Ask loving couples—the secret of their success is this: they listen attentively when the other speaks. This is true of all relationships: Father–Daughter, Mother–Son, Boy–Girl.
Why should I listen? I don’t know how bad I am. To know that, I should listen to someone who tells me. How else will I know?
Why don’t I listen?
I feel I am not doing anything by listening, so I jump in.
I think I know what they are saying.
I don’t realize that listening—passively—is a solution itself.
Why is listening a solution? When someone genuinely listens, they pay attention. We get attention—a form of currency. Receiving attention nourishes us; it makes us feel yes, I am understood—it enhances self-worth.
What can I do? It has become a habit for me not to listen. Break the habit. How?
Quiet down and listen to yourself, just before you are about to jump in and interrupt. Worried that you will forget what you have to say? Ask how to wait, note down a point quietly, and listen again. Observe yourself as you walk away in anger or begin thinking of something.
He’s capable of removing all obstacles without any remainder. When you try to do a good thing, so many doubts arise; so many people say it’s not a good thing to do, it’s not right—social norms are there.
Society demands conformity, and liberation demands non-conformity, because you want to do your own thing. So it demands removing the obstacles from you and from the environment.
He’s able to remove all these obstacles. Brahmā is going to come your way, Viṣṇu is going to come your way, Śiva is going to come your way—because they are the three guṇas. But you are trying to go beyond the three guṇas. They are jealous that you are going beyond them, and therefore they obstruct you. And the Guru is the one who has to take care of you, to help you overcome these obstacles—Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Śiva—and take you to the root.
So Mahāgaṇapati is that power which enables you to cross all these hurdles—not only the ones that you have here now. Till your ego is totally destroyed; till you are cosmically merged; and till the Cosmos itself is destroyed and the vibrations that create the Cosmos are there, they also have to be destroyed—the guṇas, sattva, rajas, tamas, they all have to be destroyed. And till that last point, he is going to be with you.
He’s the carrier for you—for the mouse to become an elephant.
Mahāgaṇapati, Tarpaṇam, and the Chakras
We begin the worship of Mahāgaṇapati with tarpaṇams (offering of water to the deity). Mahāgaṇapati is located in the Mūlādhāra chakra, where the predominant emotion is fear. The next chakra, the Svādhiṣṭhāna, is the sexual center, and thus pleasure is the main emotion.
Dissolving fear leads to pleasure. The process of tarpaṇam helps us to let go of our fears, doubts, insecurities, and insufficiencies, leading us to happiness.
The Three Granthis and Their Transcendence
In the spiritual journey, we encounter many different types of obstacles. The notion “I am this body” is called Kāyaka Mālina (impurity associated with the body). It is known as Brahmā granthi and is described as a knot located above the Mūlādhāra cakra.
Similarly, “I am this mind and thoughts” is the second type of impurity. This is the Viṣṇu granthi, located in Maṇipūra.
Finally, “I am the ego” is the last obstacle, known as Rudra granthi, and located at the Ājñā cakra.
Mahāgaṇapati is that power which enables you to overcome and go beyond these three granthis, up to the point where you are totally merged with the Cosmos. Till that last point, Mahāgaṇapati is going to be there with you, to help you transform yourself from a mouse into an elephant.
Yantra Pūjā and the Blessings of Mahāgaṇapati
Another effective and highly powerful method of invoking the blessings of Mahāgaṇapati is through the worship of His yantra. Yantra pūjā is an important part of the ritualistic worship of deities in the Śrī Vidyā tradition.
The basic idea is to investigate creative ways of using negativities positively.
Research stories come up with paradigms; make user-friendly presentations.
Greed
Capitalism is based on the idea that “One greedy man creates jobs for 100 people.” So greed is not bad. It can be used positively for creating abundance.
Greed can be used to create abundance.
Jealousy
Suppose there is a chairman of a fund-raising committee. She retires and is replaced by another who is jealous of her. This jealousy goads her to excel her former chairman.
Jealousy can create excellence.
Fear
A secure person is a lazy person. Fear of losing a job may promote a person to accept challenges, meet them, and excel.
Fear can be converted into performance by treating it as adventure, challenge, and rising up to it.
It creates alternate states of high energy.
Lust
Use it to promote articles as in advertisement, which arouses sexual desire but does not gratify it.
Eros is not bad; it is life. Sex is sacred.
Good to be admired, accepted, loved.
Neuroses can go if sex is accepted as a sacrament. Licentiousness can get rid of sex-related crimes. Sex workers should be called Goddesses—they offer their highest possession, themselves, to others. Valentines, orgies, Mardi Gras, marked festivals are great.
Pride
Pride in doing well allows one to compete with one’s own past performance and go beyond it.
“I am proud of you, my daughter.”
It is empowering to hear such things.
Pride can empower oneself. As a compliment, it empowers others.
Possessiveness
A family cannot exist without possessiveness.
Possessiveness is one form of expressing deep love. Possessiveness as an expression of love pretending anger is a beautiful thing. If it curtails the freedom of others, it disempowers.
Possess, yet give freedom.
Grow like two tall trees, not in the shadow of each other.
Delusion
“I can’t live without you.”
This is an expression of love. It is not true, but it becomes true if you are caught up in it—like Laila and Majnu.
Recognising that delusion is okay if bounded by a time frame (say, less than a lifetime) is good.
Anger
Anger is seductive. It is self-justifying.
“I have a right to be angry.”
When you have a right to be angry, be angry.
Rather, pretending anger should be your choice.
Inside you are cool.
If you are really angry, it burns you—so it is useless.
Why does anger come?
It comes out of not getting what you want.
→ Let go of the want; anger cannot stay.
It comes out of helplessness, lack of power.
→ Be connected to the source of power, God. Then you can fight without anger.
It comes out of worthlessness, lack of self-love.
→ Loving yourself removes anger. Beautify yourself; open yourself to be loved by others. That removes the roots of anger.
Vice and Virtue
Everyone has some vices and virtues.
Not feeling great about these things causes the ill health that comes out of them.
“Don’t feel guilty. Sin is remembering your past.” “Don’t feel virtuous.”
(A transcript from Guruji Amṛitānanda's brief, 1985)
Absolute Truth is not a dream, nor an illusion. The world is a play of one God. Invariant though manifested in every form. Some of these forms reflecting the cosmic order defying chaos fascinate us. These are the divine forms.
In the divine form of Śri Rājarājeswari Devi seen in the Golden-Red-White hues, the intricacy of beauty, fragrance and glow of Love in all forms filters sublime peace and pure joy into our hearts. Uncontaminated by hate and violence, worship of Śri Rājarājeswari Devi projects Vedic dignity into the ritual. While Sarasvati plays the music, Thandava of Naṭarāja balance the delicate Lasya of Pārvatī to become a ritual called Śri Vidyā, which is an integral mixture of external worship with internal yoga. In this ritual, participants are no more humans - they are raised to the level of Gods. The practice of Sri Vidyā transforms devotees into Śiva and Śakti.
Śri Rājarājeswari Devi, the Mother of the Universe, manifests Herself as Lakṣmī, Vāṇī, Pārvati and indeed in all women as Śakti. She bestows prosperity and happiness to devotees.
An Unedited Correspondence Between Guruji and a Disciple (2009)
Disciple
Dearest Guruji,
Hope you and Amma are keeping well. I would like to share some unusual thoughts that have lingered since the past couple of years. I don’t think anyone has quite understood me, except my Gurus.
I have been sort of “consumed” with the thought of death. I don’t think it should be interpreted in a negative way.
At times, it feels like…
I’ve been waiting forever for my visa and ticket to reach HER.
This body of mine is holding me down.
I don’t know what else I am needed here for (except to pay off the remaining debt/mortgage and attachment to another person). (Any asset is intended for the needy/non-profit organization).
Each time I do Triveni, I am intrigued by the verse to end the birth-death cycle. You have mentioned that without life, nothing is important. I feel life is no longer worth living for. I am tired… and desperately seeking the boon for HER to end my birth-death cycle. I am eager to visit Varanasi to get my final rites done.
Are these feelings normal for a Śrī Vidyā upāsaka?
With love, “Disciple”
Guruji
My dear “Disciple”,
Well, well! You are getting there sooner than I expected!
Death is the time between life and life. You don’t exist separated from the world; so you don’t feel or know or do anything during that time. Time stops flowing for you, so no experience as we know it. But the world keeps going in time; the world has life, but not as we know it.
We enter that in death, in phases I think, in ever-gradual increasing circles to encompass the whole. Until the whole is encompassed, rebirth is possible. Getting out of the cycle of births and deaths is called nirvana or moksha or whatever.
Methinks, Lalitā is the Goddess of life; as she is also the Goddess of death called Kālī. Westerners call it Lilith, the demoness who aborts (or kills) children. Lalitā is the Goddess of fertility; she is also the Goddess of infertility, sending the ejaculation in reverse upwards, stopping the process of birth.
She gives bhoga—enjoyment of pleasure and pain; she also gives moksha—prevents birth. If you are not born, how can you die? That is the argument. She overcomes death, controls death.
The point is that experience as we know it happens only when we are living; it belongs to time when we have life. In that sense, life is the only thing there is. The time between lives is neither knowable nor can be experienced, nor interacted with—except by people living now! So all ghosts, angels, etc., live only in the minds of people; that is their space, that is their time. Gods exist as long as someone thinks about them!
But consider: should the grave be the goal of life? Why not enjoyment of life be the goal while life exists? Because the only relevant time is when life is available.
So I say: make a commitment to make life happy. Not necessarily my life only selfishly, but My Life as environment selfishly. I think that is the mind of God/Goddess as I read it.
I am not foolproof; I am also ignorant and foolish most of the time.
Love and cheers!
Bring smiles, wipe tears, and enjoy life.
Nirvana—who cares? Who is there to care?
Love, Guruji
Disciple
Dearest Guruji,
Thanks for taking the time to respond. I can’t remember how many times I’ve read your email trying to digest the depth of information.
Please help me understand what you meant by “…My Life as environment selfishly.”
Does this mean one should dedicate more time towards pūjās/japam? Or is it something like joining UNICEF to help others in need? Please give me some examples. I need to understand this concept and then make a commitment.
Is there something wrong with embracing and seeking the notion of timelessness?
When one finds purpose in life, it leads to happiness, thus bringing fulfillment. But when the core ingredient is missing, then you want to strip yourself from any experience/time/life and seek the “permanent” death/nirvana/moksha, where neither time nor experience exists. I find this phenomenon of a world without time attractive because any pursuit of happiness where time flows seems like a temporary endeavor.
So while I’m still alive in this world, I need to first understand what is meant by making “My Life” happy.
I am not good at transcribing my thoughts and feelings… hope this makes sense.
With love, Disciple
Guruji
The capital S in Selfish is your identity expressing through environment—your spread-out awareness. What is the environment? All life you interact with, being different from it.
Disciple
Does this mean one should dedicate more time towards pūjās/japam? Or is it something like joining UNICEF to help others in need? Please give me some examples. I need to understand this concept and then make a commitment.
Guruji
The idea is that if you are identifying with your environment, you would care for it as you would care for yourself. In this world of I, me, and myself and devil take the hindmost, a little expansion of awareness beyond the limits of your body, mind, and intellect goes a long way.
It means social interactions with the understanding that I am helping/serving myself when I am helping/serving others.
Disciple
Is there something wrong with embracing and seeking the notion of timelessness?
Guruji
Nothing wrong. There is a little light around us, but there is a vast sea of darkness all around. Understanding and experiencing the darkness is the concept of timelessness.
Timelessness does not mean that time doesn’t exist; it simply doesn’t flow. It means that time is like space—you see all of it at once, like you see all of space at once. Really, you are not seeing all of space at once either; as you look further into space, you look more and more back in time as well. But that is a little detail.
I will expand on the concept of time later on. It is a mystery unknown to scientists even today. All that we know is that time and space are relative—meaning they are exchangeable—and the equivalence of mass and energy comes from that perception.
Disciple
When one finds purpose in life, it leads to happiness, thus bringing fulfillment. But when the core ingredient is missing, then you want to strip yourself from any experience/time/life and seek the “permanent” death/nirvana/moksha, where neither time nor experience exists. I find this phenomenon of a world without time attractive because any pursuit of happiness where time flows seems like a temporary endeavor.
Guruji
The experience of a world without time is satisfying. It is complete, full. It has a great attraction. It is like the passionate love between present and past+future, which we may call absent—the Buddhist Nirvana.
Disciple
So while I’m still alive in this world, I need to first understand what is meant by making “My Life” happy.
Guruji
At least you know what is meant by making life miserable, being negative? Every idea is time-bound; it comes and goes. Still, that is the only thing we know as experience.
OK—happiness/pleasure has no value. So does misery/pain. Tranquility is the absence of both. It is the thrill of the calm. It is like “ahaa!” or “Eureka!”
Disciple
I am not good at transcribing my thoughts and feelings… hope this makes sense.
Guruji
Oh no, you are very good. Unfortunately, I’m tongue-tied, because my life has been sort of flat—uneventful. So I am bad at giving examples, which have no meaning unless backed by selfish experience.
After we worship Gaṇapati, Paraśurāma says that it is better to worship the Heart of the Goddess and then worship Vārāhī, who is a unit of time at the eyebrow center.
Worship Gaṇapati at the base, Śyāmā at the heart and Vārāhī at Ājñā, and then go to Lalitā, the Supreme Empress.
And where is the Supreme Empress sitting? In the second chakra—the Svādhiṣṭhāna cakra. And it is directly connected to the top. The Śakti is at the yoni center, and Śiva is at the top, and they are directly connected. So this is their play.
So he says, you start with Gaṇapati and then you go directly to Śyāmā and then Vārāhī. Śyāmā—because you should express the Mother you are going to invoke. It’s a very powerful thing; it’s not powerless. It’s got cruel elements and it’s got kind elements.
So to invoke the kind elements and to make Her feel that you are a son—that you are not to be destroyed—you seek Her grace first and get nourished from Her breasts. So you first worship the Goddess here, in the heart, and attract all the good things.
And getting rid of all the bad things is a function of Vārāhī. And then you go to Lalitā.
He says don’t go directly to Her because you may get embroiled into the passion of sex. It says that if you are working on the second chakra directly at the start, you get embroiled into that and you can’t get rid of that intricate burning fire; you’ll get caught in the fire and you will get burned.
So he says, first you become the child of the Mother, take milk from Her, and then move on to Vārāhī, and then go on to Lalitā. Then She will be kind and compassionate. And then She will treat you as Śiva, to enjoy you and not to destroy you.
So that is the argument Paraśurāma gives in the Kalpa Sūtras, that this sequence should be followed.
I was seeing the sun and feeling his heat. Suddenly, the sun was becoming brighter and brighter - but cooler and cooler. A thrill passed through my body creating utter awareness which dissolved me into a uniform grey, wet light. The sun reappeared again out of the grey. The grey turned to deep dark. The center of the sun blackened. Only a hollow ring of white light remained, scarcely lighting up the sky. Out of the center of darkness of the sun, a point of light appeared. The point grew in to a V, a bird, huge bird. It was flying to me. It was Garuda.
Garuda stopped some five miles ahead of me and spread his bejewelled wing out to me.
I stepped on to the wing wondering how long it would take to walk to the center. The wing moved under me, carried me to the center effortlessly, through the clouds, in a whiff. Garuda took off smoothly, silently.
I was a witness, seeing him become small. And myself on his back. Both merging into a V, and then into the point of light in the center of the sun.
I tried to follow that point. The point grew larger, into a circle. And there was a milky ocean and Sesha and Vishnu with Lakshmi in his heart.
And I saw myself merging into Lakshmi, in the center of Vishnu's heart.
And I entered her milky breast. There was an ocean of milk again in an orb. And I was Vishnu watching that ocean in the orb.
The horizon was vertical to start with, then tilted slowly to horizontal, anticlockwise. There was the orange sun rising on the horizon. Its bright spot of reflection rippling a wave of light on the milky ocean, tracing, a dancing golden yellow line. And out of the center of the orb, a majestic Shiva Linga about ten times the size of the sun (or perhaps larger because it was further off), emerged brightening up the dark sky into a violet glow. It was emitting a pod of white light with an orange flame in its center towards the northeast, and three fainter flows of blue yellow, and red towards the northwest. And there was a Trishul - the trident standing vertical, the head of the trident going out of the orb. The bottom leg of the trident, on closer inspection, turned out to be a huge river of milky nectar pouring down and itself lighted up by the light from Shiva Linga. The flood was filling up the nectarine ocean below. The head of the trident was in fact the outline of a yoni and the flood was pouring out of the rosy center. The center was surrounded by four flowing wet highlights rather like hazy rectangles with their long sides vertical. And I saw myself as Vishnu watching the grand spectacle contentedly, with love and affection.
I named myself Sudhavarshini. I am she. A witness to a witness to actions. Her actions are mine. Reach me through her, by word thought and deed acting in unison. I have given my power Hladini to Sudha. Speak, Sudhavershini, fill the world with the nectarine bliss of universal union. May your enemies hate, anger and violence be killed. Kill your enemies with the arrows of thy love. May thy love and thy lovers populate my field. Speak, Sudha, my love, here, take my son for help. Speak, Sudha, speak. Let this be your Upanishad.
And OṀ is the name of God. OṀ is the name of Dattātreya. OṀ is the name of Gaṇapati, praṇava-svarūpa vakratuṇḍam.
It consists of three syllables. When you start saying OṀ it opens up the mouth—A U Ṁ. You have to open your mouth to say A. When you say U, then you have to make it round, open your lips, make it round, continue. Ṁ—internalize this.
The sound U and Ṁ continue as the sound, let us say, of a Vīṇā string which was struck and, after striking, continues as a sound. Whereas we cannot say if it is AṀ, or IṀ, or UṀ, or RṀ, or ḶṀ. So when the initial part, the plucking, is taken away, the remaining part is indistinguishable; it continues like that.
So OṀ is supposed to be consisting of five letters:
A,
U,
M,
its continuation, and
termination.
These five are called sṛṣṭi, sthiti, laya, tirodhana and anugraha.
Sṛṣṭi means creation (A). Sthiti means sustenance (U). Laya means destruction (M).
Then continuation—tirodhana.
And anugraha—absence. It becomes zero, nil, quiet, attributeless.
So all of these five syllables are contained in OṀ. We are normally told that it consists of three syllables, but Śrī Vidyā extends the research further and says—yes, it has five syllables.
First, let’s talk about Śrīṃ. It consists of “Śa” “Ra” “Īṃ.”
“Ī” is a fourth letter, fourth sound, in A, Ā, I, Ī—the fourth letter. It represents the transcendental state Turīya. It’s also called Mahā Gupta Saraswatī bīja. It is a hidden reverse flow called Saraswatī, the seed of flows of knowledge.
“Īṃ” is connected with “Śa.” “Śa” is a symbol of auspiciousness and “Ra” is fire. An auspicious fire leading to an infinite expression of the flows of energies flowing in the Cosmos. That’s what the meaning of Śrīṃ is—the shorthand form of the entire thing.
Śrīṃ is our goal. That’s why we call it Śrī Vidyā—auspiciousness—where everything is collapsed into a point. You can think of Śrīṃ as collapsing the entire Cosmos into a single point. It is Mahāsamhāra. It eliminates all distinctions, all attributes. It even kills Viṣṇu, Brahmā, Śiva. It is that powerful. And that is the center of that Vidyā, the antarmukha sādhana.
So that’s why Śrīṃ is so important for us. Only there all of us become one. It’s our goal. It’s our aspiration—that we reach that primordial state, which is unchangeable. Where there is no birth, there’s no growth, there’s no death.
Punarāvṛttirahita purasthāyai namo namaḥ.
We want to reach that state. That’s why Śrīṃ is our goal—the deepest goal—and a goal where we do not feel that we are annihilated. We are still alive, but attributeless.
The first thing we’ve got to do is to get the initiation into Śrī Vidyā, without which it doesn’t make sense to practice Śrī Vidyā. Like it or not, the Guru is the essential evil; you have to go through that.
Because, you know, without paying the toll at the tollgate, you cannot enter the highway. The Guru is the tollgate through which you pass, you pay your dakṣiṇā, and enter the highway. A journey is your own. The Guru is there only to give an initial boost.
So:
5% of the job is done by the Guru at the beginning;
90% of the job is done by you on your journey; and
it kicks in again the last 5% of the job [done by the Guru].
The 10% is carried by the Guru and 90% is your own self-study.
With the passage of time, however, the radical freedom and generosity that guided him throughout his life had become compromised. Rather than “doing as he willed”—as his father, Gurugaru and most of his life experiences had taught him—he too often found himself being used as a mere diksha resource, “giving mantras to devotees on demand rather than giving only what I felt was good for them.”
This particular departure from tradition had, he now felt, been an error. “It is not the tradition that the disciple asks the guru to give this or that mantra,” he explained. “The guru decides which he thinks is the best for the disciple. Yet, so many devotees requested me to give Maha Shodashi, Mahavakyas, purnadiksha; to make them peetadhipatis and so on—and I accommodated most such requests.”
Gurujis follower recollected: I also remember a case when a student from Buffalo came to Guruji asking for the Gayatri mantra. Guruji told him, ‘Why do you want Gayatri? It is a Vedic mantra and requires you to give up meat, etc. Why not take a Tantric mantra with higher potency and no such restriction?’ I could see he was uncomfortable with being put in a position where the disciple was demanding a particular mantra.”
Guruji’s motivation in doing so, he said, was never personal gain. “I went out of my way to do this out of pure compassion,” he said, “without expecting any return for shaktipat or initiation. If anyone gave me anything for my personal use, I spent it for Devi. God has given me enough to survive on; I have no need to appropriate what is given to God as mine.”
Spirituality is a quest, a deep quest for every human being to find out where everything has come from, and where’s it going. And what is my role in that? Why am I created? What is the purpose of my existence? This deep quest is called spirituality. Spirituality is a search for yourself, your environment, and a role you have to play in that environment.
Money, Life, and the Question of Identity
Money is only one part of the game. There's so many other things, relationships, and things. So I think the deepest question is to find out who you are. That’s where you should start from.
Let me start with this a little bit of understanding of how creation had come to be. We know, we feel, we see that there's creation and so there's no question whether the creation exists or not. It is there. It is an experiential fact. But how did this come to be? If there's a creation, there must be a Creator, and who is the Creator, and how did he create this whole thing that we see [or experience], if the Creator is there then who created the Creator?
I know it's an infinite series of questions that come up. Who created, why did he create? So there are many answers to the question. But I think the most satisfying and deepest answer to this question is that the Creator is in your own image. You know and I know that you exist, and I exist. That's an irrefutable fact. So the creation start with I, whatever that “I” is.
And that “I” is seeing something and knowing something other than me. So knowing yourself as other than you is God’s creation. The ability to see, the ability to know, ability to think, the ability to act, all the parts of your awareness, modes of your awareness and it's all projecting what is you to yourself. The source of everything it seems to be you. If I do not exist, then nothing that I see can exist.
Śrīvidyā and the Question of Creation
Sri Vidya describes how everything could come out of nothing. It's a solution to your puzzle, how nothing can produce something and absolutely mean nothing. That's one part of the Sri Vidya. It talks about pre-creation, before the creation happened, what must have happened. It talks about that and then gives examples.
What is the cause this to answer this question of infinite cycles of regression. If there's a Creator, who created the Creator and same set of questions can be asked. So it answers that by analyzing the cause and effect, what causes what.
So, it starts with an example, let’s say an ocean. An ocean is a source of life, and the source of an ocean, it has no life, you go back to the atom. There's no apparent life. But it has movement. If you keep going back to the source from which you came. You go to life; life came from oceans; oceans came from an assembly of particles and particles came from where? Where they exist. It's a physical quest on the outside.
And then if we consider the very simple example. If you take an ocean, on surface there are waves. You can't do away with the waves and put them somewhere else and say this is an ocean and the ocean is the cause of the waves. The inability to separate the cause from the effect.
When you are saying this ocean must be the cause, when you are saying that, you are giving the importance to ocean and not equal importance to the waves. Why should you do that? They are of equal importance to this and that. Why are we giving importance to the cause and not to the effect?
From where is the relative importance within the cause and effect coming from? What is cause and effect? What precedes in time, comes before in time - is the cause or comes after in time - is effect. Why is there a preference for the past, or the present, or the future?
The questioning goes back to the time itself. But who created time and space? So the creation process is understood in the spiritual sense by having a timeless nature. It says spirituality answers this question by saying the cause and effect are the same, there is a properties of one entity and that's called [8.27 sasanta tattva??] [????] means independence.
It does not depend on anything else for its creation. If it depends on something else, then this or that, that dependence is not there. So in one sense, it terminates the question of time and its movement, and removes the distinction between cause and effect and thus eliminates the boundary of a past, present and future in time.
It was back to the source. A sources is independent. It has got conscience, which says I can know and it can know. And knowing is creation. And it doesn't need any outside thing to create, and that is its independence.
Misery, Poverty, and the Error of Distinction
If you think that there is misery, poverty and all these things and you say that they should not be there, then you want to remove the misery. If you do not recognize that there’s no misery, there’s no need to remove the misery. If you think that there’s happiness, then the lack of it has to be eliminated.
You see, all these human condition questions relate to creating a distinction between things, that are not distinct, and being able to take things as they are without giving a priority - this should be like this and it should not be like this. And that questioning is a cause of the trouble.
Remove the questioning. Just observe and be. Do not be yourself, because when you say yourself, then others are coming. Just be.
Violence, Pain, and the Mechanics of Attention
It has to do with the learning, detachment. How to be detached when you're attached. How to be independent when you are dependent. How not to feel misery when misery is there. How not to feel pain, when pain is there.
It’s pretty obvious if you think deeply about this. Inside yourself there's a duality, the sense of “I”. I am experiencing the pain. There’s something else also, which is watching this “I” experiencing this pain. If you identify with the “I,” that is experiencing the pain, then the pain is there. If you do not identify with either the experiencer or the pain, but with the “I,” which is watching the “I,” which is experiencing pain, then there's no pain there.
It’s like, if it is hurting here and it's not hurting here. Then why do you keep your focus on this and not here, and here and not here. So the way to remove the pain is to shift your focus away from the pain. Focus is the attention and it magnifies this thing.
Current relationships for example, when a partnership starts failing for whatever reason then you keep on focusing on - you have done this, you're done this, and I’ve done this because you haven't done this, and so on. It is a never-ending argument, they are focusing on the differences between the two of them. Because you are focusing on the differences, differences are growing and they will always grow, because focus is like a magnifying glass.
You are putting your attention on the differences. You do not put your attention on the differences but on the places where you agree, where you can be together and remember the happy times, memories which are happy. Then that grows for you.
So the way to do is to shift your focus, attention away from the person who is experiencing the pain, to the person who is seeing the person experiencing the pain. These two are different. So you have to shift your focus away from this to that. That is a universal solution.
Now you got to draw any particular instance of how we deduce the necessary things for each particular situation.
What Is Śrīvidyā?
Sri Vidya found me. I had no choice. To me Sri Vidya means, seeing beauty everywhere, seeing abundance everywhere, whether there’s mystery or happiness, whether beauty or ugliness. Having equanimity and being [priceless?] and experiencing whatever is given to you as the ultimate bliss. That is the thing that is taught by Sri Vidya.
At the human level, you got lust, greed, jealousy and all these negative things and we have to accept them as also normal and not try to get away from them. We need to be involved with them. At the same time, see the beauty in not experiencing lust when you are in lust, not experiencing anger, when you are angry.
So see, the connection is made to who you are really and that is the essence of Sri Vidya. The essence of Sri Vidya is to realize that the deepest part of you is embedded in the not so deep part of you. The waves are embedded in the ocean, oceans are deep, waves are on the surface, but these two are together.
You cannot say this is important and that's not important, that is important and this is not important. To be able to see the beauty in this and that. And that is taught by Sri Vidya. It says all the chakras you have, the base chakra, second or third chakra, every chakra is important and [16:55 enjoyable as one of them].
Chakras, the Body, and Healing in Śrīvidyā
Fears, anxieties, neuroses all spring forth from your base chakra. If you keep your attention there, then the subconscious is brought up to the surface and catharsis happens and that is cleared. So accessing the base chakra clears these roots.
And second chakra, the Svādhiṣṭhāna chakra, it removes the inhibitions of your own growth; it overcomes that. So that it is easier to say yes to your own body [17:48 then each of the body] like eating good food, eating healthy, having good sex, and so on. And inhibitions are the causes of the problems there, so it’s the removal of inhibitions.
And then when you come to the third chakra when you are keeping your attention on the third chakra in your body, you're accessing the regions of power. What is the source of power? I’m helpless. I’m angry because and I am unable to change the environment around me. So by accessing that you are able to clear this.
So these chakras are mapped into Sri Chakra. The Sri Chakra is your own body. It looks as a geometrical object, but it’s an object which is a mapping of your own body, your own emotions, your own growth process.
In going through different chakras without laying undue emphasis on one and not other, giving equal emphasis to all these things. That is the beauty of Sri Vidya. Every other thing tries to focus on one particular chakra and say here is where everything is, but that's not so. You have to understand, you need to give attention to every part of yourself then to get rid of the hold that any particular chakra has on you.
Then you see the beauty, the glory of this world. You start enjoying the bullet going through the heart.
Understanding the Śrī Chakra
Sri Chakra is a mapping of your body, the universe, the pre-universe and the source of the pre-universe. The source is called the Mother. The Sri Chakra is the appreciation of the beauty of a Mother in all her various manifestations.
It also talks about not having a need for another to create. You are the Creator, you are creating your destiny. And you better watch out what you are thinking, because you are creating a universe by the way of your thinking process.
So [20:28 ????] keep your thinking straight and you go back to the source as the Mother and the Mother takes you into her womb and makes you her child. She nourishes you with knowledge, fine arts and music at her breasts and she gives knowledge that allows you to become God or Goddess.
That’s the blessing that Sri Vidya has to offer and I wish all of you to take part in this great spiritual quest. Spirituality is a quest. Your questions are right and your answers will be right if you follow them with the right attitude of humility, service, love, sympathy, empathy and so on.
Then pañcadaśakṣarī - the most important mantra. If you want to forget about all these mantras, you can do that. But don’t leave the pañcadaśakṣarī and don’t leave the Guru mantra.
You say, you don’t have the time to do this and you don’t have time to do that. You don’t have to do that. You can even forget the pañcadaśakṣarī and Guru mantra and just stick to one single mantra called so’ham, it’s part of the Guru mantra.
You can even get rid of so’ham, just keep your attention on “om”.
So in order of importance: “om”, then “so’ham”, then Guru, then pañcadaśakṣarī. So you have the levels of importance. Then, if you have time, all the others.
Guruji performs Śrī Cakra Pūjā preliminaries, steps to be undertaken before one begins the full ritual. Recorded by William Thomas at the Rochester Peetam 33 Park Circle sometime in the early 90's.
This was just the introduction. It was the intention to continue this film, but it was never completed.
The old sign that used to be present by the Kāmākhyā Temple
The text of the sign says:
A Sri Chakra Meru was discovered here by Amritananda. The Meru was dug out from the middle of a rock formation resembling the private parts of a woman. He also saw Kamakhya Devi in person and received initiation into Shakti puja from Her.
The Sivalinga represents four levels of understanding: (1) In Creation, Siva is the phallus and Shakti is the birth channel. (2) In Preservation, Siva is the power in the Sun and Shakti is the love of the created world, coming from the breasts. (3) In Annihilation, Siva takes us into space and Shakti is the time which flows through it everywhere. (4) At the Fourth Level, there is no time, no space, no world; only the seed of a world yet to be manifested. Thus the symbol of God is the lingam, yoni and the Seed coming out of their Union as time, love and semen.
The form here contains all of these ideas. The phallus does not penetrate from outside as in normal intercourse, but is projecting out from the yoni. This shows that pleasure need not be sought from anywhere outside, really. We are self-fulfilled; half-male, half-female. The seer and the seen are one. This is the concept of being Svayambhu, self-born.
The Shakti puja is to be performed according to the rite of Five Ms. These are Madya, Matsya, Mamsa, Mudra and Maithuna. Madya intoxicates. The intoxication of constantly experiencing the release of all tensions as they arise is meant. Matsya, the fish, roams freely in all directions in waters. Water is the symbol of life. Life is to be lived freely, without limits of I and Mine. Mamsa means meat. The tongue touching the palate is called meat. Mudra means a gesture; Shakti chalana and sambhavi mudras are well-known. Maithuna means intercourse. We are continuously interacting with the world through hearing, touching, seeing, tasting and smelling. All this is called intercourse with the world at large. Shakti puja is done to a living woman who agrees to be worshipped as Devi (Suvasini if married, Kumari if single).
The Agama shastras prescribe the actual ingredients. These ancient traditions are not to be looked down upon as Tantra is the art of getting rid of all attachments and inhibitions, gaining freedom from the limiting concepts of uniformity, [expectations] of one’s culture, etc. We follow the Datta[treya] tradition which insists that moksha is for everyone, not only for the elite. All that is required is to follow the tradition told to us by the Guru.
In April 29, 1983, after performing Devi Yajña, Guruji addressed the gathered worshipers, telling them about his meditational experiences and the Devi’s apparent desire for him to build her a temple. Shortly thereafter he was approached by Putrevu brothers who donated to him a 3 acre land plot named Dongalamarri (“Thicket of Thieves”), located near the village of Narapadu, between the towns of Anakapalle and Sabbavaram.
One day while surveying the western slope of one of the parcel’s hills, Guruji spotted a large, oval-shaped tock, about 9 feet wide, with a triangular 6-foot crevice at its center. The formation was “very similar to that of the Kāmākhyā Pīṭham in Assam,” Guruji recalled. “It had obviously been cut by human hands a long time ago to resemble a woman’s thighs, with a triangular depression that had the distinctive features of the yoni, a woman’s genitals.” Crystal-clear water trickled out of the crevice in a small rivulet. He took careful note of the yoni’s location so that he could easily find it again. From that day, it became the focal point of his visits.
It was on one of these visits to the forgotten Goddess shrine that a transformative encounter took place. The date was Sunday, July 24, 1983, the height of summer and the day of the Guru Pūrṇimā full moon. Almost as soon as he had settled into his meditation posture, Guruji felt powerful vibrations radiating upward through his body and began slipping into a deep trance-like state.
Then Devi Kāmākhyā appeared in front of him. She asked Guruji to perform pūjā to Her, which he did. Afterward, “She embraced me and told me I would feel this embrace always,” he concluded. “And with that, She vanished back into the triangular pit in the rock.”
Following these instructions, in 1983 Guruji built two temples upon this hill—one at the very top dedicated to Śiva (Śivālaya), and another at the yoni-shaped ledge itself on the slope, dedicated to Kāmākhyā.
Instructions to Build Two Temples:
After some time Kāmākhyā again appeared to Guruji in the form of “a devastatingly beautiful girl of 16 years,” and told him, “I am the blissful state of Goddess Bhairavī, residing here in the form of Kāmākhyā. Lord Śiva dwells in this place too, as its guardian. His natural presence here is special and auspicious. You will build a temple to him atop this very hill!”
Then speaking of the yoni formation itself she said, “This crevice, shaped like the triangle within the Mūlādhāra Cakra, evokes the Universal Womb. Its waters have alchemical powers and you will find me here blessing all with success, and bestowing love upon everyone. Together with Lord Śiva, I create and sustain life. We are here to help you.”
Finding the Unique Śrī Cakra Mahāmeru:
During another meditation at the yoni, Guruji felt himself swept back through time. He saw a magnificent fire ritual being performed on the very spot where he sat, which was taking place at least two centuries earlier. Kāmākhyā seemed to be showing him an episode from the history of her shrine. Guruji experienced himself lying at the center inside the homa kunda, while four priests were performing a homam with the flames emanating from his body.
I understand that this program is being televised live internationally therefore I request permission to speak in English. I asked my daughter Rama to take down notes. At the end of my speech she will summarize my talk in Telugu, so you won't miss out on anything.
I do not know who I am, what made me come here. What is a purpose of my life? What is life? How many times have I come here before? How many times I have to come here again? I know none of these things.
Looks like, there's a part of me, which knows nothing. Another part of me, which says that you are, that I am there, I am, I see, I see myself. It appears that when I am seeing myself that seems to be more relevant than when I have, I have no attributes. And when I started seeing myself, I was afraid. Then I asked myself: what is there to be afraid of? I am seeing only myself, there is no other. Should I be afraid of myself. This fear came and it went when I asked a question about who am I and should I be afraid of myself.
And what is fear? Fear is about something that I do not know about. If I know about something I cannot be afraid of that. It’s only when I do not know, when and I'm in the dark. So fear is ignorance and what is ignorance about? Not knowing who I am. And what is the knowledge that removes this ignorance and fear? That knowledge is called Vidyā – that I am what I'm seeing or knowing or feeling; that I am the fear.
Out of fear came this entire phenomenal world that we experience, that I experience. Fear is a source; fear is the womb of manifestation; fear is a womb of not knowing who I am. But I know that I am what I see then the fear goes. So the root of all experiences and explorations begins with fear. But fear is called Māyā or Avidyā, not knowing who or what I am. And knowledge is knowing that I'm seeing myself.
The fear of death is what I have when I have life; when I do not have life there's a fear of being born. I’m afraid of the unknown part of myself that is the basic drive in all of us.
Devi Bhagavatam says:
jñānināmapi cetāṃsi devī bhagavatī hi sā
balādākṛṣya mohāya mahāmāyā prayacchati
The greatest of knowing persons, the Śiva himself, the God himself, attributeless, formless, indestructible, changeless, acala – She makes that entity limited in many different ways.
The power of not knowing – She has created that difference between the knower and the known. She has created triputi: mana, matru, meya; jñātru jñāna jñeya.
Out of śūnya She has created everything. She is both the source and the cause. She is both the manifested and unmanifested source.
To get anything you need a Creator, but this power did not need a Creator and this power is what we call Śakti.
In Śaktaya philosophy, Śakti is predominant. To create, the male is not necessary, that’s what prathanikam and vaikṛtika rahasyam in the Devi Bhagavatam says.
She created a male out of Her. She created two females out of Her. And who is She, that we are talking about?
This one here – Mahālakṣmī. Mahālakṣmī created Mahāsaraswatī and Mahākālī. They are known as Mahā, because there are no limits to them.
And Mahālakṣmī herself created a pair: a male and a female. She conjoined with Mahākālī and created a pair. She co-joined with Mahāsaraswatī and created a pair. And these three pairs: Brahmā and Saraswatī, Lakṣmī and Viṣṇu and Śiva and Śakti that come out of these three primary Śaktis.
Mahākālī, Mahālakṣmī, Mahāsaraswatī all come out of Mahālakṣmī. The wealth of the Lord is ignorance, negation of everything that’s why śruti says:
na karmanā na prajayā dhanena tyāgenaike amrtatvamānasuh
By tyāga, by giving up, giving up everything you gain everything – amṛtātvam, the immortal, the zero, the śūnya, the changeless, attributeless, you gain the wealth of the Lord by sanyasa, not by rāga. Rāga is property of fear.
And fear changes itself into different forms. The first thing fear created is dvitīyād-vai bhayaṃ bhavati because you think there's something else. You don't know what it is going to do to you and you are afraid of it. If you know what it is, the fear is not there. Out of the fear of death when you do not exist or of birth, when you exist these two fears are the two parā and aparā manifestations of the Parā Śakti herself.
Then the fear transformed into the people who are living, the life itself.
They are afraid of death. So when I ask myself why was I born? Why was I married? Why do I beget children? What is all this drama? What is the purpose of my life? What is the purpose of the life itself?
The purpose of life, to the extent that I could understand, is to continue Life. That is why we marry. That is why we beget children and they beget children, and they beget children, and the cycle of life goes on.
So the fear transforms itself. Its first transformation is the desire to continue life, because the fear of the unknown is to overcome.
And then kāma, it has got many meanings, any desire can be called kāma. But the main desire, is the desire to procreate. That again transforms itself into.
When it's denied it becomes krodha, when it's obtained, it becomes lobha, and when lobha deepens it becomes moha, and mada and matsarya – pride and jealousy. So all of these transformations, the root cause is fear.
Tantra means expanding the awareness about life but you can exist without a form. You can exist in formless ways. You can exist with form, without a form and in formless ways; and finally in attributeless state, called - the śūnya.
So you have three lives, they say cat has 9 lives; there are three lives – one is the manifested life which you are all living, in which we got jñyāna indrias and karmendriyas. We can move, we can see, we can feel - jñyāna. There are windows, through which the knowledge about the world gets inside of us. And you got karmendriyas – that we can act, we can push on the world, do something, hit it, or see; do something to the world.
So our jñyāna indriyas become karmendriyas of the world, and karmendriyas of the world become jñyāna indriyas. So when we make a transition from life to lifeless, or go back to the word from which we came, then that transformation removes the karmendriyas from you, you will not be able to act, but you still able to know, you will still be able to see, you will still be able to feel. And this ability to know, see and feel is called tanmātras.
So drop the karmendriyas, you get into tanmātras. What are tanmātras: śabda, sparśa, rūpa, rasa, gandha, mano, buddhi cit, ahaṃkāra – these are all the different tanmatras. When you drop them, you go into a pre-manifested state of the universe, where currents are flowing in the world. These currents are called Vāgdevatās.
Before the world manifested something was moving somewhere. Something means - matter; moving - means, going from this place that place and this time to that time.
So you see, a spanda, a vibration or energy that we are familiar with, in order to move at all, it has got to have a space in which to move, a time in which to move, and what moves. These three things. These things have been called trinity, trimurtis. And Guru Dattātreya is the manifestation of the Trinity.
They are asking questions, but he is not answering them. You are sitting there as a 16 year old boy, nude sitting under a papal tree, not answering questions. If there are questions being asked they are being answered within their minds. That is the wonder of Dakṣiṇāmūrti. Dakṣiṇāmūrti means, dakṣiṇa –means “right", amūrti – means “formless". Right part of you is formless. One part of you is formless, the other part has a form. Dakṣiṇa plus amūrti, Dakṣiṇāmūrti. Form and formless combined to have Dakṣiṇāmūrti. And Dattātreya is a transition again between the form and formless. So these are two main Gurus of all kinds of vidyās. There are no other Gurus.
The Guru is not referred to a person who is sitting on this chair. He comes and goes, the Guru is not limited to the clothes that he wears, he is not limited to the blood, the <astis>, the bones, the skeleton, the flesh, none of these tattvas.
He refers to the conscious, awareness which is called Māyā. Unless you know Māyā and pray to Māyā if She takes compassion on you, you will never be able to know what is Śiva.
So Māyā is only way to approach a God. Śiva has to worship, Viṣṇu has to worship, or Śakti has to worship. They all had to worship Mahāmāyā. And the Guru represents the tattva of Mahāmāyā
What is tattva, tat tva. Tat means - that. Tvam means – you. Tattvam means - you are that, you are what you see. This knowledge alone can take you from ignorance to knowledge and bring you back from knowledge to ignorance.
She connects these two sides, where you exist, where you do not exist. She can take you from physical to the astral, from the astral to pre-astral, pre-cosmic.
These powers are called Gāyatrī, the creatrix, the giver of life. That is the life-giving mantra. And the cosmic mantra is called Bhuvaneśvarī.
And inside that cosmic power is Bālā Tripurasundarī, the source of the cosmos. Source of the cosmos is space, time and matter and waves of matter that are flowing through. And bindu is a combination of the Śiva and Śakti, they cannot exist separately.
So Śrī Vidyā is a path, a universal path, it cuts across religions, it cuts across boundaries, it cuts across male - female relationships, it cuts across everything. And it represents the energies that are there out in the cosmos, and you are accessing those energies, and those energies are given forms and you are seeing those forms in the Śrī Chakra in Devipuram.
There are forms and formless, the formless are indicated by their nudity; there are no limits.
Just like Śivaliṅga an ovoid it has got a form, but no particular form. It is a linga, starting from unknown to infinity
āpātāḻa-nabhaḥsthalānta-bhuvana-brahmāṇḍa
So from patala to the infinity, you cannot measure that distance. You cannot measure the length of time, you cannot measure the length of space, they are immeasurable. So that is the linga. That is the characteristic of Śiva.
And what manifested this linga? The Śakti.
So when you are doing puja to the Guru here, the Guru nāmāvali. What does it say?
Idrāya namaḥ, agnaye namaḥ, nirṛtaye namaḥ, varuṇāya namaḥ, vāyave namaḥ… and all these things tanmātras come.
They are not the names of Mr. N. Prahlada Shastri. They are not his names, they are names of attributeless tattva of the Guru. Guru tattva is being explained by those names. And that is what you are worshipping.
Why are we are worshipping? Because we want to understand what is here and there and overcome fear. And when you overcome fear what happens? You become God. Fear is the ultimate bastion. When you overcome that, there's nothing else you can do, except become God.
So may Devī bless you all, to overcome your ignorance and approach and become God.
Here you will see Guruji performing a pūjā at Dr. Viswanathan's house in Webster N.Y. U.S.A. On his many visits to the U.S. Guruji visited the home of the Viswanathan's. On this particular occasion, he performed a simple and unique puja with the public so everyone can participate and follow along.
Abhisheka, also called Abhishekam, is conducted by priests or devotes, by pouring libations on the image of the deity being worshipped, amidst the chanting of mantras. Usually, offerings such as milk, yogurt, ghee, honey, Panchaamrutam, Sesame oil, rosewater, sandalwood paste may be poured among other offerings depending on the type of abhishekam being performed. This Abhishekam was conducted as part of the Maha kumbhabhishekam of the consecration of the Devipuram Meru Temple in India 1994.
Guru Garu wrote this letter to relay his and Dattatreya's blessings for the Mahakumbhabhishekam at Devipuram which was to take place 23rd-25th February 1994.
Near Anakapalli is Devipuram. It has been decided to perform Kumbhabhishekam to Sahasrakshi Rajarajeshwari. This place is built by Sri Prahlada Sastry, Guruji. He is my dear disciple. This great function will be completed conquering all directions and obstacles with the Grace of Dattatreya. Our Blessings have been completely given for this.
