petals in whatever way it wants. This is the symbol of the snake.
Kuṇḍalinī, Pañcadaśī, and Union
You can worship the Pañcadaśī in a particular portion of your body. The usual portion associated with the Devī is the svādhiṣṭhāna cakra. That is where she resides. When the Kuṇḍalinī is sleeping, you are aware of the world and feel separate from the world. When the Kuṇḍalinī is awakening, your separateness is getting lost step by step.
What causes this separateness? You are interacting with the world through your five sensory modes of perception. They are all local magnifiers. So you are not knowing the world as it exists, but through the filters of your senses. When Kuṇḍalinī awakens, it enables you to transcend these sensory limitations. For example, you can smell distant odours, taste remote juices, see distant forms, touch distant objects, and hear music continents apart. One after the other these senses are being transcended.
So the ascent of the Kuṇḍalinī, this consciousness-provoking, dynamic power, is the loss of your separation from cosmos, your source. It can be called worship of the yonī from which you came.
Kuṇḍalinī is thus said to be sleeping in the Mūlādhārā cakra, coiling itself 3 and 1/2 times around. Going round the waist (maṇipūra), chest (anāhatā), and neck (viśuddhi) are the three coils of the snake. And then the head of the snake is going into the vagina through the vulva (svādhiṣṭhāna) to the cervix (mūlādhārā) and that is where the tip of the liṅgam is going to be. That is where the head of the snake is sleeping.
When the Kuṇḍalinī reverses its flow from the Mūlādhārā center of the Śakti, it enters the Mūlādhārā center of the male and flows in a reverse action and comes to the svādhiṣṭhāna, which is the base of the liṅgam, and then moves up the spinal cord behind and comes up to the Sahasrāra. This is the transfer of energy from the Śakti to the Śivā in the yogic posture of union.
The exchange of energy can take place between the Śivā and Śakti in union. You oscillate. This oscillation can build up to the navel center; from the navel center to the heart center; from the heart center to the throat center; from the throat center to the ājñā center and then the circle is closed. When the circuit gets closed, then the cosmic consciousness is supposed to happen; the Śivā and Śakti do not experience their separateness. They become one and thus the consummation between Śivā and Śakti.
This is the purpose of the marriage: to experience this cosmic oneness of one soul moving in two bodies, between husband and wife. That is called mokṣa.
Paśu and Paśupati
You have passed a lifelong term of imprisonment on yourself stating that you are going to live in this body, this mind, and live with these thoughts. When you are able to escape from these three sets of notions then you are Paśupati, you are Śivā. When you are confined by these notions, you are a paśu, a beast.
A beast is tied by strings. The strings that bind you are your fear, your seeking for sensations, your power addictions, and in a limiting fashion the love you have for others. These are all strings.
(from "A Jewel From My Mother's Crown"):
The word “mother” brings to our minds usually the “one who gives birth to”. I was born out of her womb and that is my place of birth. The birth channel, the yonī = vagina is the only entity that really qualifies to be called the mother. It is indeed a temple where the Goddess who gives birth is located. We call the Goddess there as Gaurī (creatrix).
The yonī is also the place where billions of sperms who are trying to get a chance to live are destroyed. That is why she is known as Kālī (destroyer). Gaurī is the one who accepts the seed and gives it life, and Kālī is one who accepts the seed but destroying it. For this reason, it is important to worship Kālī during menstruation, when conception is not possible. They are different, yet they are located at the same place, called by different names at different times. They are both located in the Mūlādhārā Cakra.
So as the Mother of all, who gives birth to us through her yonī, Gaurī is worshipped in the yonī. She is the base in which the Liṅga (phallus) of Śivā stands. Lalitā Sahasranāmam speaks of Bhagārādhyā (meaning, worshipped in the yonī). There are so many names in the Lalitā Sahasranāma that relate explicitly to the sexual aspects of the Mother Goddess worship.
There were times when fertility rites where the love between man and woman was offered as an intimate service to the Goddess. Devī the universal mother is located in the Svādhiṣṭhāna cakra. Sva by self, adhiṣṭhāna residing in. The place where Devī is residing in, is the genitals. The seat of the Kuṇḍalinī power, the energy which gives supreme pleasure of orgasm is located in the genitals.
The starting point of Kuṇḍalinī is known as Kumāra. He is like the young Śivā. The big Śivā is the male liṅga = phallus. Kumāra, his son, the small liṅga in the female is the clitoris. The female liṅga is the seat of happiness and pleasure and the origin of Kuṇḍalinī Śakti.
The first movement of the Kuṇḍalinī is to make you lose your sense of body identification, and that is exactly what happens in orgasm. You are flowing out of yourself as the seed and you lose all your tensions. The word orgasm is used in Tantrā in the broader context as losing all your tensions. If you are worried, losing your worry is an orgasm.
There was one fellow who used to wear shoes three times under size. He used to walk with those shoes all day long. He would suffer excruciating pain throughout the day. When asked, “Why do you wear those undersized shoes and bear the pain?” He said, “There is only one happiness left in my life and that is when I remove this shoe from my foot, only then I feel extremely happy.”
We are all wearing this undersize shoe, called this body, and once you find the release from this body you find happiness, the only happiness that we know, and that is called an orgasm. We want repetition of that happiness because we want to be permanently in that state. The only way to achieve that is to recognize the stress developing and be able to relieve that stress. This is the main point of Tantrā. Try to be in a state of constant orgasm, to be in the perpetual union between Śivā and Śakti.
The mother who gives birth is called Gaurī. Man is very incidental to the process of creation. He just deposits a seed in the womb and then walks out; there finishes his duty. We think we are the mothers of our children that we beget. But are they our children? They are not, they are the children of Gaurī.
Do we know how to give form to that formless seed? How to make the face, the eyes, the ears, how to make the tongue, how to put the taste in the tongue? How to create the limbs that can grow and where each should be located, in what proportion, what size? What color eyes, what looks? None of these things we know. All of this happens automatically. There is a power of transformation which is coded in the genes which is doing this job. That power Gaurī is located in the womb. It is the seed that we are worshipping.
You cannot say that the seed is male or female. So before the egg, which came first, the egg or the hen? It was the seed that came before either of them. That seed is (knowledge) information.
It is the seed that is Gaurī, the bindu. That is the first mother that we know. In the womb, initially you as the child experience a tremendous growth potential. Every moment you are multiplying yourself into two and it appears as if there is an infinite possibility of growth. You are enjoying that happiness and richness available to you of the multiplication of yourself.
But then after some time, the womb being limited in size offers resistance to growth. You are being confined. You don't like that confinement. You want to grow and after some time you are pushed out forcibly.
At first you do not know what touch is, you were not even breathing. You were floating in the womb for nine months. You were breathing through your navel through the blood of the mother. At the time of birth you were pushed out, suddenly a cold metal comes and grasps your head and pulls you out before you have learned how to transfer from one system of life to another system; your navel thread is cut.
At the time of birth you are fighting for life. This trauma is tremendous. You cannot say that this trauma is not present in caesarean births because they also cut the navel cord. From navel breathing you have got to move to nasal breathing, and that transition is very traumatic.
(from "A Jewel From My Mother's Crown"):
The center of every experience is yourself. That is Śivā, called the invariant point, bindu. The word bindu means three things: point, seed and mind. All that is experienced is Śakti. The function of Śivā is to unite you, that you are, into the cosmic being. The function of Śakti is to separate you from being Śivā, to bring an experience to that awareness—flowing and movement in time.
Śivā is the awareness full of experience that flows not in time. It is a frozen experience that has no evolution. The first movement (in time and space) is the creation of an interval—an interval between the knower and the known, between the seer and the seen, between the one which is aware and that of which it is aware. The chaitanya and jaḍa. Jaḍa is what you are seeing, which you are not penetrating. It is something that somehow separates itself from itself, and this separation manifests itself as an interval between the seer and the seen. This is the birth of relativity / relativeness.
This interval can be compared to the distance between a point and its image in the mirror. A point is dimensionless. The point is reflected in a mirror and it appears as if it is another point unto itself. The first point, the second point, and the distance between these two points exist, connected by the space (distance) and time (required by light to cover the distance) interval.
Once the space-time interval is formed, something has to have the property of movement. Time is the one which has the characteristic of movement. This statement is not absolutely true, but is a good first approximation. (It is equally proper to say that space, not time, has the property of movement.) However, our experience tells us that it is time which is moving and space is not moving, and this experience is valid in a sufficiently large number of cases so that we can accept that it appears to be true. This law breaks down as you are approaching the velocity of light. That is where the relativistic theory takes over.
The space-time interval is the first creation and that manifests itself as interaction between space and time, and out of the rotation of space around time matter is formed. The bindu, the center point, is unique; it is dimensionless; it is awareness, but it is not even aware of itself. So it cannot be even called a creator. It is a liṅga, a characteristic of invariance. It is awareness and non-awareness combined. What you see and what you are is combined in that. Knowledge and ignorance are combined in that.
It is not negatible. It is invariant to negation. If you have knowledge alone and when you negate it you have ignorance. When you have ignorance alone and negate it, it becomes knowledge. But when you have the sum of the two and you try to negate the sum, knowledge moves over to ignorance and ignorance moves over to knowledge, and the sum total is not changed even when you deny it. It cannot be denied. It is self-evident. It is your own knowledge that you exist. It does not have to be proved to you.
The awareness has this property of self-proving, svaprakāśa. Awareness is self-enlightening; that does not require another light to show its existence. It is proof unto itself. That pure awareness is God.
What is to be enlightened is our own ignorance. What is ignorance? One sees the world and what is seen appears different from oneself. If illumination is there then this difference will not exist.
Absorption of the interval back into the point is the function of Śivā. Creation of the interval is the function of Śakti. They are opposites of each other. Śivā kills your individuality to make you the Cosmic Being. In being a killer, Śivā is giving you birth into your cosmic consciousness. Śakti is trying to limit your cosmic consciousness into your individual consciousness and therefore Śakti appears to give life. Śivā appears to give death.
What we interpret as death is the cosmic awareness. What we interpret as life is the cosmic death. These are the functions of the two creators, Śivā and Śakti. They are co-creators and they have equal potency and equal powers. This is the Śivā–Śakti identity.
(from "A Jewel From My Mother's Crown"):
This transformation of your own character is what is important to the ritual.
You start with your present situation; this includes and implies fears, lusts, greeds, possessiveness, hunger for power, all kinds of limitations and your feelings of separation. It is from this starting point you have to move, to shed your inhibitions one by one and learn what it means to have intercourse with the world.
Every aspect of your life is maithuna or intercourse, not just sex; Tantrā redefines this as the enjoyment of the beauty. Tantrā teaches that you do not have to own anything in order to enjoy it. Do you own the ground that you walk upon? Do you own the air that you breathe? Do you have to own the sun, the stars, the moon and the clouds for you to see and enjoy?
Ownership is not there, except in the broad sense of “Yes, I own the whole world!”
Your body is a Śrī Cakra. The awareness that is spreading throughout your body is the Śrī Devi. Then you will understand that the different awarenesses felt inside you are the different forms that are shown here. By you we mean not merely your body, but the entire Cosmos. These are all giving shapes to the feats of awarenesses, the feats of consciousness. In Patanjali Yoga Sutras, he says that if you keep your consciousness in different parts of your body, then you will get a different Siddhi, or attainment.
These idols define places in the Śrī Cakra. They have certain kinds of weapons. You have to understand what their places in the Śrī Cakra are and you have to understand what kind of concentration you must have in them in order to get a certain attainment. All these things are embedded in the locations of these idols and the ornaments and weapons they are having are all significant.
Why so many idols? It is confusing, but it is to prove to you that in-spite of all their variety, they are just one. You must de-confuse yourself. This deconfusing process is Sādhana. Confusion is created in Hinduism as a problem for you to solve. To solve this problem is what liberates you.
You have ears, you have eyes, you have skin. You are experiencing the world through your eyes, seeing a visual picture. You are hearing the world through your ears, hearing as a musical expression; musical expression is totally different from the visual expression or experience. Each one has its own individuality. Yet you are not looking at the eye and saying it is an ear; nor looking at an ear and saying it is an eye; nor at skin and saying it is an ear or an eye. You have given them different names because they are appearing different to you, you are experiencing them differently.
So what is wrong in having different aspects of your awareness appearing in different forms, in different identities? So, if in your body there can be so many different individualities, why can't there be different flow of awarenesses in the cosmic, creative, sustaining, nourishing and deabsorbing powers?
You are one. You are experiencing these different things, but are they different from you? There is unity in you. The same way in the Cosmos also. There are differences and there are unities also. So to show these differences, you show the different forms. And to find unity, you look at the top of the Śrī Cakra, in the Bindu.
Where are “you” located? Are you located in your eyes, in your hands, in your legs? You can lose your hands but you continue to live; you can lose your legs, but you continue to live. You are not located in any of these things. But you are located where your awareness goes. Your expression varies according to the location. So, in the same way that your body merges into the unified awareness of your Self, the Cosmic Awarenesses are also merging into the Parashakti. The transcendental Śakti is one, but its expression is many.
For example - there are the Pañcabhūtas, there are the five elements, the five properties, the five organs of action. They are different, they have different functions, spaces to work in.
The woman is the symbol of the beauty and aesthetics of nature. In this whole world it is only mankind that is wearing clothes. Every other living form is in the nude, in its natural state. So .0001% of the entire universe is wearing clothes. So if you want to represent Nature, it should be shown in the nude.
While the idols are shown in the nude, we are not seeing them as nude. It is only because we are wearing clothes that when we take them away we think of the body as nude. Our clothes are helping us to cover our blemishes, to create an artificial beauty where it is not there. The clothes help us to create a distinction between the Self and the non-self, between who I am and what I am seeing.
Here, all the murtis as depicted as Devatas. They wear the clothes appropriate to Devatas. the Devatas are all-pervasive. They go to the ends of all directions. They are in every place and every time. So they can't be covered by anything. They wear decorations and ornaments. And that is natural. But their beauty is such that the ornaments become beautiful through their example only.
Śrī Mata is the Mother that gives birth to everyone. When we say that she is the mother of everyone, then we have to ask the question, "Then where is everyone born?" The obvious answer is through the female genitals. That is the place where the procreative power of God lies. For the Śakteyas who worship the Motherhood of every woman, she is called "Bhagārādhyā" in Lalitā Sahasranāma. Bhagā means the yoni, the female genital, and she is worshipped in that. That is why it is important to display the genital, because you have to worship it, to develop an attitude of worship towards that.
Śrī Cakra means the whole world and the place where it is displayed is the womb of the Mother. If you look at Kañci Kāmākṣī idol, there is the picture of the womb in front and the Śrī Cakra is shown inside. The Śrī Cakra She is the Universal Mother. She has given birth to the entire Cosmos which is kept inside Her womb.
Adi Deva, the primal God, is Liṅga Svarūpa. Its place is Garbhalaya, Garbha means the womb. Creativity, procreation is the duty of mankind, because life is so rare. The line of life should not be broken. This dharma, this duty, that we have towards our parents who have given life to us, we must repay that debt by giving life to continue the race.
This dharma is personified as “Vṛṣabha'' which is another way of saying Vṛṣaṇa which means the testes. The testes is the seed container. You must first look through the bull (Nandi) in front of the Liṅgam, which that first you must energize the Liṅgam towards creativity and then you must look at the Liṅgam. Śiva is the Liṅgam which has the desire to procreate, otherwise it is called Śava. In the Saundaryalaharī it says, "Sivaḥ śaktyā yukto yadibhavati śaktaḥ prabhavituṃ…." Only when Śiva is united with Śakti, showing the desire to procreate, then He is to be worshipped, not otherwise. Then He called Śiva. Otherwise He is a corpse.
Only the erect male member is considered to be Śiva. Just as the female genital is the mother in the Sṛṣṭi, which is taking place through the intercourse, the male genital is the father of everyone. That is considered to be the Śivaliṅga.
In the olden days, the Śivaliṅgas and the Yonis were shown as the male and female genitals. But when the Muslim and Christian rule was there, our people accepted their arguments that this was nonsense. So they have changed their shapes into unrecognizable round objects without any contours in them, which kept them from being recognized as the male or female genitals. They have become names only - Liṅgam and Yoni.
There are four aims in life. They are what we call in the Saṅkalpa at the beginning of each Pūjā, "Dharma, Artha, Kāma, and Mokṣa”.
Dharma is Duty, and it is personified by the desire to continue the race;
Artha means the acquisition of wealth and prosperity. You should be prosperous and you should make the people around you prosperous;
Kāma means lust, and it is to be directed towards liberation, towards Mokṣa.
Mokṣa means liberation, the liberation from the identification of yourself with your body, the shackles of your body. You pass a life-long sentence of imprisonment when you think that you are only your body. You have to get out of that prison and move towards liberation. That can be possible only when lust is directed toward liberation.
Now, there are other human weaknesses besides lust like anger, like fear, like greed, like delusion, like pride, like jealousy. None of these things have been considered as aims in life. Why was lust listed as one of the aims of life? Because lust has the potential to be transformed into love. And love has the potential to transform itself into liberation. It is for this reason that lust, Kāma, has been included as one of the Puruṣārthas.
All the Tantric texts state that once lust is universalized and used in the context of worship, then both here and there are available. But this loud voice that the texts are using is in the Sanskrit language, and Sanskrit is no longer spoken in India and so we can't understand it. Mechanically we recite Dharma, Artha, Kāma, Mokṣa, but we don't stop to consider what Kāma means really.
If we say that lust should not be there, if we put a halter to it and say that we should not have it at all, and deny ourselves the joys of union, even then it will not go away. It will change its form and become anger. When you are denied what you desire, then it becomes anger and anger becomes violence, aggressiveness, terrorism, all those things which tend to destroy the society. The reason that these aggressive acts are there is because of unfulfilled desires. All the criticism that says that the Hindu scriptures are obscene do not really understand what the Tantras intend. They do not know the purpose of lust, they do not know how to utilize that.
Convert lust into love in the proper way, into Śriṅgāra. Śriṅgāra means, find out what the other person wants and offer him that.
When you are able to transform lust into love, then it becomes Madhura bhakti, sweet devotion, the path of devotion and love towards God. That is why Śrī Kṛṣṇa was supposed to have 16,000 lovers. And that is acceptable. So why can't Lalitā have 16,000 lovers?
Lalitā is the equivalent of Śrī Kṛṣṇa. She is the Guru. When you convert your lust into love, then it flourishes as literature, as Music, Dance as Fine arts, as the creative qualities of everyone. The best qualities of everyone come up in this transformation process: having a good heart, a compassionate heart towards everyone; not deceiving others; Ahimsā - not violating or hurting others in any way in body, mind or spirit; harmony takes the place of violence. All these things happen when lust is transformed into love. In God or in Devi when you have Śriṅgāra, then you are converted from being a human into being a Divine Being.
This is what is meant that the Gopis have love towards Kṛṣṇa. If you want to have union, then you must have union with God. They say that if you sing, then God dances for you; if you dance for God, he comes and embraces you; and if you shed your ego and offer yourself, and request God to have union with you, then you receive liberation. These truths work equally well for Devi.
The reason all these figures are seen in the nude is to tell people that you must worship creativity in the form of Devi, in the form of the female. You must request Devi to give you Saubhāgya, give you prosperity, give you the pleasure and enjoyment in this life. You have got 10,000 million women in this world. You you can worship all of them as the Divine Mother then this will be your last life, you will receive Mokṣa. This is the purpose of the Yoni Pūjā. When you transform lust into love this way, then the Kuṇḍalinī Śakti becomes awakened.
For those people who are not interested in mere criticism and who truly want to understand and appreciate and learn more about these things, then we are here to instruct them in the intricacies and details of the Sādhana according to the Kaula Saṃpradāya.
Mother is worshipped as Gaurī, Lakṣmī and Vāṇī, as Kriyā, Jñāna, and Icchā Śakti.
As the Kriyā Śakti, the Devi manifests in intercourse. And intercourse resides in the genitals of the female.
As Jñāna Śakti, Devi is Lakṣmī, the one who nourishes the baby when it is born. She resides in the female breasts, and she resides in the mother's nourishing and life sustaining milk.
She is the Mother worshipped as Saraswati when Devi resides in the tongue, because speech comes from the tongue, the educative function of the mouth.
By meditating on these places in the body and worshipping them you are getting Kriyā Śakti, Jñāna Śakti, and Saṅkalpa Śakti, or Icchā Śakti.
It is to demonstrate that you must worship the Mother in the female body that these female idols are shown in the nude.
We can think of God as male, we can think of God as female. It much better to think of God as female, that is what the Upaniṣads say. “Matṛ devo bhava”. A woman who is symbolized by Śrī Mata, is compassionate. By worshipping a woman as the embodiment of Devi, we get all the enjoyment that we want, all the pleasures that we want, we get peace of mind, and in Yoga aspect, we get release from the cycle of births and deaths, we get Mokṣa.
This is why all the murtis are female. Even in the Bindusthanam at the top, there is Sahasrākṣī above Sadāśiva. She is larger in size than Śiva’s idol. In the Saṃpradāya of the tradition sculptures, what is more important is shown as bigger and being above what is less important since the woman is Guru in the Tantra tradition, she is shown as being on top and more, important.
The woman is the dynamic aspect and the man is the static aspect in Tantra. Their combination is what is worshipped in the Bindusthanam. They are existence (Śiva) and awareness (Śakti). Awareness gives meaning to existence and is considered more important.
The Lalitā Sahasranāma says, “Śivā svādhīna-vallabhā.” She is the Wife of Śiva, but Her husband is under Her control. The intent is to tell people that Parāśakti, the dynamic energy that is creating, manifesting and nourishing the entire world is the highest possible truth. The worship of the Mother is to worship the beauty and aesthetics of Nature.
(from "A Jewel From My Mother's Crown"):
I would like to be intimate with my God. I would like to see God in front of me, not as something unknown to me, but just like I am seeing you. I want to talk to God, to that Higher Intelligence, and I want to experience it as a reality, not something that I imagine. I would like to gather some experiences in this life that will give me that tranquil state and reenact to get a more perfect version than I have been able to experience. This is the essence of the second part of the pūjā, the offering of the Sixty Four Intimate Services to God.
You try to see all the elements of Goddess in another human being. You invoke the Goddess into a little girl, a single woman or a couple and you worship them as embodiments of Goddess. Goddess is also in you, whether you are male or female. It is Goddess who is worshipping herself.
This is where the question of Tantrā comes in. Tantrā speaks of interaction with others. The question is: as you relate yourself with others, are you trying to keep your separateness and relate to them as separate entities, or are you trying to relate to others through merging as you relate to yourself?
Jesus Christ has given a beautiful answer to this question. It is worth repeating. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Not as somebody else, because if you think of your neighbor as somebody else then the question of desire, of lust, of judgment can come in. If you are loving thy neighbor as thyself, is there any desire in that? If there is desire it can be fulfilled without any restrictions or inhibitions. If I want to enjoy myself, love myself, or make love to myself, who can stop me? I am free.
I go into the bathroom and take a soap to wash my body. Is the rest of my body ashamed that my right hand is taking the soap and rubbing me all over? It is not. There cannot be a sense of shame in unity. In the context of pūjā, notion of unity rather than separation is to be experienced. The idea that what I am seeing is myself should never be lost sight of.
For intimacy to happen there can be no restrictions of any sort. That is where the nudity comes into tantrā. You cannot surrender yourself to your partner if you say, “I am a woman. I must not remove my clothes.” You and your partner are not different people. You are trying to merge into one.
The word digambara does not mean just the removal of clothes. It is a merging of the minds, of thoughts. You are thinking the same thoughts that I am thinking. You are experiencing the same things that I am experiencing. There is a transference into the other being, an expansion of your consciousness to include the other being as yourself. Both of you are experiencing the same thoughts without talking. That is digambara. That is when you are united. That is the intent of Tantrā.
Touch alone is not the intent of Tantrā. All the five senses are included. When I am able to see you, when I can touch you, taste you, talk to you, experience you in all possible ways, like I am experiencing myself, then I can say, okay, I have seen God. Otherwise it is only a partial manifestation. I don't want a partial experience, I want a totality, the love of God directly.
In the 64 intimate services to the Mother, you are giving Her a bath and She is giving you a bath at the same time. Both experiences are there. You are not different from Her. What She is experiencing you are experiencing. It is only when the experience is common that you can say the union has taken effect.
Suppose I rub my right hand over my left hand, the feeling of being touched is in the left hand. The feeling of touching is in the right hand. Both these hands belong to me. Both these experiences belong to me, they are occurring in me at the same time. But if I am touching someone else, the experience of touching is in me, but the experience of being touched is not in me. The separateness has come. If I am being touched by somebody else, then the act of being touched is there but the act of touching is not in me.
When your consciousness pervades the consciousness of the other, then you are totally united. You have lost your boundaries. When you are experiencing yourself as the other, the sense of shame has no place. You are not ashamed of yourself. The sense of other has no relevance. It is only in the sense of advaita (in a sense of unity) the pūjā should be performed.
Advaita in theory is Vēda. Advaita in practice is Tantrā. Tantrā means practice, proving the ideas through experiment. Through practice you try to prove and become clear about what the theory has said.
Each of the four Vēdas have certain aspects of tantrā:
Ŕg Vēda is what you have seen or heard in your meditation.
Yajur Vēda is the compilation of these individual pieces of revelation into a structure that can be used as a ritual.
Sāma Vēda is the singing and dancing rituals spontaneously.
Atharvaṇa Vēda is how to apply and share this knowledge, how to use it as a weapon to remove evil tendencies in us or to attract, empower and help somebody.
Sometimes you have got to hurt. What is it that you have to hurt? Your fear you have got to hurt. You have got to get rid of it. Your lust you have got to hurt, to get rid of it; your internal enemies you have got to kill. That is what Devī does. She kills Mahiṣāsura; a buffalo is to be offered as sacrifice to Her.
What is this Mahiṣa? Mahiṣa is the bull which represents blind, hurtful lust. Lust has to be transformed into something higher. Lust means that the notion of the other is preserved and you want it badly, no matter what cost. You want to grab and seek only for your pleasure, ignoring the other's sentiments or feelings. That is lust. This has to be transformed.
Transformation means changing its nature. Transformation means killing its present nature, and giving birth to a new nature.
However, love cannot survive without lust. Let us understand this. The lotus flower is born in the mud, then grows in the water. Its flower comes out into the open, into air, and looks to the light and blooms when the sun comes out.
We are like the lotus. You are born in flesh. You can say, “I don't want this flesh, I want to throw it away,” and then you cut off the lotus from the stem. It is the lotus itself that will die.
It is the fear, the lust, the greed and the jealousy which are transformed into love. It is the demonic that have to be transformed into the divine. But you cannot totally destroy the disorder. Order and disorder have to be in balance.
(from "A Jewel From My Mother's Crown"):
First you worship the Guru, then you make your bath a ritual by invoking the Goddess into you and worshipping Her in your body. When you are taking a bath, you are indeed giving a bath to Her, without any sense of shame. The sense of shame comes from the notion of the other. Fear and shame go away when you realize that whom you are worshipping is your own self. You can recite the Śrī Sūktam and all the Sūktams that you know when you are taking a bath because you are indeed the Goddess.
Next you worship the forty-four triangles of the Śrī Cakra. Think of the central part of Śrī Cakra as a beautiful palace of jewels and the most beautiful things in the world, where Śivā and Śakti are making love among celestial dancers and nymphs, in a very erotic place filled with beauty and harmony and grace and loving couples.
You realize that you are in a very limited state of being and you try to overcome this state by resetting yourself to the state of being the Goddess. How do you do that? By thinking like this:
“OK, I am sixty years old now. So what? Age is just a concept. I am also a 16 year old girl bubbling with joy and happiness and not crippled by my age, or pulled down by my worries. I am free and I want to look at every moment as an opportunity to grow in whatever way I can and to help others in whatever way I can. I will share my beauty, share my joy, my bubbling enthusiasm and power with others. This is what I am, this is what I will do.”
So saying, I reset myself to this state by getting rid of this old, useless, stupid, worrisome kind of existence that I am going through and say, “Let me burn this body and get rid of all the muck that I have acquired through social conditioning and programming. I will reconstitute my body to be forever 16, beautiful, powerful.” This aspect of the pūjā is called the Virajā Homaṃ.
Then you imagine that you have just become a body of light. And you merge with the cosmos and become a ball of light. This ball of light condenses and turns into the most beautiful, most harmonious, most loving, most wonderful, most powerful and most enriching kind of a being. You are a 16 year old girl, Ananda Bhairavī. She is enjoying herself nonstop with her consort Ananda Bhairava, playfully acting all the moods, and out of their enjoyment is coming this world full of beauty, of harmony, of loving, of caring, of compassion.
It is not the world demarcated as Germany, Austria, Denmark, North America, South America, Canada, Brazil, India, Pakistan, and China.
When you fly, you go to the sky, you go to the satellites, do you see any boundaries there? None. It is we that created our boundaries. If the world was governed by women who care for their children, then they would come forward and say, let’s get rid of all these boundaries and make one world. It’s too small, it’s just one village, and we can’t afford to destroy it. We won’t destroy our children, we will teach them to be loving and caring.
Thus you go through the process of creating an immortal body for yourself. It is going to continue to exist after your mortal coil has been shed. It will continue to do good because you are going to evolve through the fourteen different worlds. This you do with the power of your imagination, the power of your creativity, your visualization acuteness, the clarity with which you can perceive things. With these things you create an image. This image goes and does whatever good it does. It is just like a child born out of you which continues its existence independent of you.
You can try to control it. You can try to make a friend of it. You can create eight simultaneous existences which can work independently. Why eight? It is eight because the properties of God are eightfold. They are spatially different. Actually, time-wise you can have sixteen different forms.
After you do the Virajā Homaṃ, you do Vajra Pañjara Nyāsam. It means that you are creating for yourself an indestructible cage. This cage has the power of the Śrī Cakra. As long as the Śrī Cakra and the cosmos exist, you are going to live in this cage. Once the world is dissolved, you dissolve. You are merging with Śivā. That is the format you are trying to create for yourself.
(from "A Jewel From My Mother's Crown"):
The ritual is a process of training by which you try to understand yourself, by which you try to relate yourself to the world around you, by which you can say, “yes”, I have lived a rich, harmonious, empowering life for myself. For those around me, for whomever I have come in contact with, I have tried to help them in whatever way I can, to enable them to have this kind of feeling — the ritual is useful.
Conducting your life with happiness is a ritual. Everything is a ritual. When I talk with you it is a ritual. When I gesture, it is a ritual. When I take a bath it is a ritual. When I take food it is a ritual. When I get up from the bed it is a ritual. Life itself is a ritual.
You can invoke anything into yourself. You can invoke all the evil in the world into yourself. You can invoke all the good in the world into yourself. It is your choice. How you want to live your life and whether you want to make your life happy for yourself, or a disaster for yourself and others, is in your mind. What kinds of thoughts you entertain — that is the kind of situations you attract to yourself. That is the reality which you manifest for yourself.
This is where the paths differ. Those paths which make you and others happy are called the right paths. Those which make you unhappy and those around you unhappy are called the wrong paths. The wise ones choose the right paths and try to avoid the wrong ones. This is where wisdom lies.
You are wise if you can learn from your own experiences. You are wiser still if you can learn from others’ experiences. You are a fool if you don't learn even from your own experience! And most of us never learn even from our own experiences. We develop a pattern of repeating the same mistakes again and again foolishly, compulsively.
We continue foolishly with our old patterns of thinking and old moulds of behavior, of finding fault with others, as if we are free of them! I am a repository of faults. But not a single fault of mine appears to me. The slightest fault of another appears to me.
Sai Baba keeps telling people, “Don't find fault with others. If there is some little good that you can find in others, tell it to your friends.” Forgive and forget the faults of others. This way you can increase the area of harmony and cooperation; even with those that restrict you, you can increase your heart space in which you allow others to come into you.
“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” Jesus once said. Do you like to be criticized? You don't. Then why do you criticize others? Do you like to be loved? Yes. Then why don't you love others?
What you give, you receive. If you don't give, you don't receive. The best thing to give is love, intimacy, affection, a kind word. We find it difficult to do this. Do you like to be rejected? You don't. Then why do you reject others?
This is the kind of understanding you must have. What applies to you, you must apply to others and see that you are always engaged in such actions which attract similar actions to you.
What you like to happen to you, you must do to others. You wish to get wealth? Give it to others. You wish to gain knowledge? Teach others. You wish to be praised? Praise others.
Praising others is praising God. If you praise God, God praises you. What better than having God on your side?
Booklet compiled by Guruji and published by Devipuram
Spiritual Reality takes you through a unique journey. A journey which will change your life. A journey which will enrich you and make you knowledgeable and peaceful.
Spiritual Reality is a programme on meditation and meditational experiences. While you watch this programme be totally relaxed. Just witness it. Just flow with it. Don't try to analyse it. Totally be with it.
If any thought comes, cut the thought, take a deep breath and just be with it. It is just for you.
In this whole creation we are just a small speck. Each one of us is in search of good health, peace, knowledge, prosperity, harmony and overall a happy and peaceful life at all given times and situations. Each and every person strives hard to achieve this state, yet can this really be achieved? Yes, this can be achieved. All this is possible only by understanding and self knowledge.
The cosmic energy exists every where in the cosmos. It is the bond between the galaxies, the planets, humans and molecules. It is the space between each and everything. It is this bond which keeps the whole cosmos in order. Cosmic energy is the life force. This cosmic energy is essential to maintain the order of our life and to expand our consciousness. Cosmic energy is the base for all our actions and functions.
We receive some amount of cosmic energy in deep sleep and in total silence. We are using this energy for our day-to-day activities of our mind like seeing, speaking, hearing, thinking and all actions of our body. This limited energy gained through sleep is not sufficient for these activities. This is why we feel exhausted, tired and tensed. This leads to mental and physical stress and all kinds of illnesses. The only way to overcome this is to get more and more cosmic energy.
Cosmic energy is essential to maintain the order of our life, to lead a healthy and happy life, to totally involve in all situations we are in, to obtain knowledge and finally for expansion of our consciousness.
Abundant cosmic energy is obtained only through meditation.
Sleep is unconscious meditation. Meditation is conscious sleep. In sleep we get limited energy. In meditation we get abundant energy. This energy enhances the power of our body, mind and intellect. It opens the doors for our sixth sense and beyond. With this boosted energy, through meditation, we will be relaxed, happy and healthy. It also helps to reach greater heights in the physical realm.
Meditation is nothing but a journey of our consciousness towards the self. In meditation we consciously travel from body to mind, mind to intellect, intellect to self and beyond.
To do meditation first we have to stop all the functions of our body and mind that is, body movement, seeing, speaking and thinking.
Now let us know how to do meditation:
For meditation the first thing is the posture. You may sit in any posture. The posture must be very comfortable and stable. We can meditate either on floor or on a chair. We can meditate in any place wherever we feel comfortable.
Sit comfortably. Cross your legs, clasp your fingers. Now close your eyes. Stop inner and outer chatter. Don't chant any mantra. Just relax, totally relax.
When we cross our legs and clasp our fingers, energy circuit is formed and gives more stability. Eyes are gates to the mind, so eyes should be closed. Mantra chanting or any chattering inner or outer are the activities of the mind. So, it should be stopped. When body relaxes, consciousness travels to the next zone - mind and intellect.
Mind is nothing but a bundle of thoughts. There are numerous thoughts always coming to the surface of the mind. Whenever there are thoughts in the mind, we may get many questions - known or unknown. To transcend the mind and intellect one has to observe the breath.
Observation is the nature of the self. So one should just witness the breath. Don't do conscious breathing. Don't inhale or exhale consciously. let inhalation or exhalation happen without effort. Just observe the normal breathing. This is the main key. This the way.
Don't go behind the thoughts. Don't think queries, questions or thoughts. Cut the thoughts. Come back to the breath. Observe the normal breathing. Be with your breath. Then the density of the thoughts reduces. Slowly breath becomes thinner and shorter. Finally breath becomes smallest and settles like a flash in between eye brows. In this state one will have no breath and no thought. He will be totally thoughtless. This state is called "Nirmal Stithi" or no thought state. This is the meditative state.
In this state we will be under the shower of cosmic energy. The more meditation one does, the more cosmic energy one receives.
This cosmic energy flows through the etheric body. It is also called the "Etheric Body".
The energy body forms with more than 72,000 Nadis or energy tubes, which run all across the body. All these energy tubes start from the top of the head region. This region is called "Brahma Randhra". These Nadis spread throughout the body like roots and shoots of a plant.
The energy body is the main base for the design of our life. This energy body is the main source of all our actions and even our existence.
Our energy body will receive cosmic energy during deep sleep and meditation. We are using this energy for our body and mind activities like seeing, speaking, hearing, thinking and all physical activities. All these functions are totally based on the incoming cosmic energy.
The inflow of cosmic energy is purely based on our thoughts. When we have thoughts, the inflow of cosmic energy is obstructed. In other words, our thoughts are the stumbling blocks for the inflow of cosmic energy. When the inflow of cosmic energy is less, energy in the energy tubes depletes. The depletion causes etheric patches in the energy body. These etheric patches gradually lead to diseases in the physical body. In other words, root cause for all diseases is the lack of energy in the etheric body.
In meditation we get abundant cosmic energy. It flows through all our energy tubes of the energy body. When cosmic energy is passing through the energy tubes, because of its heavy flow it cleanses all etheric patches. When etheric patches are cleansed, we come out of all our illnesses.
When energy starts flowing through the Brahma Randhra, we feel heaviness in the head region or heaviness of the whole body. When energy is cleansing the energy tubes in the particular region, we may get itching sensation or pull in that region. Sometimes we may experience pain in various places in physical body. For these pains we need not take any medicine. All these pains will vanish by doing more meditation. By taking in more and more cosmic energy through meditation, we come out of all physical and mental illnesses.
If we meditate inside the pyramid, meditation state can be achieved three times faster than normal.
Let us now know about pyramid and pyramid power.
Pyramid is the most stable structure, which receives the highest cosmic energy in this planet earth.
Pyramid forms at the angle of 52° 51 min and because of this angle it receives highest cosmic energy. Pyramid can be constructed with any material. Materials make no difference in the receiving of cosmic energy. Pyramid has to be aligned to perfect cardinal directions - north, south, east and west. Cosmic energy gets accumulated at 1/3 height from the base of the pyramid. This place is known as "King's Chamber".
Cosmic energy will be maximum in the King's Chamber and it spreads throughout the pyramid. Nirmal Stithi is attained three times faster if one meditates inside the pyramid.
Pyramid can be used for communication with higher frequencies. Meditation in the pyramid helps in healing and for all meditational experiences.
Now, let us go through once again what we have understood so far:
Meditation is a journey towards the self. For this we have to transcend the body and mind. By assuming a comfortable posture, the body totally relaxes and this facilitates transcending the body consciousness.
By observing our own breathing, we transcend the mind. When we transcend the body and mind, then the cosmic energy flows.
Cosmic energy cleanses all the illnesses of the body. Thereby we will be healthy without any medicine.
More and more cosmic energy relaxes all the tensions and stress. As we practice more and more meditation, mind becomes calm and has more space. This leads to higher memory power. More and more meditation leads to higher understanding capabilities, and it leads to better interpersonal relationships.
Meditation enhances the happiness of family life. Mind will be tranquil. Meditation makes you healthy and peaceful.
Meditation can be done at any place. Meditation can be done at any time. Even during the journey.
In one sitting meditation should be done for a time equal to one's age. For instance a 30 years old man should do meditation at least for 30 minutes in one sitting.
For meditation you need not leave the family life. Every one should do meditation. Children are the best meditators. They can start meditation by the age of 5 years.
For meditation you need not go in search of any physical Guru, Master. The Guru, the Master is within you. Your breath is your Master.
Meditation is consciousness towards the self. To do meditation one has to transcend the body and mind. When we transcend the body and mind we reach the self. When we receive abundant cosmic energy by more meditation, our self-knowledge expands.
Meditation takes you to the ends of the higher knowledge. Knowledge is nothing but experience. Experience is nothing but totally involving yourself.
By practicing more and more meditation we receive higher energy. With this higher energy, higher involvement is achieved in every aspect which leads to higher knowledge.
Through knowledge we get higher understanding and wisdom. With this understanding we understand that we are not just the body and mind. We understand that we are miraculous beings. We understand all the situations we come across and come out of all our problems by higher understanding.
Higher energy and higher knowledge expand the consciousness. Expansion of the consciousness is the very purpose of the self. Higher knowledge is obtained only through higher senses like third eye and astral body.
The third eye is a very powerful tool of the soul. To see, to feel, to hear the higher frequency realities. These three functions of the soul are known as the third eye.
By practicing more and more meditation more energy flows. More energy activates the third eye. It is a great experience for a meditator. At the time of activation of the third eye, we feel an itching sensation or pulling sensation at the forehead region. We start seeing glimpses of fantasy colors rotating around us. We hear various sounds. We feel as if we are travelling in a pitch black tunnel.
When the etheric body gets sufficient cosmic energy by more meditation, our third eye gets activated. Here we perceive crystal clear visions of this plane and other planes.
With third eye perception, we see many things clearer than physical vision. We see other frequency realities. We see the things which are not present with the help of five senses. We feel so many things which can't be expressed with words. We hear inner voices, sounds or sounds of instruments from other frequencies. We see masters who are not there physically with us. We see masters in a physical form as we are used to them.
After more meditation we start seeing the master like a bright light. Even by seeing the bright light we feel the identity of the master. We can hear the messages from the masters. We feel like moving in a tunnel and finally merging with a light.
Through third eye experiences we know we can get answers for all problems through messages from the masters or by seeing other frequency realities or as a feeling.
Astral body is a tool of the self to perceive other frequency realities. Astral Body is one more form for consciousness just like the physical body. In normal condition our consciousness is spread throughout our physical body. When we receive sufficient amount of energy and when we feel to perceive other frequency realities consciousness moves into the form of Astral body.
We perceive astral body experiences unconsciously in our sleep. One can perceive astral body experiences consciously in meditation.
Astral body travels beyond space and time. After astral experiences we start perceiving new dimensions.
In meditation after receiving abundant cosmic energy the consciousness which is spread every where in the body starts moving towards a point. While consciousness is moving we experience jerks in the physical body. We feel as if our body is floating. We don't feel the hands and legs, we feel lightness of the body like a feather, movements may be experienced in different parts of the body or sometimes one may experience as if the whole body is rotating. These are known as astral moments.
By practicing more and more meditation we get more cosmic energy. The consciousness taking the form of Astral Body starts rotating very fast which causes heavy movements.
After these movements the Astral body starts coming out of the physical body with a link called "Silver Cord".
Silver Cord is nothing but a high vibrant consciousness which transfers the messages of the physical body to the astral body and vice versa. With this we do Astral Travel. Astral Travel is a travel of our consciousness to known and unknown places and frequencies.
By doing Astral travel we get highest knowledge and understanding of the self. In Astral travel our astral body can pass through all physical materials, all elements like earth, water, fire, wind and ether. Astral body can go to all other frequencies without any limitations.
After coming out of the Astral body the meditator sees his own physical body. By this he gets a great understanding. He understands that he is not just body and mind but he stays in the body. This is the great understanding.
Every one should experience astral travel. By experiencing astral travel our limitedness will vanish and we understand that we are unlimited. By this experience, we understand that we are the consciousness. We understand that we are unlimited. We understand new dimensions of life.
By practicing more and more meditation we will receive more cosmic energy. Cosmic energy improves our involvement in whatever we are in. We understand the totality about the situations. This understanding is nothing but knowledge.
The common person will get only experience, but fails to perceive the knowledge in that situation. It is because he experiences the situation with physical understanding alone. But a meditator will understand the situation in total. It is so because he knows that he is not just the body. He knows that he stays in the body. He understands that the situations are for his evolution.
After experiencing all the meditational experiences and implementing them in our practical life we will get greater understanding. This understanding opens up several thousand doors which give new dimensions of perceptions in our life. On understanding, our perception and our knowledge expands a lot. This leads to the expansion of our consciousness, which is nothing but having wisdom. We experience this state of wisdom as a thousand petalled golden lotus.
Each and every petal is a new dimension of understanding. By perceiving more and more dimensions we understand more knowledge of other existences. We understand what is birth and what is death.
We come to this earth place as a speck of cosmic consciousness. While coming from the source we come with etheric body as a structure of the self. We come to this earth plane to have unique experiences. For our experiences, we select the parents, environment and situations. The whole design of life is known to the self.
After selecting the mother, the speck of consciousness enters the mother's womb. After consciousness enters the mother's womb the foetus gets life. The physical body takes the shape according to the cosmic energy in the etheric body and the consciousness will be changed frequently to the source till it takes its first breath. After coming out of the mother's womb it takes its first external breath. This is known as birth.
From day 1 to the age of 7 we will have awareness of the source. The mind starts taking its shape in the age of 7. It completely forms by age 14. The intellect starts its activation from the age of 14 and is fully developed by the age of 21. From the age 21 to the age of 28 one experiences the combination of body, mind and intellect.
From the age of 28 life depends on self knowledge. If one does not have the awareness of the self, his consciousness lies in between body and mind. Because of this, miseries start. He can't understand the situations. He moves himself into concealed rigidness. Rigidness blocks the cosmic flow. He suffers physical illness, stress and tensions.
He passes his days without awareness. He can't understand the very purpose of his life. He passes from childhood days to youth, then old age and finally passes away from this earth place without completing the purpose of coming to the earth place.
This is what we call death. Even after death, the layer of rigid mind, with lack of understanding, will not allow the consciousness to reach source.
Because of the lack of understanding, he creates his own hell and heaven and stays as a lower astral being.
If one starts one's life being with the self, one will always be blissful in all given situations. Even after death, one would be living in the higher frequencies, and will go back to the source.
By obtaining higher knowledge through the Third eye, Astral travel, knowledge of birth and death, one will have perfect understanding of body, mind, intellect, self and life force.
One understands that the consciousness is the combination of energy and knowledge. Consciousness comes to this plane to give you energy and knowledge. By living all the time with this understanding one starts getting a higher understanding about the existence of the whole creation.
With this understanding one will become miraculous creator. Then whatever one speaks it manifests, whatever one thinks it manifests and whatever one does it becomes a creation. This is enlightenment.
