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 as 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 merely imagine. I would like to gather some experiences in this life that will give me that tranquil state and then replay that tape and 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 the 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 the Goddess. The Goddess is also in you, whether you are male or female. It is the Goddess who is worshipping Herself.
This is where the question of Tantra comes in. Tantra 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 two 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, lust, and 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 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, the 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 nudity comes into Tantra.
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 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 Tantra.
Touch alone is not the intent of Tantra. All five senses are included. When I am able to see you, touch you, taste you, talk to you, experience you in all possible ways—like I am experiencing myself—then I can say, “OK, I have seen God.”
Otherwise it is only a partial manifestation. I do not want a partial experience; I want totality—the love of God directly.
In the Sixty-Four 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 that union has taken place.
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 hands belong to me. Both 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. 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, that pūjā should be done.
Advaita in theory is Veda.
Advaita in practice is Tantra.
Tantra means practice—proving ideas through experiment. Through practice you try to prove and fix what the theory has said.
Even in the Veda there are aspects of Tantra.
There are four Vedas:
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Ṛg Veda — what you have seen or heard in meditation.
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Yajur Veda — compilation of revelations into ritual structure.
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Sāma Veda — singing and dancing of revelation.
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Atharvaṇa Veda — application of knowledge: to remove evil tendencies, to attract, empower, and help others.
Sometimes you have got to hurt.
What is it that you have to hurt?
Your fear—you have got to hurt it.
Your lust—you have got to hurt it.
Your internal enemies—you have got to kill them.
That is what Devī does.
She kills Mahiṣāsura. A buffalo is 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 the notion of the other is preserved and you want it badly, no matter what cost. You grab and seek only for your pleasure, ignoring the other’s feelings.
That is lust.
This has to be transformed into love.
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 is born in mud, then grows in water. Its flower rises into air and blooms in sunlight.
We are like the lotus.
If you say, “I don’t want this flesh; I want to throw it away,” and you cut the lotus from its stem, the lotus itself dies.
So it is fear, lust, greed, and jealousy that must be transformed into love.
It is the demonic that must be transformed into the divine.
But you cannot totally destroy disorder.
Order and disorder must exist in balance.
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