The Agni Kalās
We invoke the ten kalās of the fire. The kalās are all aspects of Devī. The first three are in the Svādhiṣṭhāna chakra.
Yam dhūmraciṣe namaḥ (smoke),
Ram ūṣmāyai namaḥ (heat),
Lam jvālinyai namaḥ (glow).
The Sanskrit letters listed in the beginning are pointers to the places where you put your imagination in yourself, in Devī’s body and in the yantra. The yantra we are talking about is the viśeṣārghya yantra. These bīja-akṣaras are located in the Svādhiṣṭhāna chakra:
Bam, Bham, Mam, Yam, Ram, Lam.
Both the bīja-akṣaras and their names could be substituted here for a local idiom. These are not the mantras, they are the aspects of the fire and you are trying to see where they are coming from. The parts that cannot be changed are the mantras of the earth, the sun and the moon. I am not going to effect any changes here, but you may do so if you so desire. The Sanskrit alphabet has the advantage that it uses a single letter. Its disadvantage is that you do not know it. Working with the meanings of these things is more important than just working with the words.
The agni kalās reside as the digestive fire in the stomach and also as the lust in the human being just as the light resides in the fire. Agni also exists as time.
Yam dhūmraciṣe namaḥ.
You are looking at the left top portion of the yoni. If you superimpose the yoni on the bījas, you will see that Yam is the left side of the clitoris, Ram is the middle of the labia and Lam is the bottom of the labia. This invokes the lust, the kāma. You are not invoking the right side here.
In other versions of tantra, as you walk into the yajña-śālā, the door is there. On the left-hand side you worship Bhairavāya namaḥ. You worship Lambodarāya namaḥ on top and on right-hand side you worship Bhadrakālyai namaḥ. So saying you enter the śālā. The door is like the gate through which you are born and through which you enter the yoni.
The next four agni kalā bījas are taken from the Mūlādhāra chakra:
Vam jvālinyai namaḥ (flame),
Sam visphuliṅginyai namaḥ (sparks issuing),
Sam suśriyāyai namaḥ (blessing),
Sam svarūpāyai namaḥ (beautiful).
The last three bījas come from the Ājñā chakra:
Ham kapilāyai namaḥ (yellow) — right eye,
Lam havyavāhāyai namaḥ (consuming ghee) — third eye,
Kṣam kavyavāhāyai namaḥ (consuming food offerings) — left eye.
So from the Mūlādhāra and Svādhiṣṭhāna, the fire which starts as lust and goes up to the Ājñā. At this point it manifests as flowing time, past, present and future. The past is the right eye, the present is the third eye and the future is the left eye. The right eye is the eye of Śiva, he is called Bhūtanātha, the lord of the past. The left eye is the eye of the Devī. Devī is the creatrix, the mother, she brings the future into the present.
The mantra for the Agni Kalās is:
Aiṁ agni-maṇḍalāya dharma-prada daśa-kalātmane Śrī-Mahātripurasundaryāḥ viśeṣārghya-pātrādhārāya namaḥ.
Agnim dūtaṁ vṛṇīmahe hotāraṁ viśva-vedasam.
Asya yajñasya sukratum.
Ram rim rum raim raum raḥ, ramalavarayum, agni-maṇḍalāya namaḥ.
Aiṁ is sṛṣṭi, creation. The real sṛṣṭi starts with an idea in the brain. Creation actually starts with Sarasvatī in the Sahasrāra chakra and moves down and takes the kriyā aspect (action). So Aiṁ agni-maṇḍalāya.
Dharmaprada — dharma is considered to be your duty. What is your duty? It is defined in the Upaniṣads as follows:
“Ācāryāya priyaṁ dhanam āhṛtya prajātantuṁ mā vyavacchetsīḥ…”
You worship your teacher and see to it that this rare life which is a gift in this world is preserved. Do not cut the thread of life. So procreate. That is the injunction of the Vedas. You owe a debt of life to your parents. You repay that debt by giving life through your actions. Procreation is your dharma.
Nandi, the bull, which is carrier of Śiva, is supposed to be the personification of dharma. The testes of Nandi you touch before you look at Śiva. You energize the liṅga that way and then look at Śiva. It is only the energized liṅga which has the desire to procreate which is Śiva. Otherwise it is Śava (corpse). If you take away the letter “i”, Śiva becomes Śava.
What is the purpose of lust? It is to do your duty to your parents by procreating. There is a duty to your parents and a duty to yourself. What is the duty to yourself? It is to deliver yourself from the shackles of bondage. This same agni which is instrumental for creating your children is also instrumental for creating your spiritual uplift.
In the four goals of life (Dharma, Artha, Kāma, Mokṣa) stated in the Hindu philosophy, there is a connection between Dharma and Artha (duty and wealth). You must acquire your wealth without hurting or cheating others. And Kāma and Mokṣa are also combined. Kāma must be transformed into love, and love must be transformed into liberation. Both bhoga and yoga are included in the gamut of one’s life.
Agni also exists in the fire which cooks your food. The Gītā says:
“Aham vaiśvānaro bhūtvā prāṇināṁ deham āśritaḥ,
prāṇāpāna-samāyuktaḥ pacāmy annaṁ caturvidham.”
“I exist as the fire and I cook the food in your stomach with the help of the prāṇa and apāna, the ingoing and outgoing breaths.”
Daśa-kalātmane — daśa means ten, kalā is an aspect of time.
Śrī-Mahātripurasundaryāḥ — of the Mother Mahātripurasundarī.
Viśeṣārghya-pātrādhārāya namaḥ — the base of the vessel in which we are going to put the special liquid which is immortal nectar, that base is agni. In the Mūlādhāra chakra is where the base is located and that is the fire. We human beings are driven by lust and its modifications. That is where we are.
The Sūrya Kalāvāhana — The Sun
The Sun is the source of life on earth. If the sun is not there, the earth would be a dead planet. The earth keeps a certain distance from the sun. Of the nine planets circling around the sun there is only life on this planet because it is the correct distance from the sun. The sun is our life force. As soon as the sun comes up in the sky, you go about doing your duties. This life-giving energy is supposed to come from the embrace of Śiva and Śakti. That is what is being described in the twelve kalās of the sun.
The mantra of the Sun:
Klīṁ sūrya-maṇḍalāya kāma-prada dvādaśa-kalātmane Śrī-Mahātripurasundaryāḥ viśeṣārghya-pātrāya namaḥ.
Āsatyena rajasā vartamāno niveśayan amṛtaṁ martyam ca.
Hiraṇmayena rathena devo yāti bhuvana vipaśyan.
Hram hrīm hrūm hraim hraum hraḥ sūrya-maṇḍalāya namaḥ.
Sūrya-maṇḍalāya — the orb of the sun.
Dvādaśa — twelve.
Kalātmane — having the form of twelve aspects.
Viśeṣārghya — milk or wine into which we are going to invoke nectar.
Pātrāya namaḥ — into the vessel which is supposed to be the sun.
The sun is called the Piṅgalā nāḍī. The moon is called the Iḍā nāḍī. We are going to combine these two. We are going to bring in the coolness of the moon with the heat of the sun. The heat represents extreme passion, the passion for life, and the coolness represents detachment. So passion with detachment. In the combination lies the Suṣumṇā channel.
It is like a pendulum. If you bring the pendulum all the way to the right to the sun, it does not stay there. It moves to the middle and then swings to the left, to the moon. If you try to move the mind to vairāgya (detachment) it won’t stay there, but it shoots back into kāma. So from vairāgya and kāma the mind keeps oscillating. The stable position is when you bring it exactly into the center and leave it there. It does not move. It has no aversion to passion, it has no liking for vairāgya; it has no liking for passion, it has no aversion to vairāgya. It is absolute detachment. This is the channel of the Suṣumṇā. The Suṣumṇā is warm; it is neither the heat of the sun nor the coolness of the moon. You are passionate and dispassionate at the same time. In Buddhism this is called the Middle Way, Madhya Mārga. This procedure comes very close to the Buddhist maṇḍalas also.
Asatyena — from beginning to end with truth;
Rajasā — the emission of this truth;
Vartamānaḥ — involved in the emission of the truth from beginning to end;
Niveśayan amṛtaṁ martyam ca — placing yourself in immortality as well as mortality, into yoga and bhoga both;
Hiraṇmayena — golden;
Rathena — chariot;
Devo yāti — the sun moves;
Bhuvana vipaśyan — looking at all the worlds.
Hram hrīm hrūm hraim hraum hraḥ are modifications of Hrīm from the coolness of “am” to the passion of “aḥ”. From the center you are moving towards the right and towards the left. Hrmalavarayum — the pathway in your body where these letters are located.
The location of the letters shows how tightly fixed the concept of the letters are in Sanskrit. Lord Yama is the God of Death. Ya is located on the left-hand side of the Svādhiṣṭhāna chakra. Ma is located on the right-hand side. When you say Yama you are moving from the female to the male. That represents moving your consciousness which is like death. Now if these letters are reversed you have Māyā. You are moving from Śiva to Śakti. Māyā is illusion but it also means pleasure, the flow of experience. So when you move from Śiva to Śakti you are experiencing your being limited in your awareness by the material world. And when you are moving from Śakti to Śiva you are expanding your awareness, you are unlimited.
The flow is the Śakti and the static is the Śiva. The potential energy is the Śiva; the kinetic energy is the Śakti. Kinetic energy is compared to the snake, the Kuṇḍalinī Śakti which moves in a snake-like motion.
The twelve kalās of the sun are coming from the embrace of the Śiva and the Śakti. Remember that it is the light of the sun which is reflected by the moon and then to us. They are not separate.
The flow of Kuṇḍalinī is maximum when the sun, moon and earth are in alignment. When the gravitational pull is very strong or very weak then the Kuṇḍalinī is very active. On earth during the eclipse time the tidal waves rise. The oceans are trying to move away from the earth which represents on the cosmic scale the liquid state trying to move away from the solid state, which is the upward motion of the Kuṇḍalinī.
In relation to the cosmic force you should align your rituals also. That is why Pūrṇimā (full moon) and Amāvasyā (new moon) when the three orbs are approximately in alignment are supposed to be very ideal for pūjā. That is why the moon’s cycles are so closely related to the ritual cycles also. There is a full moon ritual, a new moon ritual, etc. When you are in tune with the cosmic forces then your own forces work much better.
In the embrace of Śiva and Śakti you find a pair of letters: kam bham, kham bam, etc. You use this key to locate them on your body. There is a ray of light going from one point to the other point (see diagram). The first two come from the right portion of the Svādhiṣṭhāna chakra. From this point onwards the points move up to the Maṇipūra chakra and go around the waist, while the other points move around the Anāhata chakra and the heart center. This is the embrace. Out of this embrace comes the life-giving force of the world, the sun.
The nuclear reactor that is there comes from this embrace. You can see the left hand going around the waist and the right hand going around the chest like this. We invoke the kalās of the sun from this embrace. The Sanskrit letters can all be replaced with any language alphabets. It is the meanings that are important which are given there in the pūjā for the sun’s rays.
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