SEX is offered to the Goddess in all mother religions. Why is it so?
1. Sex in all forms is enjoyable. All enjoyment is divine.
2. Sex indulged with control makes two people one in spirit.
3. Sex connects people at the deepest level, making friends for life.
4. Sex is the highest offering any one can make, of himself/herself.
5. Sex occurs only when shame is surrendered. Thus sex reduces ego.
6. Sex can create a new life. All life is sacred.
7. Sex repressed becomes neuroses. Neuroses are dangerous to society.
Practicing sacred sex was the universal religion of all people.
Till patriarchal religions came and tabooed it suppressing mother religions.
Hindus worship Siva lingam which is an unmistakable symbol of coitus.
Worshiping coitus gives equal importance to both Mother and Father.
We choose to worship the living vulva as the Mother of all powers.
We choose to worship the living penis as the Father of all.
In worship there can be no hurt feelings or injury.
If there are, it cannot be worship.
Worship of genitals eliminates neuroses, the source of most problems.
Puja is foreplay. Giving and receiving much pleasure.
It should never become heavy, but be fun and thoroughly enjoyable.
FAMILY OF SIVA
Siva the linga has three forms. A form without desire: Sava, corpse like.
The second form is erect. It is called Bhairav.
In the third form the glans penis is fully exposed. It is Ananda Bhairav.
Siva rides the bull called Nandi, the testes. The bull symbolises virility.
We first touch the testes of the bull lovingly, energizing the lingam.
Then look at the Siva lingam which is now erect with desire.
Vulva is the mother of all. It is the Shakti that gives birth to all.
The temple of Siva is the vulva, called garbha.
Before we go inside the temple of Siva, we ring the bell.
The bell is a small female linga, the clitoris.
It is the little son of Siva, Kumara.
Kumara teaches Siva the sound Om, the sound of the ringing bell. The pleasure in clitoris, heard by the penis, is the source of all. Energised by Nandi, the dancing Siva enters the temple of the mother.
Gouri the vulva, is the temple of Siva. It is called Svadhisthana chakra. This is where Gouri is worshipped. Inside the vagina, the entrance to the womb is the cervix. The head of Siva rests there in coitus.
Waters of life gush out with force from the head of Siva, the tumescent penis.
Cervix is the seat of Ganapati. It is called Adhara, the support for life.
Waters of life touch Ganapati, whose seed syllable is Gan, and go inside, ga.
That is why the sacred waters of life are called Ganga.
Thus is the family of Siva is explained in relation to the first two chakras.
Here actual life manifests. Here is creativity at its fullest potential.
We do not know how to make limbs, or to put life into them.
That is the work of the Goddess.
You are the sons and daughters of God and Goddess.
Made in their image.
Mind works in two ways. Feeling and Thinking. If we still one, the other part is awake.
1. KAVACHA stills the feelings. Become aware of each part of body and
relax it. Cover all parts. The body, and with it, the feelings get
stilled. But the thinking part is active. Freed from the body, the mind
floats away from the body, does astral travel, becomes aware of
different places and events and comes back to it after some time. After
this we understand that we have an astral body along with the physical.
Kavacham means covering the whole body
2. KUNDALA stills verbal
thinking. Become aware of each thought and relax it, saying, "I will
attend to you later, not now". Keep your attention solely on your body
and start moving it. First locate a point of discomfort,move a little
away from it, see if it is less. If it increases, reverse the direction.
By repeately coming back to the same point and moving on the border of
pain and pleasure, try to remove all stresses. Your body becomes
flexible and starts feeling the movements only. Commit to get rid of
your inhibitions. Feel free to swim like a fish, jump like a monkey,
crawl like a snake, or fly like a bird. As you become aware of the
movements, just observe where and how they are felt. Dont try to name
these feelings nor that they are good or bad. They are all parts of you.
Since you now have a language, you may feel these movements of energy
as relating to hunger, sex, power, caring, communicating, time control
or waves of love to the whole world, which you feel is a part of you.
They are all forms of one single energy; they get name from where they
are seen or felt. These raw snake like energies are called Kundalini.
3. SAHAJA: A still mind exists, even if it has turbulence in parts of
it. The still mind is like the deep of the ocean, thoughts or feelings
are movements of waves in it. Wavering mind and still mind both together
is the natural state. Being natural is called the Sahaja.
Sa is
the visible world around you which consists of energy, matter and time:
Ha is your own unmoving awareness. Breath is the mantra called Hamsa
which connects the inside consciousness with the world outside. Keeping
awareness on the breath, and being passive to both thoughts and feelings
is the way to still the mind naturally. This is Yoga.
Being in
Yoga does not mean that thoughts and feelings don't exist. It means that
that the practitioner is identifying stillness with dynamic world. Yoga
means a timeless state, where the idea of before and after, cause and
effect, action and inaction are perceived to be the same. It means that
space and time are alike, unmoving. Yoga is the state of being united
with god and expanding into the whole.
===========
Vijnanabhairava Tantra 155b:
hakāreṇa bahiryāti sakāreṇa viśet punaḥ |
haṁsahaṁsetyamuṁ mantraṁ jīvo japati sarvadā ||
"By exhaling with a sound SA and inhaling with a sound HA, the Soul constantly repeats Hamsa mantra"
Tantraloka of Abhinavagupta [4.86]:
evaṃ yogāṅgamiyati tarka eva na cāparam antarantaḥ parāmarśapāṭavātiśayāya saḥ
"Among the various mechanisms of yoga only has power - comprehension, that consistently penetrates deeper and deeper."
ahiṃsā satyamasteyabrahmacaryāparigrahāḥ | iti pañca yamāḥ sākṣātsaṃvittau nopayoginaḥ || 4-87 || tapaḥ prabhṛtayo ye ca niyamā yattathāsanam | prāṇāyāmāśca ye sarvametadbāhyavijṛmbhitam || 4-88 ||
"Five
yama principles and 5 niyama principles, asanas and pranayama do not
bring any benefit to Consciousness, they are simply external forms,
which can not affect it"
"When the sun and the moon are absorbed as a result of dissolution of the mind [of a sadhaka] in the Shiva, the only and pure knowledge, then he/she achieves Bhaga" guruvākyaparāmarśasadṛśe svavimarśane | prabuddhe tadvipakṣāṇāṃ vyudāsaḥ pāṭhacintane || 4-100 ||
"In
reading [Kaula Granthas] and constant contemplation [of our true
Nature], our Consciousness, harmoniously built by the words of our
Gurudev, undoubtedly becomes awakened".
Question: How to define, because we are working on the chakras, for example working on the base chakra Mūlādhāra chakra how to understand that we have worked it out that it's done that she basically melted that we have passed this level?
Guruji: It’s not that you are in one particular chakra, stuck there, it’s like a flute, you know, they have so many different holes. You close some holes, you produce one music, so life is… you know, you're moving at different levels at different chakras at different times. When you are in love you are in Anāhata chakra, you don't stay there, then you feel lack of power you move to this center [i.e. Maṇipūra]. You keep going up and down, can say probably most of your time you are spending in near about one chakra. Like in music you may be working in the lower frequencies for some time and then suddenly may move to a different scale and you don't stay there. Life is the music, she is generated by moving in different chakras. So how much time you are spending at each chakra depends upon what your general tendencies are, which you can define. Beyond that, you can function as a human being very occasionally taking trips to this place [i.e. viśuddhi chakra] but this [i.e. Anāhata chakra] is the safest place, it is tender, loving and compassionate place. But you need aggression, you need aggression to go ahead in life, you want to succeed in business, it has a cutting edge, it’s a competition, it's not cooperation, it's not love. So you see, you need the negative energy also but you got to use it in positive ways. For example, it's not good to have greed, but you also realize the difference in capitalism and socialism. Capitalism works because the greed of one man gives jobs to a thousand people, socialism says everybody is the same and it does not work out as well. So you need the aggressive part also; the Kālī energy is equally needed as the Sundarī energy.
These are knots, it means you go into the loops around them not knowing how to get out of it. You want to untie a thread and you can not undevelop that easily. The three knots are Brahmā granthi, Viṣṇu granthi and Rudra granthi.
Brahma Granti is the identification that I am so and so, that I am my body. All the identifications associated with – only if the body exists… if the body does not exist I won't exist, these kinds of securities. The lower two chakras together, the search for continuance in the physical body and also through the progeny. So these are two base security centers that constitute one entanglement.
The second entanglement [i.e. Viṣṇu granthi] comes from power and love. That my living is confined to or constitutes my relationships, whether the winner as a loser; the giver, or the receiver. So I live in my thoughts. If I don't have thoughts I won’t live. The second mistaken idea. This is called the Viṣṇu granthi.
The third knot is concerned with life itself. The idea that I will die; I will not exist if I die. That’s the last one, it’s galled Rudra Granthi. So that you have an existence beyond the physical body, the mental body. When you cross these two bodies then you have the causal body and you live in that, that once you recognize, then this knot is unraveled.
This is a knot [i.e. Rudra granthi] of space and time, and this is a knot [i.e. Viṣṇu granthi] of love and power, the base knot is of sex and fear. They might disappear, they may loosen their hold on you, you won't worry to the same degree. For example cancer in the case of a normal person supposing suddenly getting a pain in the chest, you won't take notice, you continue to sleep. But if there is an anxiety-riddled person, he will start focusing his attention on that, it pulls him and he starts imagining things, and then he gets into a panic and can't get to sleep. The same trigger affects people in different ways, in one way in which it is escalating into an ever-growing thing, so it depends very much on the degree that you have achieved in withdrawing from a situation and being able to look at it from a distance from a perspective; if you have not learned that then you'll be more prone to anxiety and be tied into these knots.
“Despite the impression of some, Guruji isn’t some kind of superhuman,” Alok said recently. “In fact, what I really relished about him is the fact that he was a normal human being, with the same limitation sand failings as the rest of us. To assume that Guruji never got sick, or felt down or upset about things that’s not correct.”
He recalled the time when a woman asked Guruji to counsel her and her husband when they were experiencing serious marital difficulties. The attempt was a debacle—the husband became hostile, openly insulting Guruji and mocking the entire attempt. “Soon after this, Guruji and I went out for an evening stroll,” Alok said. “He seemed quite dejected. He told me that he really wanted to see this couple live happily together. It was clear that the encounter was weighing on his mind and making him feel quite down.”
All at once, however, Guruji stopped his ruminations and said “Chod do!” (Hindi for “Leave it!” or “Let it go!”) Then he looked up at the sky and intoned, “I am unlimited! I am the cosmos!” “This seemingly simple affirmation changed the whole atmosphere,” Alok recalled. “A dramatic shift took place. Guruji was his usual self once again. He then turned to me and said, ‘If you look at bhakti yoga, jnana yoga or any of these practices, there is only one underlying principle that makes them work —and that is vairagya, detachment. The ability to detach and let go when needed is very, very, very important.’
“Whenever needed,” Alok concluded, “Guruji was able to connect with the cosmic force and not be limited by all the things that we as humans typically suffer from—pain, pleasure, all of that. For me, that is really where he really contributed to our evolution and growth as human and spiritual beings. He showed us a benchmark. He showed us a way it can be done.”
People ask "can we keep Devi in home and do puja?"
She is already there in you as life. So the question means, "Can I keep life be in me and make myself happy?
Can I stay in my home?"
Surely you can. Can you do puja? The question is saying, can you be happy? Why not? You can do puja, Devi puja most definitely. It is for your own prana, life, that puja is really talking place. So go ahead, by all means. Power flows to you by loving yourself. Power also flows to whomever you love. It is as simple as that. Puja is expressing your love, embracing all life and yourself too.
Although life is one, it manifests different powers in different limbs. Life in my eyes is the power to see, in ears to hear, in tongue to taste and talk, in skin to touch and feel, in hands to grasp, in feet to run, in genitals to reproduce, in breasts to give milk and so on. If life is missing in a foot like in a polio patient, the patient cannot walk. So power comes from life, power is life. So Devi is called Shakti, which means power.
The concept of Shakti pithas flows from this idea. There is the great puranic story of How Sati, the adorable wife of Siva got angry when Her father who did not invite Siva for a fire ritual he was doing. He insulted Siva saying," He is the erect male genital. What is so great about worshipping it?" So Sati got angry and left Her body by Yoga. Siva hears this, becomes angry, and keeping Her corpse on his shoulders, is out to destroy the world. Gods pray to Vishnu to save the worlds from Siva's anger. Vishnu sends his discus, which cuts the body of Sati into various pieces. They all fell at different places, and became Shakti pithas, where power lives.
There are two lessons we have to draw from this great story. That in every limb, there is a Shakti pitha, a seat of power. We can access, arouse and enhance this power through loving attention.
The second lesson is that when Siva is insulted, he becomes angry, his Shakti becomes anger because Siva has no outlet for expressing His love ( his wife, the yoni is dead) . His anger is capable of destroying the world. Sex frustrated from expression destroys the world. Most of our neuroses have to do with suppressing our subconscious desires in sex. One of them is in seeking variety, which goes against social norms. That is why we had to suppress it in the first instance; making us think onething inside but say another thing. We become fragmented. We want variety in food, dresses, perfumes,and environment. Why not in sex? Is sex also not like hunger? Is it not a desire to continue beyond our body, nay, life itself, a seeking for immortality? Hunger nourishes the physical body; pleasures of bed nourish our mental body by bathing in milk of compassion and love. So we should treat sex with love and adoration, not with contempt. We should never couple sex with violence and suppression. That is asking for trouble. Even a dog becomes angry if you tie it. Won't a human become angry and aggressive if hand-cuffed? Tantra releases the tensions in safe ways without harming society.
Hindu culture places a high value to worship of genitals in the form of Siva the phallus and Shakti, the yoni. Most ancient cultures in the world accepted sex as sacred to Goddess. There was sacred sex everywhere, and orgies were offered to mother earth to replenish her productive powers. We consider eternal intercourse as a symbolic of peace, pleasure and bliss. We incorporate desire for sex, Kama, as the third great object of life; the others being Duty, Abundance and Liberation. Liberation is like living in an eternal orgasm, like Siva Shakti, or Brahma's ananda, the bliss of utter creativity. It is two satisfied lovers Shakti and Shiva in embrace discussing and solving problems of the world peacefully.
It is a paradigm for modern society worth considering. Where do we go and how do we want to go there?
Let us realize once for all that no bullet ever healed a wound and no bomb has ever made a hospital. To solve problems, we need to be in love and respect, not hate and disrespect. We need a technology for peace, enough of technology for war. Penis or Pistol? Penis sprinkles life giving seed, Pistol kills it. Shooting the seed of knowledge is preferable to shooting a deadly bullet. Prurient societies are non-violent societies. That is what Vatsyayana said, that is what Freud said. Wisdom lies in the golden mean; neither prurience nor violence, but bhakti, expressing our deepest love to the Goddess of life and erotic sentiment. There are two big industries in the world: that of blue films and blue murder. We have yet to discover Tantra which makes sex as worship and war on poverty.
We live in a Tantric age, the age of suicidal technology. Technology is tantra. Use it wisely, achieve peace. Abuse it, bring calamity. The choice is clear. Which way humanity goes remains to be seen.
Question: Can you talk a little bit about “my will” and “thy will”. If we're co-creators or we help create our reality but there's also some other surrendering to the higher force as if destiny is already at play?
Guruji: It's easy to go with the current and it's hard to go against the current. If you are going in the directions that the current is taking you’ll reach faster. It means you arrange your ideas and intentions, the intentions of the environment… So you tune first into the current. What does the current want to do? If you are going with that, then it's no more your individual will, it is the will of the current. And so - “thy will be done.”
How do you tune into the current? [It’s] not what I want to do, but what the general set of things around me want to do. Try to get out of myself, right? and listen more than talk. If I’m talking, I am talking about my will, if I'm listening to what others are saying and trying to understand them, then you are better off.
But people talk in different languages hard to find the make common current, but usually, it is… there are some strong currents like based on language – I want my people speaking my language to prosper, I want my family to prosper. And there's a pretty strong connection there. The language connects people and divides people also. Cultures connect people and divide people. Tribes connect people and divide people. Everything has got a dual thing. So to find the stronger currents you have to go to the deeper layers of human consciousness, which is going beyond… and there I find that usually the ability to understand more and suit my goals to a new understanding and going forward with that seems to be the goal of everyone. We call it empowerment. Everyone wants to be happy, everyone wants to be friendly, everyone wants love, these are the currents that are common to whatever language you speak, whatever nationality you belong to. You want more of peace and less of violence. The hippies were right I think – make love, not war.
And I used to go into meditation again, and again for the first one or two days nothing happened. And the third day, some peculiar, pleasant sensation started at the bottom of my spine. And as it was going up, it was becoming a little warm here, just very pleasant, and it came to the heart center. I had a feeling of very open and very loving and kind and compassionate. And when it started coming here, it suddenly felt as if I was sitting on the top of a volcano and the lava was pushing out of it and I was being pushed out of myself with great force. Tremendous amount of force and I was being carried away with it and God knows where. And I was scared, scared stiff. The first time it was an explosion, this time it wasn't an explosion but tremendous current which I couldn't stand.
And then I did a prayer to Saraswatī. The prayer was:
sarasvatī namastubhyaṃ
varade kāmarūpiṇī
vidyārambhaṃ kariṣhyāmi...
And then I told her: "Look I have been praying to you all my life. In one form or another I have been in search of truth. Why don't you come and help me? I'm in trouble." And suddenly She appeared in front of me. Very beautiful, standing in a white lotus, with a zari border white cotton sari. And She was most beautiful. She was asking, smiling: "What are you afraid of? I'm giving you an experience, take it." "No, no, I can't take this kind of an experience, please". Then She smiled: "OK, don't worry, whenever the force tries to come to this level, think of me and I'll come to you and I'll control the energy."
It was thus that my friendship with the Goddess started happening and I got connected to her.
And She, sometimes, not always but every time I used to sit for meditation it wouldn't go the same way but [unclear] cycle about 30-40% around that, you know I measure these things, what foolishness to measure. And She used to give me books to read in meditation. I used to read those books. By then I became a member of Bombay University Library Sanskrit Division. I used to go there and pick some book randomly and the very book I used to read before it was the book I used to pick up at random and exactly the same thing. And then She gave me an experience of my past lives, several of them. I don't want to go into that, it is a little unnecessary. And then I used to be like a little child, holding her finger. She used to walk on the rainbows and wherever she put her foot, a lotus is born under her feet. Just little beautiful things. She used to take me to various kinds of lokas and I used to see various visions.
I used to wonder how can I make this knowledge available to the world, can't I move forward in time and talk to a scientist yet to be born and bring the knowledge he has got back to this time and make science go a little forward, fast-forward you know? She said: "You try." Then I went and this fellow was talking and I couldn't understand anything. Then She laughed and said: "See, what you can know is proportionate to what you know already, so you have to expand your container before you can... So quantum leaps are not possible, you got to grow adiabatically. So I'm giving an experience, take it, don't worry about others."
So, this is how the spiritual journey began and I remained connected to Her. Not as often as I wish now, but whenever a real need is there She's there to help me.
And I used to see Goddess Saraswatī and She used to play on the vīṇā and I used to listen to that vīṇā for long hours. It would go on and on and on. Not being a musician I couldn't play but I used to enjoy it. And once it happened that as She was playing, suddenly Her head disappeared and my head appeared in that place. And I asked Saraswatī – "What is this strange thing, that you are having my head on [your body]?" She said: “You are a Saraswatī.” So She named me Saraswati. Amṛtānanda is the name given to me by my Guru and She added Saraswatī to that. "You come from a branch of learning. That is why you are called Saraswatī”. So Saraswati was my first tutor and that is how I got my name.
The Supreme Guru in our line is Dattātreya, who has written 11,000 upanishads, and who has given to the world 7 crores of mahāmantras, so he is the Mantra Śāstra Supreme. He is Trinātha — Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Śiva, all together in one form and who is the Supreme Being.
There are two main Gurus in the Śrī Vidyā Upāsana, one is Dattātreya and the other is Dakṣiṇāmūrti. Dakṣiṇāmūrti is yourself and Dattātreya is a form of the Guru; there’s no distinction between these two. Dakṣiṇāmūrti is the Ardhanārīśvara form of Devi and Dattātreya is the Trinātha form of the Guru.
Dattātreya has given the external modes of worship. Dakṣiṇāmūrti has only concentrated on the internal modes of worship. This is the only difference. The external modes of worship are the route through which you learn the internal modes of worship. Without knowing what to do, how can you internalize the process? So first you need to know how to do the pūjā externally, then you can translate that into a mental action.
(from Guruji's 2013 Guru Pūrṇimā Talk)
[So you see, a spanda, 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, trimūrtis. 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". The 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.
Kāla means many things. One meaning of Kāla is time. Kālī is a property of time. What is the property of time? To dance, to move. When it moves, the present goes into the past and the future comes into the present. The present going into the past is called samhara, death. The future coming into the present is called birth. So from one side Kālī is a destructive Mother and on the other side, Kālī is the creative Mother. The Creatrix as well as Destructive.
Now both are happening in the present moment — the midpoint between creation and destruction. That is called sthiti, when it stands here and now. Where are you? You say Los Angeles… I’m here. What is the time now? 12 o'clock or 1 o'clock, or 2 o'clock or whatever it is. So here and now — because here and now always is there wherever you are. Whatever place, whatever time you have you are always in the here and now. You cannot be out of that.
It means you are at the junction between the past and the future, it's the aspect of time. The junction between the front and back or left and right or up and down. You are always here at this place and at this time now. So the combination of here and now — now is Kālī and here [is] the space. A combination of space and time is where you are, you are located here and now.
Having briefly described this yantra, the first given meditation śloka, [or] meditation mantra you can say. It describes how Kālī… yantra form is this one, [and] we are trying to visualize Kālī in physical form.
How to visualize Kālī in physical form? It is saguṇa, meaning the attributes which you are able to see, you are able to feel, you are able to touch, you are able to taste. So that form is described in the dhyānam, in the meditation. Meditation means your eyes are opened, you are looking at different parts of the body and you are trying to understand every part of your body as representing something. That is meditation.
One meaning of Kāla is time, the other meaning of the word Kāla is darkness. You can know what is here and now, but you cannot know what is in the past or in the future. You cannot know what is there and what is there. So all the things that surround you that you are not aware of — are all made by Kālī. What is known is not Kālī, what is not known is Kālī. Unknown, dark. It's dark because it's not known. Even if you open your eyes wide you cannot see, it's such deep darkness. That is Kālī. It is also called Kṛṣṇa. Kṛṣṇa means dark. They are the same — Kṛṣṇa and Kālī.
śavārūḍhām — aruḍha means on top of, śava — a corpse. She's on top of the corpse. What is the corpse that we are talking about? Our body. Our body is not capable of doing anything unless life is there in that. So life is on top of this body occupying this body, sitting on top of the body, making it come alive. Śava means the corpse, the corpse is the body and the awareness — that is the meaning of the word śavārūḍhā.
mahābhīmām — mahā means great, bhīmām means fearful. Great fear. Where does fear come from? Unknown. What happens if I die? What happens if I lose my property? What happens if I lose my job. What happens if I become old, if I become infirm? All these fears, great fears — mahābhīmām.
ghoradamṣṭrām — ghora means fierce, terrible; damṣṭrām — teeth. Kālī is also the Mother of Speech. The tongue which you cannot see is moving between the hard rocks of teeth which are opening and closing all the time. The tongue has no eyes to see, it cannot see, but it's still moving inside the mouth, not being hurt by them. It knows how to avoid the teeth. ghoradamṣṭrām — terrible grinding stones. damṣṭrām is the teeth.
hasanmukhīm — hasa means smile, laugh; mukhīm — face. She has a laughing face.
caturbhujām — four hands. Why four hands? Don’t know.
khaḍga — means the sword; muṇḍa — means a head separated from the body.
khaḍga-muṇḍa — they are describing what is in each of her hands. In one hand she's holding a sword, in the other hand, she's holding by the hair a person's head. Usually, it's a male head. I think she prefers males. Since she's the life itself, she's standing on top of Śiva or on a corpse or holding a corpse in her hand. She's life itself.
Since she's holding the head, the head could not be dead. What is happening is that the blood is coming out of the head. And where is it going? It's going into the earth. So blood is called rajoguṇa, which means mobility. All the mobility is gone, the head is not thinking anymore. Mobility means the movement of thoughts. The movement of thoughts is arrested. But the head is not dead. That is the head being in samādhi, [which] means you are aware but you are not thinking anything. You are not seeing anything, you are not feeling anything — just pure awareness. That is represented by the head held in her hand.
varā [mudrā] — means boon, abhaya [mudrā] — this is abhaya [Guruji is showing an abhaya mudrā]. Vara means I'm giving a boon. Don’t be afraid, I'm helping you — varābhayakarām.
So khaḍga — sword, muṇḍa — the severed head, vara — the boon [mudrā], abhaya — don't be afraid [mudrā]. So these are the four hands, [and] she's showing these mudrās to the devotees.
śivām — Śivā, the property of Śiva or the female counterpart of Śiva. The female counterpart. If Śiva is considered unmoving — all of space or unmoving time. Time is static. And in that, she creates the movement in time. So she's called Śivā, dīrgham [meaning long sound, i.e. ā]. Not Śiva but Śivā. So she creates the movement and Śiva is static like a corpse. She's moving so she creates movement to unmoving time. That is called Śivā.
muṇḍa-mālādharām — muṇḍa refers to the broken, severed head, it also refers to the ?lower part? muṇḍa if you take it as this one, there are different kapālas there. After the person is dead you put him under the earth or you burn him. In one tradition it burns, in another it is put in the grave. Ultimately what it means is kapāla, the skull. The skull is the indestructible part that survives physical death. So she's holding a mālā of skulls. Since they are indestructible they are called akṣaras. kṣara means decaying, akṣaras means non-decaying, not changing. Cause they are always there, they continue to stay there after death.
So these kapālas that she's wearing on her neck as a mālā are the seed letters: aṃ āṃ iṃ īṃ uṃ ūṃ… the 51 letters she's holding… So she's the Mother of Speech.
devīm — Devī means by whom the world is lighted up. By whose presence you can see. If the consciousness is not there, if the awareness is not there the corpse cannot see. I can be there, but I cannot see. Unless the life is present I cannot see. If it is frozen or if it is immobile it is disabled, the life awareness makes it see. The eye of the eye — that's called Devī. By Her, is lighted up this world that's why she is called Devī.
lalajjihvāṁ — the tongue protruding out. There is a story when she wants to make you a poet or a creative person with the tip of her tongue she writes on the tip of your tongue seed letter of Kālī — krīṁ or aiṁ. jihvāṁ — long tongue; lala means hanging.
digambarām — she's naked, nude, not wearing any clothes. Which means extensive, not confined to a particular point of space or time, she's everywhere. She's not limited in any sense, unlimitedness is shown as a digambara, nude.
dhyāyet — like this, you should meditate upon.
kapālinīm — she's called Kapālī because she wears the skulls on her neck.
kālīṃ — the Goddess called Kālī.
śmaśānālaya-vāsinīm — śmaśāna is the cremation ground or the burial ground. She lives there, because she's the wife of Śiva and Śiva's abode is śmaśāna. Because he's samhāra kartā — when everything that is killed goes to the cremation ground, so that's where Śiva stands. Where Śiva stands Śakti also has to be there.
I'll describe that yantra to you so that you have an idea of what it is like.
What this yantra has, starting from the center coming out… in the center there's a dot, bindu.
Unconnected with the dot are the five upward triangles positioned fairly close, one inside the other. Five upward triangles; means triangles with apex pointing up. You might remember that a triangle with its apex up represents a Śiva. A Śiva is called a liṅga, liṅga means a property, an attribute. What do five triangles stand for? The five elements. Kāla means time, which is above the five elements. The five elements are chakras 1 to 5, and above that there's Kāla. So it represents the 5 elements that you are familiar with — space, air, fire, water and earth.
Surrounding those are the three circles. One outside the other. These three circles represent the three knots or granthis. Knot means something that you have to untie, it's like you are locked by these three, you've got to open these keys to get into the inner chambers.
And surrounding that there is a lotus with eight petals. You can think of the eight directions, whatever.
And interestingly, there's an upward triangle outside of this one, this guy here. And this is on top of that.
So all these eight petals, three knots, five elements, and time are sitting on top of Śiva. The Śakti is sitting on top of Śiva — that's the implication.
And then the square and the four entrances — that represents the earth.
The symbolism is fairly clear. It is representing all the chakras in your body, right up to this point. There are six chakras, each pair of chakras constitute one knot, one lock, one key, and you have to unlock that thing before you go to the next chakra. So each pair of chakras together constitute one knot.
The first knot [Brahmā granthi] — the chakras 1 and 2,
The second knot [Viṣṇu granthi] — the chakras 3 and 4, and
The third knot [Rudra granthi] — the chakras 5 and 6.
Then you have covered all the five elements properly. And then you get the aṣṭaiśvaryas. Aṣṭaiśvaryas mean the wealth of the Lord. Īśvara means the controller of the world, aiśvarya is a derivative of Īśvara, the property of Īśvara is the world itself. The world is his wealth.
This Guru Stotram was compiled by Śrī Amṛtānandanātha Sarasvatī. It was transcribed from a cassette tape with minor grammatical edits. The verse translations came from direct translations as well as various internet sources.
Guruji provides introduction to the Stotram, gives the recitation and also provides commentary on the verses. Unfortunately the tape ended as he was giving his commentary on the 5th stanza.
Introduction
I’ve collected what I believe are some important stanzas in praise of the Guru. The grace of the Devi is passed on through the feet of the Guru. It is only right that one must remember that it is the Guru who gives you the spiritual education.
In the first stanza of the Guru Stotram I have given the Guru Parampara — the line of the Guru. My dikśa namam is Amṛtānanda, my Guru’s name is Svaprakāśānanda, and his Guru’s name is Kalyāṇānanda Bhārati, so this is the Guru parampara.
The Supreme Guru in our line is Dattātreya, who has written 11,000 upanishads, and who has given to the world 7 crores of mahāmantras, so he is the Mantra Śastra Supreme. He is Trinātha — Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Śiva, all together in one form — and who is the Supreme Being.
There are two main Gurus in the Śrī Vidyā Upāsana, one is Dattātreya and the other is Dakṣiṇāmūrti. Dakṣiṇāmūrti is yourself and Dattātreya is a form of the Guru; there’s no distinction between these two. Dakṣiṇāmūrti is the Ardhanārīśvara form of Devi and Dattāreya is the Trinātha form of the Guru.
Dattātreya has given the external modes of worship. Dakṣiṇāmūrti has only concentrated on the internal modes of worship. This is the only difference. The external modes of worship are the route through which you learn the internal modes of worship. Without knowing what to do, how can you internalize the process? So first you need to know how to do the pūjā externally, then you can translate that into a mental action.
I praise the Enlightened One, who is beyond all castes and stages of life, who bestows knowledge like Sarasvatī for peace, auspiciousness, and bliss — Kalyāṇānanda Bhāratī — whose nature is self-illumination (Svaprakāśa) and whose form is the bliss of immortality (Amṛtānanda).
Salutation to the Infinite One, of a thousand forms, with a thousand feet, eyes, heads, and arms; of a thousand names; the eternal Puruṣa; the bearer of billions of eons.
[3] ṛtaṃ satyaṃ paraṃ brahma puruṣaṃ kṛṣṇa piṅgalam | ūrdhvaretaṃ virūpākṣaṃ viśvarūpāya vai namo namaḥ ||
Salutation again and again to the Supreme Brahman — Truth, Cosmic Order — the Puruṣa of dark-blue and golden hue, ever-celibate, multi-eyed, all-pervasive.
I behold the One who abides in the moving and unmoving, beyond action, the lamp of consciousness removing darkness. I bow to the One established in all beings as the Supreme Self.
The Goddess, Mother of all, the Yoni of Consciousness, is to be worshipped on the left as one’s own Śakti — the Yoginī who unites one with the Guru-Liṅga.
hariḥ oṃ | śrī gurubhyo namaḥ | hariḥ oṃ
Commentary by Guruji
I’ll explain the meaning of these stanzas.
Hariḥ Oṁ. Ha is the symbol of Śiva and Ra is the symbol for Agni. Hari is the Śivāgni and it is the name of Viṣṇu. The nature of Viṣṇu is to take away your mind — manohara. The one who takes care of your mind is called Hari.
And the way to take away your mind is to concentrate on the Oṁ, which is the Ahāhata’s sound in your heart. So this is starting with Hariḥ Oṁ.
Among the three important deities — Brahmā, Viṣṇu and Śiva representing creation, sustenance and destruction — obviously we are most interested in the sustenance aspect of it, not in the destructive aspect. Neither we desire our end prematurely, nor are we being born at the time when we are interested in the pūjā.
So the pūjā starts with Hari, Viṣṇu, and then he shows us a way to Śiva, and Śiva's job is to give you mokṣa.
The nature of Śiva is — ati varṇāśramam. Varṇa means a caste or color, and āśrama means the stage in which you are in: Brahmacharya, Gṛhastha, Vānaprastha, Sannyāsa.
The stage when you are getting educated is the first stage.
When you are married and you are enjoying, this is the second stage.
When you are married but have foregone the pleasures of marriage and live the life of just being together, that is called Vānaprastha.
And Sannyāsa is when you have renounced everything.
Ati varṇāśramam — He is beyond all these four categories. He is neither a Gṛhastha, nor a Brahmachārī, nor a Vānaprastha, nor a Sannyāsī. He is beyond all forms of categorization and all stages of life.
He experiences the fullness. He is of the world and out of the world. So this is the stage that is called turīyātīta avasthā, or a brahmajñānī, or a muktapuruṣa. That is the nature of the Guru.
Buddham means the one who knows, the one who is enlightened. Kalyāṇānanda Bhārati. Bhārati is Sarasvatī, the one who gives knowledge. And the knowledge is aimed at giving kalyāṇa, peace, auspiciousness and ānanda. So this is the nature of Kalyāṇānanda Bhārati. This is my Paramaguru.
Svaprakāśātmaka. Sva means self, prakāśa means illuminating; the one who illuminates himself. Because he is identified at all times with the Divine, there is nothing that can illuminate him — he illuminates himself.
Amṛtānanda. Amṛta means immortality. The one who takes bliss from immortality. The one who transcends Time is called Amṛtānanda.
These are the names of the Gurus. The names also represent the paths one follows. First you have to understand and transcend the nature of Time; then you have to illuminate yourself; then you have to wish the entire world peace and prosperity.
So starting with Amṛtānanda, Svaprakāśānanda and Kalyāṇānanda Bhārati — these names are the paths which the spiritual aspirant has to progress in order to be able to bless this world and attain the sāyujya with Devi.
The nature of the transcendental being is described in the next stanza.
namo'stvanantāya sahasra-mūrtaye — He is unending. sahasra-mūrtaye — all the forms that you see are the divine expression. Therefore, sahasra-pādā — He has 1,000 feet; sahasrākṣi — He has got 1,000 eyes. All of our eyes are the eyes of God. Sahasraśiraḥ — He has got the 1,000 heads. 1,000 is the symbol of infinity. And sahasra uru and sahasra bāhu, He has got the 1,000 legs and 1,000 hands — the infinity of legs and infinity of hands.
Everything that you see is the divine expression and if I count the number of people and the number of hands, it is an infinite number. Sahasranāmne — He has got the infinite number of names. Puruṣāya śāśvate — He is not Prakṛti, the manifested world, but He is the transcendental, the unmanifest source, which is called Puruṣa. Śāśvate — He is not limited in time. Sahasra-koṭi yuga dhāriṇe namaḥ — therefore He exists in all Time in the past and is going to exist in all Time in the future.
ṛtaṁ satyaṁ paraṁ brahma puruṣaṁ kṛṣṇa piṅgalam |
ūrdhvaretaṁ virūpākṣaṁ viśvarūpāya vai namo namaḥ ||
The operative word here is virūpākṣa. Virūpa means not having a form, akṣa means axis. The axis of God is not having a form. The manifested form is one half — it is called Devi — and the unmanifested half is called Śiva. So this is the nature of the Dakṣiṇāmūrti.
The next stanza defines what is meant by Avadhūta. Avadhūta is the one who goes naked in the world. Which means that he is clad only by space. Digambara — dig is also used as ākāśa — means that his clothes are only his thoughts and he has removed them to become Digambara.
In the definition of the Avadhūta each of the letters — A, Va, Dhu and Ta — are shortened forms of certain names:
A — Akṣaratvāt — means not being limited in any way, because of indestructibility. Va — Vareṇyatvāt — among all the Gods, He is the Supreme Being. Dhu — Dhūtasaṁsārabandhanāt — stands for eliminating all kinds of bondages; the one who has washed away all of his family bondages. Ta — Tat Tvam Asi is the mahāvakya, which says that whatever you see is yourself.
There are four mahāvākyas: Prajñānam Brahma; Ayam Ātmā Brahma; Tat Tvam Asi; and Aham Brahma Asmi.
Akṣaratvāt, Vareṇyatvāt, Dhūtasaṁsārabandhanāt and Tat Tvam Asi — the combination of these four qualities define the word Avadhūta. It’s not just somebody who’s going around naked on the street. Only if a person contains all these qualities he can be called an Avadhūta. And the Guru Parampara is of this class — ati varṇāśramam and Avadhūta.
The jīvanmuktam state is being described here. He acts like a child, he acts like a mad fellow, he acts like a [undecipherable], but his nature is jñāna sāgarā — he is the ocean of knowledge.
The Guru is the Śakti who is the very cause of all causes.
In Devīpura, upon Kāmagiri, there exists the beautiful Yoni Pīṭha.
There abides Kāmākhyā, beyond the three guṇas,
manifest as the great living stone itself.
The Goddess eternally dwells there—
of this there is no doubt: liberation is attained there.
There is the sacred Bhairavī Cakra,
and there too the presiding deity of the sacred field.
There dwell Pracaṇḍa Caṇḍikā, Mātaṅgī of the nature of Tripurā,
Bagalā, Kamalā, and Bhuvaneśī, the subtle-minded one.
These are proclaimed as the nine pīṭhas, guarded by the nine Bhairavas.
Rare indeed is the Goddess everywhere—
yet She abides as Kāminī in the Yoni Maṇḍala.
Eighteen years of age, ever newly wedded,
She is the beauty of the Kula.
There the Goddess is Digambarī, unclothed,
revealing the secret of the Yoni Pīṭha.
She is always worshipped with curd, milk, and ghee,
with perfumes, garlands, and offerings.
She bestows wealth, sons,
and all desires at all times.
Within Her is concealed the Śrī Cakra;
its triangle grants all attainments.
The Yoni is indeed Vaiṣṇavī Śakti,
and the Liṅga is Sadāśiva Himself.
There the bliss which is the very form of Brahman
rests and supports itself.
Established there, worshipped at the crown,
and anointed with the hymns of Rudra,
The Goddess, perfected through union,
ever accepts Yoga.
She pours forth yogic bliss, Śiva’s bliss,
the rain of immortal nectar.
Ascending the Yoni as a Yoginī,
there is no rebirth again.
Whoever recites this daily at dawn,
at the three sacred junctions, with faith,
Attains all desires—
of this there is no need for further deliberation.
