The whole concept of the pūjā is based upon successive transformations. Transformations of your physical body into a yantra, into an external astral body, into the light. Your body is called your sthūla śarīra. The sūkṣma śarīra is the yantra, and kāraṇa śarīra is the ball of light. You have the ability to move through these different levels freely. The ability to do so is attained by the entire procedure which follows.
The first of these things is the identification of your body as the Śrī Cakra. The Śrī Cakra symbolizes the cosmos as your self-identity. It is also the connecting link to those things which preserve the idea of your separate identity. It connects all three: your true self, the self you have assumed, and the nature of the connecting link between these two. You have to reestablish the connection between yourself and this lost identity, your real identity which is cosmic awareness.
This identification: your physical form = the physical form of the Devī, the mantra = yantra (Śrī Cakra), and Guru = Śiva. All these three pairs are to be merged. This sixfold identity has to be established. This is the concept of the pūjā. You merge all these six into one. The Guru merges into you, the Devī merges into you, the mantra merges into you and the yantra merges into you. This process of merging is called Tantra.
What are mantra, yantra and tantra? Mantra is the sound form, yantra is the visual form and tantra is the technique which connects these two. How do we connect the mantra to the yantra?
It is usual as the part of your meditative exercise to draw first the Śrī Yantra (= Śrī Cakra). While you are drawing it you recite the mantra. That is how the identity between these two is established. However, drawing a Śrī Yantra is complicated business, and is itself a meditation, like a Buddhist maṇḍala. We will go into this at a later stage. And for a proper Śrī Cakra pūjā the Śrī Yantra that you draw is the one to which you do pūjā.
Let us look at the mapping of body parts to Śrī Yantra. Now if I say that I am identical with the yantra, then I must know where all my limbs are located in the yantra. There are nine nyāsas which give us this information. Nyāsa means paying attention to any particular region. It can be done through touching a part of the body, or merely focusing awareness there.
In each mantra that defines step by step this identification process, there are three bījākṣaras or seed letters (apart from the Aiṁ Hrīṁ Śrīṁ). The first of the three letters is to be placed inside of you, the second seed letter is to be placed at the connecting point of the Śrī Cakra, and the third seed letter is placed in the icon or the Devī or a living person whom you are worshipping.
1. The first mantra is Am Ām Sauḥ namaḥ.
Am is your feet, Ām is the square enclosure of the Śrī Cakra and Sauḥ is the feet of the icon/Devī/person. “A” is negation. It is the subject lost in object, and does not exist separately from it. “Ā” is that intention to know itself. It is the connecting link between me and not me. And that manifests as Sauḥ, the power of the Kuṇḍalinī which resides in the earth. The feet are contacting the earth. So you say, Am Ām Sauḥ = I am connecting to earth at my feet (if standing) or seat (if sitting).
Let us remember that if you have done the Virajā Homam visualizations properly, you are almost floating in space, you have lost your body consciousness already, but now you have to proceed with the pūjā. So you have to force your consciousness to come back to the body. Therefore there is a little twist here from the normal sequence to Kara-nyāsa (placing powers in fingers). Now, usually in these nyāsas, you start with the 1. thumb, 2. forefinger, 3. middle finger, 4. ring finger, 5. little finger and 6. front and back of hands.
However, in this particular nyāsa with Am Ām Sauḥ you start with your middle finger. This is to force your attention back to your limited body identity and then to expand it back later, learning to attach and detach from body at will. This is like a musical scale of life. You reset yourself to a thunderbolt in the crown chakra, the Sahasrāra, then you bring yourself down to the Mūlādhāra to become the body, and then you start moving up again.
So:
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Am madhyama-bhyāṁ namaḥ (thumb touching middle fingers)
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Ām anāmikābhyāṁ namaḥ (ring fingers)
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Sauḥ kaniṣṭhikābhyāṁ namaḥ (little fingers)
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Am aṅguṣṭhābhyāṁ namaḥ (forefingers touching thumbs)
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Ām tarjanībhyāṁ namaḥ (thumbs touching forefingers)
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Sauḥ karatala-kara-pṛṣṭhābhyāṁ namaḥ (front and back of palms)
This thing looks tough, but a little demo from a guru will clear up the matters easily.
Except the Am Ām Sauḥ which are the seed letters, the rest of the Sanskrit can be translated into your own language, whatever that is. The seed letters are the part which cannot be translated.
Then you invoke the sixteen-petal lotus in the Śrī Cakra with Aiṁ Klīṁ Sauḥ Mahā Tripurasundarī ātmānaṁ rakṣa rakṣa. This lotus represents the flow of time through the lunar calendar. Rakṣa = protection. It means you have to be protected every day at all times. So you say, Aiṁ Klīṁ Sauḥ — through the creative, protective and phases you have to be protected.
Mahātripurasundarī: mahā means the great, belonging to the cosmos. If you take mahā and reverse the letters, it becomes aham = I. Aham relates to the inside and mahā relates to the outside of our bodies, mind and intellect. Tripura is the three cities — the waking, dreaming and sleeping states. Sundarī = the most beautiful in all these states, relating to the cosmos. Ātmā, the notion of the ego confined to this body, rakṣa rakṣa — (may Sundarī) protect me, protect me throughout all the sixteen days. The sixteen-petal lotus is identified with protection.
Then you move to the eight-petal lotus where your experiences begin. You have already moved beyond the seven lokas (worlds) below. You have moved into the eighth world. That is the Mūlādhāra chakra. That is the eight-petal lotus (in the Śrī Yantra).
Hrīṁ Klīṁ Sauḥ. Previously we used Aiṁ Klīṁ Sauḥ. Here we are saying Hrīṁ. Hrīṁ can exist in three different forms. The first relates to creation, the second relates to nourishment, the third relates to the annihilation. Here all the three forms are included in the Earth. You are born out of the earth; you are fed by the things that grow out of the earth; and you are reabsorbed into the earth. Hrīṁ is your mother, the earth. Klīṁ is the nourishment, coming from Her and Sauḥ is the reabsorption into that.
This is the nature of Hrīṁ Klīṁ Sauḥ and the Mūlādhāra chakra. The fear comes when you think you are separate from the earth. Your nourishment, your life relies on seeking things from the earth. The earth does give you that nourishment. Your fears are associated with your separation from your mother. You have lost your connection with your mother, with the earth, and you have to reestablish your connection with the earth from which you are born.
When you say Hrīṁ Klīṁ Sauḥ, Hrīṁ is placed in your Mūlādhāra chakra. You must know very well these chakras, where these chakras are located in your body.
When the male and the female are in coitus in the drama of creation, then the glans penis touches the cervix of the female. The cervix is the Mūlādhāra chakra in the female, and in the man it is glans penis. But the ejaculation that makes creation possible is energized by the sphincter muscles in male. So the cause for the seed’s emission lies in the ejaculatory sphincter muscles (even more so in the head). That is why in the male, people generally associate the Mūlādhāra chakra with the ejaculatory sphincter muscles lying between the base of the penis and the perineum, rather than in the glans penis. Thus Mūlādhāra is in the same location for both male and female. That is why when there is a sex change operation, they take the cervix and pull it out to make it the male penis. Thus inside surface of the vagina is the same as the outside surface of the penis, and the sensations there are also identical.
The Svādhiṣṭhāna chakra is the base in the penis and the vulva in the female. Again they are at the same place; the sensations are also similar. Here you see Aiṁ Klīṁ Sauḥ is the repeating pattern, and you are adding letters to it: “h”, “s”, and “r”.
In the Svādhiṣṭhāna chakra the energization is through the fire. The fire is symbolized by lust, the drive behind procreativity, desire. That is what causes the erection of the penis in the male, the clitoris and the nipples in the female. Desire is symbolized by “Ha”. The desire for the cosmic union, called the liṅga of Śiva. “Ha” coupled with “Aiṁ, Klīṁ and Sauḥ”. That is why you say Haiṁ, Hklīṁ, Hsauḥ for the Svādhiṣṭhāna chakra. Desire is the power called Kuṇḍalinī, the desire for creativity, through an orgasmic release from the bondage to earth. It does happen in sex, but it is short lived. That is its problem. To have a permanent release from all tensions, that is the real aspiration of Kuṇḍalinī.
The Svādhiṣṭhāna chakra in the Śrī Yantra is the fourteen-cornered figure. “Haiṁ” is placed inside you at your Svādhiṣṭhāna, “Hklīṁ” on the fourteen-cornered figure and “Hsauḥ” on the Devī’s Svādhiṣṭhāna chakra (vulva/base of penis). This chakra can be that of a person being worshipped, or of the cosmos. (Lalitā Sahasranāma says Devī is Bhagarādhyā = worshipped in the vulva as the universal mother.) The Svādhiṣṭhāna chakra of the cosmos is waters: for example, lakes, rivers, oceans, rivers of life.
In the Maṇipūra chakra the sounds “ha” and “sa” are joined together: Hs-aiṁ, Hs-klīṁ, Hs-sauḥ. Here in the union between the Śiva and Śakti, Śiva is in yoga. He is not emitting the seed, and the desire is so powerful to make the liṅga so erect that it becomes vertical touching the navel. That is where the seat of the fire is supposed to be. The seat of fire is the outer ten-corners that relates to the individual. The inner ten-corners relate to the cosmos. So Hs-aiṁ, Hs-klīṁ, Hs-sauḥ are related to the individual. Before you go on to the cosmic figure you have to go through this link.
These four centers, Mūlādhāra, Svādhiṣṭhāna, Maṇipūra and Anāhata are known as the placement of Four Seats, Caturāsana Nyāsa. To remind ourselves, nyāsa means paying attention to your body. Holding the mind in a place or keeping your awareness fixed is called nyāsa.
The first seat is called Devī-ātmā-āsanāya namaḥ. Devī is residing in the Mūlādhāra chakra, and I am residing in the Mūlādhāra chakra. The second seat is Śrī-cakrāsanāya namaḥ. I am in the security center and so is Devī in the security center. When I am in the Svādhiṣṭhāna chakra, Devī is in the Svādhiṣṭhāna chakra. When I am looking for sensations, so is Devī looking for sensations.
The third seat is the seat of power, called Maṇipūra chakra. When you stand by your values with discipline and you are prepared to sacrifice your life to do that, then you gain power and you are in the Maṇipūra chakra. The ball of fire is located in the Maṇipūra chakra.
The fire exists as desire, lust, digestive fire, external fire, wherever you find fire. It is not just at the navel. It is there at the cooking gas flame, in the thermal power plants, in the volcanoes, in the bowels of the earth. It is all over. So in the cosmic aspect, wherever fire is found, it is part of the Maṇipūra chakra. That is related to power.
The mantra is Sarva-mantrāsanāya namaḥ — that which brings all the mantras to you. With the mantras we say “svāhā” and offer them into the fire. The seat of all the mantras is fire. This is a very interesting statement. Why is it that people have lost contact with the spiritual world today? Because they are not doing the fire rituals daily. Fire is a beautiful thing. The way it can dance, you cannot dance. It is a beautiful sight. When you are constantly looking at its dance, it invokes that dance in you, the Kuṇḍalinī, the power to know beyond, in you. And that brings all the mantras to you into your memory. That is why fire is called sarva-mantra-āsana.
The heart center is the inner ten-corners, and it is surrounded by a twelve-petal lotus. The mantra is Hrīṁ Klīṁ Blem Sādhya Siddha āsanāya namaḥ. Sādhya is what is to be attained. Siddha is what is attained already. This is the seat where you have partly attained and partly you have got to attain. The part you have attained already is the control over yourself. You have controlled all your passions, and you begin to be nonjudgemental, love others unconditionally. That is the part you have attained. The part to be attained is the fulfilment in cosmicization of this unconditional love and nonjudgement. You have to attain these attributes in an unlimited sense. Thus the heart center is a mixture of attainment and attempting to attain love of all nature, good and bad included (nonjudging witness).
Now we have gone over six chakras of the Śrī Cakra already. The other three are the eight-corners, the triangle and the point. They all relate to the laya, the loss of your individuality totally and your merging into the cosmos.
Merging with the cosmos begins with your expansion of consciousness beyond your body, beyond your love, beyond your attachments. That is why once you have reached the Viśuddhi chakra, you will not come back. But if you are in the heart center and then you die, you are likely to return because of your attachment to the people and the good deeds that are yet to be done. However much we say we are unattached, we are attached to goodness. This is love, but it is still a bondage. You must transcend this love to get to the universal self. This is where the Vairāgya (detachment) starts manifesting. When your attachment for the universal manifests, your attachment for the local becomes insignificant.
This expansion process is to be attained through your understanding of the nature of Sarasvatī. It is through knowledge alone that we can attain mokṣa. It is Sarasvatī who takes you over from the Viśuddhi and Ājñā chakras.
The eight forms of Sarasvatī are none other than the eight groups of the Sanskrit letters — am-am, im-im, um-um, aruṁ-aruṁ, aluṁ-aluṁ, em-aiṁ, om-auṁ, aḥ-aḥ. In the Śrī Cakra these are shortened into the unmanifest forms — a, i, u, aru, alu, e, o, aḥ. You can map them also into the eight groups of letters comprising both vowels and consonants. You can also think of them as cosmic resources for matter forming out of interacting time and space.
In the Viśuddhi chakra, the seed syllables are Hrīṁ Śrīṁ Sauḥ. Hrīṁ is being looked at as laya, annihilation now. Śrīṁ is the eight-corners where the eight forms of Sarasvatī are located and Sauḥ is the sound of a hissing snake, Kuṇḍalinī power which is taking you through all these things. Once you come to Viśuddhi you are working with the cosmic form and your nyāsa takes on different meanings, moving away from individuation to connectedness. Viśuddhi chakra is called the communication center for this reason.
Aiṁ hṛdayāya namaḥ. Your hṛdaya (heart) is the wind, life-breath itself.
Klīṁ śirase svāhā (the head) is now the outreach of space. Your brain is mapped into the cosmos.
Then Sauḥ śikhāyai vaṣaṭ, Sauḥ kavacāya huṁ, Klīṁ netra-trayāya vauṣaṭ, Aiṁ astrāya phaṭ.
Really all these things are untranslatable. (Which means I don’t know yet their meanings!)
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