(Excerpted from two letters written in 2010–2012):
Make your home an ashram
for love, laughter, light and play.
Love adults as if they were children.
Play with children—
they are such great teachers.
Play with elders, too,
as if they were still in the prime of youthful exuberance.
Invite love into your life.
(From an essay written in the early ’90s.):
There are some things I am sure of:
We are going to see beauty, harmony, peace,
abundance and prosperity ascendant in this world,
like never before.
You are going to witness it in your lifetimes.
Love is going to open up in mighty rivers.
Crime will not pay.
Pettiness will vanish.
You will love all as you love your own children.
I love you.
I will give you peace.
That is a promise.
 |
| Guruji with Meru model atop his head for the Sagara Giri Durga procession, October 17, 1982. |
(from "The Goddess and the Guru"):
But while compassion, openness and nonjudgment have loomed large in Guruji’s teachings from the beginning, he rarely allowed himself similar latitude or leniency in his personal spiritual practice.
“Partially because of his background, Guruji did operate in a mode of exceptional freedom,” explained longtime disciple Alok Baveja, a professor of business management at Rutgers University. “He flourished under freedom and, by his nature, he wanted his disciples to enjoy the same level of freedom. But in his personal sadhana, he was always extremely disciplined. Not expecting others to do disciplined sadhana doesn’t mean that he himself was not disciplined.”
Especially in those early years, few would have made the mistake of assuming so.
Guruji in the 1980s was a formidable, even slightly intimidating figure with a powerful, focused gaze that hinted at an intensity, passion and force of will that he rarely displayed in later years. By the early 2000s, Guruji was projecting a much warmer, more grandfatherly personality, becoming almost disarmingly casual and approachable. It became common to hear visitors and disciples refer to him in fond diminutives involving terms such as “cute,” “sweet” and even “like an Indian Santa Claus.”
“When you looked at Guruji in the last 10 years of his life, he just seemed like this nice old guy, in the usual, next-door-neighbor sort of a way,” said Megha Chatterjee, a New Delhi journalist based in Toronto. “You really had to keep reminding yourself, ‘Wait a minute, he was this important nuclear scientist! He’s a guru; thousands of people come and fall at his feet!’”
And this was, in many ways, exactly how Guruji liked it—this sort of humble accessibility helped defuse people’s self-consciousness and self-doubts, removing some of the primary barriers to spiritual practice. But at the same time, it could also lead them to underestimate the depth and breadth of his accomplishment.
“He does seem very unassuming nowadays,” said Balasingam Janahan, or “Jana,” a business executive based in Irvine, CA, and a seasoned Vedic priest for the area’s Hindu community. “He basically dismisses a lot of his own spiritual achievements and downplays a lot of the abilities that he used to share with us. But back then, you immediately knew there was something very unusual about him. He wasn’t so famous yet, but he had an extremely charismatic, even magnetic personality. His eyes had an almost hypnotic intensity.”
This “stricter” version of Guruji emerged most strongly when he worked with disciples displaying high aptitude, or promise as teachers themselves.
“Let me tell you unequivocally, Guruji in those days was not the way he is now,” Jana said. “You almost wouldn’t recognize him as the same Guruji that I first met in the 1980s.”
Haran Aiya, however, argued that—despite appearances to the contrary—Guruji remained essentially the same.
“He really never changed,” Aiya said. “It may sometimes have appeared on the surface that he was stricter in the beginning and gradually became more permissive and open with the passage of time—but in truth, he didn’t change. He simply measured what should be given to different people in different times and circumstances. Remember, ‘Sri Matre Namah’—‘the one who measures’—is the first name in the Lalita Sahasranama.”
Jana conceded that, even in the early days, Guruji modulated his approach to suit the capacity of his audience.
“Yes, he always kind of knew the level of people he was dealing with,” he said. “In later times, he left it to individual students to make their own choices about sadhana once they were initiated. But back then, he would tell you his orders exactly. He would give precise directions on how you must do this and do that, detailed to the minutest point.”
Jana was still a teenager when Guruji taught him his first puja, the Mahanyasam.
“He was a very strict teacher, with a very intense manner,” he said. “He actually got short with me at a couple of points, to the extent that I felt kind of bad; I thought I was upsetting him.”
When Guruji noticed his student’s distress, however, he explained, “No Jana, I am not angry at all. The reason I am hard on you is because I know you can do better, and I want you to get this exactly right.”
“In those days,” Jana added, “once you were initiated as Guruji’s disciple—particularly if he saw you as someone who could pass along his teachings—he would always check to make sure you were chanting the mantra, the number of times you were chanting it, the placement of your concentration—he would nurture you along every step of the way. And he would follow up frequently, asking questions about how your sadhana was progressing. Even when he was away, he would keep in touch by letters or ask you to call once in a while and bring him up to date on your sadhana.”
Even novices sometimes enjoyed a high level of one-on-one attention.
“During Guruji’s first visit to Toronto, I explained that I didn’t know Sanskrit,” recalled Sundhara Arasaratnam, a retired management consultant in Newmarket, Ontario. “I was worried I wasn’t pronouncing the mantras correctly. Instead of pointing me to ‘teach-yourself’ books, he sat down beside me and patiently taught me the basic Sanskrit letters—the vowels and the sets of consonants. Then he made a beautiful drawing that showed the locations of the chakras in our body, and how the Sanskrit letters map onto each of those chakras.”
 |
| Performing the mṛgi mudra, representing the guru’s feet upon one’s head and, through this, one’s connection with the guru lineage. Guruji and Amma are sitting behind. |
(from "The Goddess and the Guru"):
Some years later, after the building tasks at Devipuram wound down, he also taught some of the women who helped construct the temple. “He trained so many village girls to perform pujas and recite the mantras with perfect pronunciation,” daughter Rama noted. “Lalita Navavarana, Lalita Sahasranama, Trishati Ashtottaram, Khadgamala, the Panch Suktas, including the Rudram, the Kalavahana and Triveni Kalpam, as well as Varahi, Syama and Ganapati rituals, Bala Puja and more…”
Once again, Guruji came away impressed by their natural aptitude. “These girls came from poor, traditionally low-caste backgrounds,” he explained. “But if you went and saw how they did the pujas, how they dressed the goddess, you could see the love and fun with which they did everything, always giggling and laughing, really enjoying the process. This is precisely the sort of energy she loves. Nothing made Devi happier than having these girls as her priestesses.”
In 2013, American documentary filmmaker Julianne Reynolds profiled one of these village girls, named Leela, “loving her simplicity, innocence and absence of pride.” In the process, Reynolds learned that Leela had originally “wanted to live a much simpler life. She never set out to learn Sri Vidya pujas, but her mother got her the job at Devipuram, and she found that it gave her a sense of purpose and ownership. Guruji himself taught her this ancient wisdom, and she took to it with a butterfly’s grace.”
 |
| Guruji and Amma during the Prathista of Sahasrakshi, Devipuram, 1990. |
(from "The Goddess and the Guru"):
“Sri Vidya means ‘sacred learning,’” Guruji explained during a talk in mid-1980s, in a fairly early explanation of his approach. “It is a large body of rituals held secret for ages, restricted only to priests because of the immense powers that the learning unfolds with practice. The idea [of the tradition’s secrecy] was that destructive powers should not be made available to minds lacking discipline and compassion.”
These “destructive powers” involved pure śakti, the uncontrolled energy believed to be at play in the direct worship of the Goddess—as opposed to the “safer,” more modulated energy involved in approaching her indirectly as the subordinate consort of a male god. It was (and still widely is) believed that “goddesses bear a seemly, auspicious demeanor when they are subjected to the will of their husbands or consorts—that is, when they serve within the [socially and cosmically safe and predictable] structures that their spouses provide.” Direct worship of the Goddess, by contrast, meant invoking dangerous “powers of illusion, natural forces, and energy in a pure form, beyond the control of any governing, restraining structure.”
As a result, the practice of Sri Vidya came to be seen as “fraught with danger.” Indeed, it was popularly believed “that the worship of Śrī-chakra is elaborate, complex and hazardous, and very few people would venture to undertake it,” as one scholar-practitioner noted in the 1980s. Another scholar of the period observed, “Even today, the Dravidian-speaking sections of southern India give evidence—through puberty rites, menstrual taboos, and widow restrictions—of greater concern for controlling and containing female powers than do the Indo-Aryan linguistic regions of the north.”
These human “female restrictions” were both implicitly and explicitly extended to the Divine Feminine—with the result that direct worship of the Mother Goddess came to be considered a risky undertaking best confined to temples and solitary ascetics. Since any inadvertent ritual error or innocent mispronunciation of a mantra could invite disaster, even devout householders avoided Sri Vidya practice at home.
~
This then was the social and religious context within which Guruji first began promulgating his comparatively radical philosophy of openness and inclusion. “There was so much fear of worshiping the Mother in those days,” his sister Suryalakshmi recalled. “Not just fear of performing rituals like Sri Chakra Puja; people were scared to even read a hymn like the Sri Lalita Sahasranama. They were afraid it would cause disruption in their lives.”
Without ridiculing or dismissing these deeply ingrained superstitions, Guruji argued that they were based on social prejudice and chauvinism, not spiritual truth. “Guru Dattatreya was given to Atri, a sage, and his wife Anasuya,”¹³¹ he said, “which indicates that one can be a householder and still do sadhana. He was openly ritualistic and a great Tantric. He taught the worship of Shakti to people from all classes. His system was called Kaula,¹³² meaning ‘total’—internal as well as external worship.”
Accordingly, Guruji’s teachings in Vizag during this period display repeated reassurances and deep compassion toward his students, especially women. He went out of his way to assure them that the Divine Mother would never seek to harm them, that they were all her children and she sought only to love and protect them. “People used to stream in throughout the day to listen to him,” Sundari Amma recalled. “He would sweep away their fear and apprehension, and awaken within them new enthusiasm, devotion and faith.”
For example, just before Guruji left for Africa, Sundari Amma’s mother told him she was worried her daughter was practicing Sri Vidya in his absence. “What if something goes amiss in the pujas or mantra japa while you are away?” she asked him. Guruji took the elder woman’s hands in his own and replied, “Dear lady, do not worry about your daughter. If she makes any mistakes I will absorb them and give over to her whatever merits she receives. The Divine Mother’s grace is with us, so what do we have to fear?”
Noted Sundari Amma, “This image of the guru offering my mother abhaya—absolving her from fear—holds a special place in my heart.”
Suryalakshmi added, “He taught people as a satguru¹³³—as ‘one who dispels the darkness’—that the Goddess is a gentle mother, loving, kind, doting, and compassionate. He taught them that it was okay to read and recite her hymns and prayers, to keep a Sri Chakra in their home, to do puja to Rajarajeswari, Kali, Saraswati—to all of these goddesses and more.”
Guruji gradually instilled confidence in his followers that anyone could pray to the Divine Mother—whenever, wherever and however they wished. And in time, with his encouragement and Amma’s example, more and more women (and men) began actively participating in his pujas and recitations. Before long, many were independently organizing and leading recitations, prayers, rituals and other homages to the Goddess on their own.
 |
| Guru Garu and Guruji |
(from "The Goddess and the Guru"):
One Sunday morning, looking to connect with a wider community of spiritual seekers, Guruji took his family to the Yoga Shakti Mission on Napean Sea Road in Bombay. In those days, it was the city’s premier gathering spot for the spiritually minded, offering yoga retreats, puja lessons and meditation classes. In addition, various swamis, yoga masters, mystical poets and religious thinkers would come and deliver “Sunshine Lectures,” as they were called, on a wide variety of educational and inspirational topics. It was at one of these Lectures that Guruji first met an accomplished sadhaka and guru named Sri B.S. Krishnamurthy, who was widely known and respected in Bombay circles as a devout, knowledgeable and deeply orthodox specialist in complex Vedic and Sri Vidya ritual.103
“Krishnamurthy Gurugaru was a short, jovial, almost baby-faced gentleman with twinkling eyes and a smiling countenance all the time,” Guruji’s daughter Radha affectionately recalled. “He loved to perform these really elaborate rituals—a Navavarana Puja104 would go on for five or six hours! He had a deep, impressive, resonating voice, and he sang bhajans and kirtans105 very well. He would take a disciple’s hand in his and give shaktipat with an intense, locking gaze of two or three minutes.”
From their very first meeting, Krishnamurthy took a liking to Guruji—though he quickly understood that this unassuming, soft-spoken scientist was no typical householder seeking edifying lectures and lessons in puja technique. By this time, after all, Guruji was meditating nightly, reciting Gurugaru’s mantras and steadily stoking their power. He also spent countless hours learning and performing pujas—not as a matter of grim personal discipline, but because he found genuine peace and joy in it. He was delving into arcane spiritual texts and exploring unimaginable universes—careening through past, present and future—with a goddess. He had begun to visibly glow with the intensity of his spiritual efforts.
So while Krishnamurthy understood that Guruji would glean very little from any Sunshine Lecture, he felt that this unusual man might be an ideal candidate for delivering one—and his instinct was squarely on the mark. Before long, Guruji’s lectures were drawing large crowds. His clear-minded, unpretentious, often humorous presentations on sadhana, mantra, Sri Yantra, the Lalita Sahasranama, Kundalini Yoga and meditation technique were fresh, personal and original. Moreover, his status as a reality-grounded TIFR scientist—seemingly the polar opposite of a stereotypical starry-eyed mystic, with his casually erudite blending of science and spirituality—lent him a distinct curiosity appeal that differentiated him from other speakers on the Mission’s roster.106 For Guruji himself, it was a time of self-discovery, cultivating the seeds of his public life to come. Here was a man both finding his voice and realizing that he had something vital to say, honing his presentation and delivery style, refining his teaching technique—and growing accustomed to having an audience.
Noting Guruji’s particular interest in the Goddess, Krishnamurthy began inviting him to accompany and assist in the performance of Sri Vidya rituals. “I learned the Navavarana Puja in the Dattatreya tradition, along with the 64 offerings and mudras,107 by keenly watching Sri Krishnamurthy perform those rituals every evening,” Guruji said. “Within a fairly short time, I too became adept at performing these more complex pujas.”
Almost immediately, Guruji also began to display another lifelong spiritual preoccupation: an instinct toward simplification. The pujas and other rituals conducted by Krishnamurthy were rigidly orthodox and extremely elaborate, often lasting for hours (and not infrequently for days) on end. Guruji felt that busy working people—parents, breadwinners and homemakers—who might otherwise be interested in such spiritual pursuits, were undoubtedly being put off by the sheer time investment required.
So by referring to multiple ritual instruction books and scriptures, as well as his own meditational revelations, Guruji sat down and developed procedures for completing a full Goddess puja in between 90 and 120 minutes. Impressed by the thoughtfulness and precision of Guruji’s research and the logic of his revisions, Krishnamurthy agreed to try. Sure enough, Guruji’s approach was extremely well received by participants, and soon Sri Krishnamurthy was conducting their streamlined rituals for growing crowds, not just in Bombay but all over India. Krishnamurthy was both astonished and impressed.
Not long afterward, when he was scheduled to conduct a traditional, four-day yagna at Mookambika Devi Temple in Kollur, Krishnamurthy invited Guruji and Amma to come and assist him. Guruji’s work obligations at TIFR kept him away for most of the event, but he and Amma arrived in time for the purnahuti108 on the final day. Immediately afterward, Krishnamurthy—without any prior warning—announced with great gravity that he had decided to accept Guruji and Amma as his disciples. He gave them both the Maha Shodashi mantra, the highest level of purnadiksha.109
Guruji said he recalled experiencing “no specific sensation” on this occasion “other than that it felt cold, like cool rain sprinkling down on a hot day.” But on a more practical level—in light of his increasingly fruitful guru-disciple relationship with Anakapalle Gurugaru—he found himself in a quandary. “For a time, I was torn between these two gurus,” Guruji said. “I was confused! Which one to accept? Two gurus, and both of them forced it on me! It was not a very comfortable predicament.”
Daughter Anantalakshmi noted that the contrast between the two masters could not have been starker. “Krishnamurthy Gurugaru had a gentle, smiling demeanor—an aura of peace around him; basically, being near him was a comfort zone,” she explained. “Whereas being near Anakapalle Gurugaru was more like a discomfort zone. You had to constantly expect the unexpected. One moment he might be friendly and talkative, the next, surly and silent—then he’d dismiss you with a single word or phrase. But what an aura of power he emanated! So perhaps you could say this was a case of two very different sorts of gurus—one to keep you balanced, and the other to shake you up and snap you out of whatever it was that needed snapping!”
The situation came to a head soon afterward when Guruji traveled to Anakapalle and told Gurugaru all that had transpired with Krishnamurthy.
Gurugaru listened to his student’s account patiently, then cackled loudly, scoffing, “Maha Shodashi by itself isn’t even purnadiksha! You need the mahavakyas too!110 But anyway it doesn’t matter, because I am going to give you purnadiksha my way.” He sprinkled some water on Guruji’s head, gave him the Maha Shodashi mantra and the mahavakyas, and removed the diksha name given by Sri Krishnamurthy—whereupon he renamed Guruji “Sri Amritananda Natha Saraswati.”111
The “diksha war” simmered for another few months, according to daughter Radha: “When Guruji told Krishnamurthy about Gurugaru’s action, he responded, ‘Who is he to give you Mahavakyas?!’—and he also gave Guruji the mahavakyas. And the competition to become Guruji’s guru was taken to a new level!”
In the end, however, Gurugaru easily won the day. A deeply unconventional sadhaka, siddha and yogic prodigy, utterly dismissive of outward social niceties and expectations, he was in many ways Guruji’s perfect match as friend, guide and guru, giving him free, “do as you will” latitude in developing his own powerful and personal spiritual practice. Krishnamurthy, on the other hand, remained—despite his respect for Guruji’s innovations—a stickler for the strict, ritualistic “methods and methodologies” for which he was justly renowned. Guruji was ultimately too subjective and intuitive a practitioner to be satisfied with that sort of teacher; moreover, his sadhana was advancing prodigiously—arguably outstripping Krishnamurthy’s own.
In the months and years that followed, Guruji and Krishnamurthy gradually grew apart.112 While Krishnamurthy would remain in contact with Guruji, occasionally attending and participating in major events at Devipuram, the guru-disciple relationship was decisively over. “I had found the simpler yogi to be my real guru,” Guruji said.
Their affection was mutual, and it was always clear that Guruji held an honored place in Gurugaru’s esteem. Sometimes, for example, Gurugaru would sit alone in his room, meditating for hours while long queues of supplicants sweltered in the heat outside waiting to offer donations, narrate problems, and seek prayers, advice and blessings. “He wouldn’t see any of them,” Guruji said. “He’d tell them ‘Go away! Get out of here!’ But with me it was always different. He’d say, ‘Ah Sastry, it’s you! Come in! Sit down!’”
Why the special status? Guruji shrugged.
“Maybe he knew I didn’t have any money, so I wouldn’t try to offer him anything,” he replied. “But at the same time he knew I wasn’t going to ask him for anything either. Maybe he knew that I just came to see him because I liked him.”
~
Guruji’s affinity for Gurugaru extended well beyond the realm of personal resonance. Both Gurugaru and Krishnamurthy, he explained, “belonged to the Kaulachara Dattatreya tradition, so either way I belonged to that tradition. Within it, however, there are three bhavas called pashu, veera and divya.113 The pashu knows the shastra but is doubtful about practice of any of the panchamakaras, or Five Ms.114 The veera practices the Five Ms. The divya has no need for an external shakti; his shakti is Kundalini, which is fully internal.” While “Krishnamurthy-ji had a wide knowledge of scriptures, and could recite the Vedas beautifully, he was a Kaula of the veera order,” Guruji said. “I later learned that I had finished my veera sadhana in earlier lives.”
Anakapalle Gurugaru, on the other hand, “was a yogi of the siddha order,” meaning that “he did practice the Five Ms earlier in his life, but after taking the sannyasa order he stopped them. He became what he himself used to call an ‘Upanishad Kaula,’ which meant the same thing as divya bhava—that is, one who has no further need to use the Five Ms.”
In terms of spiritual evolution then, Gurugaru made the most sense as a teacher and guide for Guruji. “He was a siddha, meaning his words always used to come true,” Guruji said. “He never insisted on surrender from his disciples. He never misbehaved with women that I know of. So I veered toward him,” ultimately concluding that “my true guru was Swami Swaprakasananda”—that is, Anakapalle Gurugaru.
 |
| Haran Aiya, Sundhara Arasaratnam and Guruji in Rochester, NY, with a set of recordings of Guruji’s early lectures, c. 1988. |
(from "The Goddess and the Guru"):
“When Haran came to see me and asked me, very hesitantly, for initiation into Sri Vidya, I gladly accepted him as my spiritual son,” Guruji said. In all, he initiated Aiya and Sakuntala Amma into 16 Sri Vidya mantras, including the Maha Shodashi, and later taught them “the intricacies of performing Sri Chakra Navavarana Puja according to the Dattatreya tradition.” Aiya, for his part, displayed a nearly insatiable depth of curiosity over every nuance and subtlety of Sri Vidya liturgy.
“When I met Haran, he was a live wire!” Guruji said years later, joking about the intensity of those
months together in Lusaka. “I made the fundamental mistake of trying to correct some errors in his
pronunciation, and the next thing you know I had become his guru! That was a real problem! If I hadn’t
made that error, I would probably have been an ordinary person today!”
~
As the relationship and collaboration between Aiya and Guruji deepened, the problem of Brahmin
prejudice, such as it was, soon faded as well. “Guruji never discussed it with me, but I heard through the
grapevine that a few of the Brahmins actually confronted him on the issue,” Aiya confided. “Guruji Amma told me later that she had never seen him so angry! After that, no one had the courage to confront him
again.”
But they were still watching Aiya. What would he do with this long-exclusively-Brahmin knowledge?
Would it have any effect at all on this presumptuous man and his ever-more-popular puja gatherings?
“Well, in two months’ time, they saw the change taking place in me,” Aiya said. “Because when deep
change begins to take place inside a person, it’s going to manifest on the outside as well. And they started thinking, ‘My God, maybe this fellow really got something! What if we missed the bus?’ And quietly —one by one by one—they too went and asked Guruji for initiation. And Guruji, with no hesitation whatsoever, gave it to them.”
A rich period of spiritual common purpose ensued, which Balu would later credit to the Goddess’s
grace in bringing Guruji to Africa:
How else can one explain the fact that the many who so aspired, in this far-off city of Lusaka and this far-off land of Zambia, found their Guru at the right time? And what is more, [that] the Guru came to Zambia, unbeknown to the shishyas-to-be, as if in search of them. One can only say She willed [it] and things happened. … The acceptance of any[one, regardless of caste] as a shishya and an upasaka, and the Mantras which were to be given, were all as revealed to Guruji by Sri Devi. Blessed indeed are those who were thus initiated in Lusaka!
Aiya’s daughter Saru, though only a child of seven at the time, fondly remembers one of her first
encounters with Guruji. “My most vivid early memory of him took place at his home in Zambia,” she said. “Any time Aiya went over there he’d bring me along. That day Guruji was in his shrine room, just
finishing a Navavarana Puja, and all I could see was this beautiful red fruit—some sort of African plum,
I think—sitting under the little pedestal where he kept his Meru. I kept staring at it while he and my father were talking; for some reason I thought it was the most beautiful fruit I’d ever seen. And Guruji must have noticed because, as we were leaving, he leaned down and handed me that fruit, saying, ‘Here, this is for you.’ I still think it was the most delicious thing I ever tasted!”
~
On any number of levels, Guruji was getting an on-the-job crash course in spiritual leadership. He was
invited to perform weddings, something he’d never done before. He was asked to consecrate an idol of
Lalita Devi, another ritual he had never performed. He became a driving force in the founding of Sri
Lakshmi Narayana Temple—Zambia’s first Hindu temple, in Lusaka—and played a pivotal role in
establishing the Amman Temple in the smaller city of Kafue, 30 miles away through remote grasslands
teeming with elephants, lions and hippopotamuses. Both temples still thrive today—and three decades
after their founding, a newspaper story on the Kafue Temple still noted Guruji’s and Haran Aiya’s
contribution:
In 1979, ten devotees constructed a hall to meet the needs of devotees visiting the temple. … On the suggestion of Mr. Vijaya Haran [sic] and Dr. N. Prahlada Sastri [sic], a Professor at the University of Zambia, who were expounding Lalitha worship, it was God’s will that Lalitha Ambigai (or Kanchi Kamakshi) be installed in the temple sanctum. The deity [was] specially made in India. The duo
[Guruji and Aiya] visited India and brought the deity specially made of five-metal alloy [i.e., panchaloha] in Madras. At the installation of Lalitha Ambigai, along with a Maha Meru, on Masi Maham day in February 1980, it was suggested that her sons, Ganesh and Skanda, accompany the mother. Mr. N. Gananadha volunteered and brought the two deities, [also] made of pancha
loham [sic], from Jaffna, Sri Lanka. On 13th September 1980, Dr. N.P. Sastri installed Ganesh and Skanda at the temple.
Guruji accomplished all these tasks, he said, by following Gurugaru’s advice and directly asking the
Goddess to instruct him. “I only learned the mantras from my guru,” he said. “Their inner meanings, their deeper meanings—and the deeper aspects of how to conduct the pujas and such things—these were all taught to me directly by Lady Saraswati.”
(from "The Goddess and the Guru"):
One of the major challenges that many practitioners run into, when they take on Guruji’s teachings, is the existence of many variations of the same teaching, idea or practice. For instance, in the practice of ṣaṭcakra japa one may find number of different ways to position the cakras in the body (i.e. symmetrical, centred and mixed). By going through his teachings on yantra pujas one may notice different variations of the same mantra or different sequence of steps. This can be quite challenging for a person who is looking for consistency and logic to be present in his writings.
All of this stems from Guruji’s unique free spirited nature, his intellectual curiosity and the incessant drive for experimentation which can be seen in many facets of his life.
Physics:
Guruji thoroughly enjoyed pure physics and fondly remembered the free experimentation environment at TIFR early on in his career. “‘The motivation came from inside, and once it came there was no stopping us,’ Guruji said. ‘We were at it from 6 o’clock in the morning until 12 o’clock midnight, and then coming back for more.’ His direct supervisor Professor B.V. Thoson was… a staunch advocate of complete intellectual freedom for his scientists. Without it, he believed, they would devolve into mere wage-earners doing their bosses’ bidding. He wanted his scientists to break boundaries, not submit to them.”
Food:
Guruji was a major foodie. “He possessed no natural culinary talent but loved experimenting in the kitchen, trying to discover new flavors by ‘combining the most bizarre ingredients’—while often forgetting the most common ones, such as salt. ‘Dad would constantly pester us to sample his latest creations,’ [his daughter] Radha laughed. ‘Needless to say, we were less than enthusiastic to do so!’ At one point he was researching and experimenting with the art of baking pakodas rather than frying them.”
Social Projects:
“One project that particularly captures the breadth of Guruji’s intellectual curiosity—as well as his willingness to experiment with real-world techniques and get his hands dirty applying them—was his design and construction of ‘low-cost, fire-retardant geodesic dome houses for pilgrims and other visitors at Devipuram,’ with the underlying goal of demonstrating the viability of such designs in rural India.”
Sri Vidya:
“Guruji took radical attempts to popularize Sri Vidya and conservative practitioners continually questioned the legitimacy of his efforts. They complained that his lack of secrecy, his openness to other traditions, and his free mixing of eclectic influences (from nuclear physics to Reiki) created an ungainly, unholy hybrid that was no longer truly Sri Vidya at all. Indeed, Guruji’s open-minded ease with hybridization often surprised even Western seekers—many of whom had, after all, sought him out precisely because he was an acknowledged guru in an ancient, authentic Hindu lineage, and his teachings carried a corresponding authority. But Guruji was not interested in preserving some abstract conception of ‘purity’ for its own sake—his criteria for any practice always focused primarily on the question of what worked and why. In an effort to popularise Sri Vidya and bring it to the masses, he constantly looked to distill and simplify rituals. He went through numerous versions of a simplified Sri Chakra puja ritual (i.e. Triveni Kalpam) before eventually coming to one called Kalavahana, which itself had number of different variations.”
(from 5:32 on video):
I must remind you that 50 years ago I was 50 years younger, and 30 years ago I was 30 years younger, and 10 years ago I was 10 years younger, and today I’m 80 years old. I’m growing, I’m evolving, I’m changing. My understanding 50 years ago was different from my understanding 30 years ago, and different from the understanding I had 10 years ago, and is different from the understanding I have today.
So when some disciple asked me a question 50 years ago I would have given him an answer. That answer would have changed when asked 30 years ago and would have changed again when asked 10 years ago. So there are different versions of answers. The Guru has a right to be inconsistent. Amongst all the fundamental rights, the Guru reserves right to change his version based on his understanding and current understanding level. So we won’t have to fight about different versions. Every version is right, no matter what version you use, stick to that one version. There are small deviations here and there, small difference in interpretation. Don’t worry about difference, stick to one damn thing whatever it is — and that’s right.
If you have picture here and some portion is dark here, and some portion is red here, and some portion is white. Dark is right here, red is right here, white is right there. So they can be different. Because dark is not the same thing as red and not the same thing as white — they are not in conflict. This one is right, that one is right, and that one is also right. Even though they may appear to contradict each other. Their purpose, the intent, the experience they deliver is the same. So don’t worry about small differences.
I have number of teachers here, who have been trained at different times and they have different versions. I request all teachers to stand up. I request all people who are acting as teachers, demonstrators please stand up. Everyone who’s teaching here please stand up. Or anyone who has interest in teaching — stand up. Now find a chair near you and please stand up. Amongst these different teachers you pick your teacher. The number of volunteers, number of students here, whom you are comfortable, whom you like, the one who you are attracted to, you pick that one and stick to that one; do not change your teacher. Don’t change your book, don’t change your teacher. Stick to that.
The teachers may fight, let them fight, but we don’t fight. And I think the first time you are learning by watching this video, it may or may not correspond with the version that you got, and the version that you are using may be different from the one given. So you are getting confused whether what is there in the book is same thing that was there in that and what the teacher is saying. The teacher says one thing, the book says one thing and the procedures that are being followed are one thing. So there’s a confusion in our minds.
So I suggest, as one of my Guru’s has told me, that you [indiscernible] takes place first, one person does the actual puja, at that time you don’t do the puja, just observe the person doing the puja. And you have the grace to choose your teacher. The teacher doesn’t have the choice to his disciples, but you have the choice to choose your teacher. If you are Spanish speaking person I suggest you choose Ximena [ indiscernible] depended upon whom you think represents the truth and being closest to Guru is the latest version. And after they do the [indiscernible] you try to follow that, try do it yourself. Don’t try doing the first time.
| Guruji performing prana pratishtha to Rajarajeshvari Devi on Saturday, January 19, 1991 after She arrived to Rochester from the Stroudsburg peetam. In the picture (from left to right) VP Raghavan, Saru Haran, Sundara, Balasingam Janahan and Haran Aiya. |
(by Balasingam Janahan):
I was fortunate enough to have known this master—whom I proudly called my Guruji—in the flesh for 27 years. Over the course of those years, he took me on an adventure from which I have yet to return. And that is what the teachings contained herein can do for you. Guruji’s ability to understand the nuances of the body, mind and spirit—and the differences between people hailing from different places and times—enabled him to write various methodologies for understanding the self. You can pick and choose the ones that call out to you and for you, and begin your own journey today.
Guruji saw the divine in every individual he encountered. He saw each of us as a vessel holding and manifesting the divine in some precious and unique way—and therefore he saw each of us as worthy of worship.
In that firm conviction, he marched boldly forward to explain and impart the unorthodox teachings practiced by ancient Tantrikas of yore to all who desired to learn. His calling was to share the authentic, well-guarded teachings of Sri Vidya with any true seeker, so that anyone who wished to could get a glimpse of his experiences for themselves.
And while his efforts did stir up controversy within many orthodox traditions, Guruji never swayed from instilling the teachings that he felt were relevant for this time and age. For he knew, once an individual put the seed of these teachings into practice, that seed would germinate and grow, and—through the compassionate grace of the Divine Mother—the recipient would come to find their own inner guide to reaching their higher purpose.
I think it’s safe to say that Guruji was always a practicing sādhaka. I was a direct witness of him practicing what he preached. His discipline was to wake up at 2 a.m. and commence his sadhana. It would end just at the time when most of us were waking up to start the day. This routine was prolonged even further when he was in the process of building the Sri Meru temple at Devipuram. I watched him use his photographic memory to recall descriptive details of the goddesses he saw in his meditation so that they could be conveyed to the temple sculptors.
Guruji’s total dedication to and focus on this task was unparalleled, and I made it my mission to emulate his example and bring it into my own sadhana. And though I may have had many doubts and setbacks along the path, I am proud to say that there was never a day that I stopped practicing my sadhana—and this was directly due to Guruji’s example, and to the strict disciplinarian I saw in him.
Accordingly, I must inform you that these are the prerequisites to gaining success in the practices given by Guruji. If you are serious about making progress, it is my humble suggestion that you take heed of these steps that the master followed himself:
Choose your sadhana.
Over time, strive to understand and master its details and intricacies.
Persistently continue to pursue your sadhana with laser-like focus.
Realize the fruits of your efforts.
Guruji followed these four steps himself, coating them with a generous dose of discipline—and what he attained from these practices was what many of us disciples saw as effulgence radiating though his eyes.
Toward the later part of his life, I was blessed to frequently visit my master in his hometown of Visakhapatnam, India, where we shared many great meals and conversations. On the last day of one such visit, I was massaging his leg, which was swollen and troubling him greatly. He watched my face intently as I tried to hide my moistened eyes, and finally he said, “I know what you are worried about, Jana. You are afraid of what will become of you after I leave this body, of how you will continue to progress on the path.” Before I could answer him, he smiled, touched my head and said, “Don’t worry. I will always be with you.”
And to this day I truly believe he never left me, and that his energy will continue to vibrate with eternal truth, through the knowledge he gifted to this world.
(by William Thomas):
Thirty years ago, by the strangest of chances, I met Wijayaharan Aiya—a senior disciple of Sri Amritananda Natha Saraswati, or Guruji—on a business matter in upstate New York. It was 1988. Haran said he taught yoga and maintained a small Hindu temple in his converted garage at 33 Park Circle in Henrietta, New York, just outside Rochester. He invited me to come and see it, so I did. And I was blown away—not just by the temple itself, but by the intensity of Haran’s devotion to the Mother Goddess.
I began visiting the temple on a regular basis, and Haran treated me like a member of his own family. We had spiritual discussions, performed pujas, and before long he gave me a simple mantra to practice. One day a few months later he said, “My guru is coming from India. You have to meet him.” I was already so impressed with Haran and his teachings—I remember thinking, what would it be like to meet his teacher?!
Suffice it to say, I wasn’t disappointed. I remember entering Haran’s living room, and there, sitting in an easy chair, was a middle-aged Indian man with a big salt-and-pepper beard, wearing a white dress shirt and a dhoti. I sat at his feet. When my eyes met his, I felt a thrill, a warmth surge through my body. I melted into those eyes. I sensed such pure compassion—such unconditional love—emanating from this gentle, soft-spoken man.
I remember thinking, “This must be what it would have been like to meet Christ.” He asked me how I’d come to be there, and after I told him my story he smiled sweetly and said, “Good.” I told him I was planning a trip to India to see Sai Baba. He said, “Yes, you should.” Then he added, “You are welcome to stay with me and my family while you’re in India.” I was, of course, thrilled to accept his offer.
When I first arrived at Devipuram in November 1989, Guruji was keen to put my video camera to use—it was a rare commodity in India in those days. I recorded videos of daily life at Devipuram. I filmed Guruji performing a Tantric Śakti Pūjā.
As a person, he amazed me. He had a depth that I had never felt from another human being in my entire life. As a teacher, he was highly intelligent and ethical, but without any whiff of superiority—only humility. He treated everyone with kindness and respect. He was always open to new ideas, and he listened to everyone, asking our opinions and treating us all equally. He felt that the Goddess spoke through and guided us all.
Once, he took me on a trip to the area around Devipuram—from the beautiful Araku Valley, to the massive Borra Caves, to mountains in the jungle. At one point we stopped by a large, rushing stream, and Guruji said to one of the temple volunteers, “Please bring me a yantra.” When it was handed to him, Guruji placed it beneath the water and said, “There. Someday someone will find this and build a temple here.”
On the way back to Devipuram, we stopped in the town of Anakapalle to meet his guru—Swami Svaprakāśānanda Tīrtha Haṃsa Avadhūta, or simply Gurugaru. He was like a magic elf from a fairy tale, wraith-thin with an orange tone to his skin. Guruji and Amma kept telling me, “Whatever you do, don’t ask him for anything.” (I later found out that asking Gurugaru for things could go terribly wrong.) Luckily, I followed their advice.
The visit flew by, and when it was time to leave, Guruji said, “I have a gift for you.” And he handed me his own Shiva lingam from his puja room. He said, “This is for you. You are my son now. You may not be my blood relative, but you are my spiritual son.” I was overwhelmed. I’d never met people who showed me so much kindness in such a short amount of time.
Guruji was an amazing spiritual teacher and adept—a unique joining of disciplined scientific genius and a deeply spiritual mindset. He could come down to anyone’s level and communicate clearly. He could describe advanced spiritual concepts and expound on them with pure physics. He could give you an answer on any subject, if he wanted to. He would just close his eyes for a bit, and then come out with a detailed reply. I once heard him talk shop with an aviation engineer, though he knew nothing about building airplanes. Goddess Saraswati gave him the information, he told me later.
At all times, he projected an unmistakable aura of peace and contentment. All you had to do was be in the same room with him and you, too, felt happy, calm and blissful. I remember wanting to ask him so many questions or tell him all about my problems—but when I’d actually get near him, I’d forget or not care anymore; all my stress was gone, and I was happy. The best part was when I did namaskāram—prostrated and touched his feet—that was magical. You could get high from the energy he emanated. It lasted for hours.
But the best thing about Guruji was that he was always approachable, like a loving father and—I have to say—a loving mother, too. For he was, I believe, a living incarnation of the Devi, always guiding his children with love and attention. I was lucky to be tutored by Guruji in Tantric philosophy and practice. On my third trip to India, I came with a close female friend. Guruji took us to the Kāmākhya Pīṭha and guided us through a private Tantric puja. My friend and I sat on his knees as he gave us both the Mahāṣōḍaśī Mantra.693 It was like a dream, like being in another world, surrounded by nonjudgment and unconditional love.
The Sri Vidya teachings of Guruji were, in my opinion, of the highest caliber. He could translate the most esoteric concepts into layperson’s language. But the main thing he taught us was to follow our own intuition, that soft voice coming from within. “Always follow your heart,” he would say. “When Devi is guiding you, you can never go wrong.”
In essence, he was telling us to follow our inner guru and not be dependent upon anyone or anything outside ourselves—which ultimately meant being independent of him as a guru as well. In that sense, his legacy was one of radical freedom. He encouraged all of us to practice and teach in our own way, in our own style—to allow our inner Goddess (or Guru) to guide us along our personal path. In my estimation there will never be another guru like him again.
That is, until he returns.
(from "A Jewel From My Mother's Crown"):
Lakṣmī – Jñāna Śakti
Immediately after the birth process, protection and nourishment has to be given. Where does it come from? It comes from the Mother's breasts as her milk. There she is known as Lakṣmī. She is the ocean of milk that comes from the breasts of the female; there the child feeds. The first milk that comes out of the mother's breasts has immunization properties. Do you know how to make that milk? You ate food and it became milk. That power to give nourishment is what we call Lakṣmī. The nipples through which milk comes is the location of the second aspect of the Mother we worship.
Sarasvatī – Icchā Śakti
Then the child grows and after some time it leaves the mother's breast and looks for outside food. The child is not interested in receiving nourishment from the mother any more. Neither is that mother able to provide it. It receives nourishment from knowledge. Then the third mother comes into existence. That is Sarasvatī. She is in the tongue.
When you are talking, are you aware of where the tongue has to go in order to create a certain sequence or sounds? No, you are not aware. Still that is the function of Sarasvatī, to teach. This learning process starts at the age of about two and a quarter years. The first part is 9 months; the second part is 27 months and the third part 81 months (about 7 years of age) you are taken care of by Sarasvatī, the third mother.
In Devī Bhāgavatam, which describes:
Mahākālī in 1 chapter,
Mahālakṣmī in 3 chapters, and
Mahāsarasvatī in 9 chapters.
The times 1–3–9 are established. Since Mahākālī creates the child in womb in 9 months, the number of months each mother takes to do her work is given as:
9 × 1 = 9 months (Mahākālī)
9 × 3 = 27 months (Mahālakṣmī)
9 × 9 = 81 months (Mahāsarasvatī)
In the Devī Mahātmyam, in the first part there is only one chapter, the second part has three chapters and the third part has nine chapters, where you have to dance your way through life with happiness and pleasure. For that you have too many obstructions to your progress. In this part you will find a great battle being waged against all the demons and how the Devīs overcome them one by one. The worst of these demons is Raktabīja. Raktabīja means the triggering of one thought from another.
Icchā, Jñāna, and Kriyā Śakti
The Icchā Śakti is located as Sarasvatī at the tip of your tongue. Worship of the face gives you will power and emotional intelligence called Icchā Śakti. Especially when you concentrate on the eyebrow center = ājñā cakra, it develops your power to control yourself and others.
Jñāna Śakti is worshipped in the heart center, and
Kriyā Śakti is worshipped in the yonī.
If you want to manifest or create a physical form, worship of the yonī brings this power into you. All your fears and sexuality are located in the first two cakras. Worship is paying attention to feeling of respect; it removes your negativities and paves the way to power and love. Worship of the heart center gives you the blessings of knowledge, protection, immunity, wealth and prosperity.
The Lalitā Sahasranāma talks in detail about these various aspects. There is a mantra appropriate to worshipping the Devī in the heart center, and that is Rāja-Śyāmala. There is a mantra which corresponds to the Ājñā center which is called Vārāhī. There is a mantra corresponding to the Brahmarandhra, the Sahasrāra cakra, and that is a single letter mantra called Sauḥ.
It is Para. It is the hissing sound of the kuṇḍalinī snake as it rises up the spinal cord. When it reaches the Sahasrāra it opens its hood up and implodes the cosmos into you. Viṣṇu is sleeping under the hood of the serpent Śeṣa. It means that the cosmos and cosmic consciousness (Viṣṇu) is under the protection of this Kuṇḍalinī force. It is both a creative and a destructive force. It creates order and destroys disorder.
The Symbolism of the Snake
The symbolism of the snake is a universal archetype over the ages in various cultures. Imagine a snake crawling over your body and that you are a small child and that you are not aware that it is a snake. Or you have not learned to name it as a snake. What do you find? You find a supreme pleasure in its touch. It coils around your limbs and a beautiful massage is being given to you by the snake. In this situation you are not naming it and not identifying it with a situation that is potentially dangerous. You play with it.
This is the nature of Śivā. The moment you associate that situation with the notion of fear that it can kill you, then the fear is related to the Mūlādhārā cakra. On the one hand there is pleasure and on the other hand there is fear. This combination of the pleasure–fear complex is what is symbolized by the snake.
If you look at the philosophical structure behind this, you find that the snake is something that moves in a wavy, curvy fashion, not straight. They say that when you are drunk you move in a wavy fashion, you are not clear in what direction you are moving. If this snake becomes drunk, what does it do? It moves straight.
The mind and its thought patterns are like the snakes, going hither and dither in wavy fashions. But when the mind becomes steady and one-pointed, when it flows relatively straight, then it is “drunken”. This is the drink that they refer to in the tantrā. The drink, the ambrosia which makes your mind one-pointed and straight.
The Kuṇḍalinī Śakti is flowing up the suśumṇā channel instead of going round the petals in whatever way it wants. This is the symbol of the snake.
Kuṇḍalinī, Pañcadaśī, and Union
You can worship the Pañcadaśī in a particular portion of your body. The usual portion associated with the Devī is the svādhiṣṭhāna cakra. That is where she resides. When the Kuṇḍalinī is sleeping, you are aware of the world and feel separate from the world. When the Kuṇḍalinī is awakening, your separateness is getting lost step by step.
What causes this separateness? You are interacting with the world through your five sensory modes of perception. They are all local magnifiers. So you are not knowing the world as it exists, but through the filters of your senses. When Kuṇḍalinī awakens, it enables you to transcend these sensory limitations. For example, you can smell distant odours, taste remote juices, see distant forms, touch distant objects, and hear music continents apart. One after the other these senses are being transcended.
So the ascent of the Kuṇḍalinī, this consciousness-provoking, dynamic power, is the loss of your separation from cosmos, your source. It can be called worship of the yonī from which you came.
Kuṇḍalinī is thus said to be sleeping in the Mūlādhārā cakra, coiling itself 3 and 1/2 times around. Going round the waist (maṇipūra), chest (anāhatā), and neck (viśuddhi) are the three coils of the snake. And then the head of the snake is going into the vagina through the vulva (svādhiṣṭhāna) to the cervix (mūlādhārā) and that is where the tip of the liṅgam is going to be. That is where the head of the snake is sleeping.
When the Kuṇḍalinī reverses its flow from the Mūlādhārā center of the Śakti, it enters the Mūlādhārā center of the male and flows in a reverse action and comes to the svādhiṣṭhāna, which is the base of the liṅgam, and then moves up the spinal cord behind and comes up to the Sahasrāra. This is the transfer of energy from the Śakti to the Śivā in the yogic posture of union.
The exchange of energy can take place between the Śivā and Śakti in union. You oscillate. This oscillation can build up to the navel center; from the navel center to the heart center; from the heart center to the throat center; from the throat center to the ājñā center and then the circle is closed. When the circuit gets closed, then the cosmic consciousness is supposed to happen; the Śivā and Śakti do not experience their separateness. They become one and thus the consummation between Śivā and Śakti.
This is the purpose of the marriage: to experience this cosmic oneness of one soul moving in two bodies, between husband and wife. That is called mokṣa.
Paśu and Paśupati
You have passed a lifelong term of imprisonment on yourself stating that you are going to live in this body, this mind, and live with these thoughts. When you are able to escape from these three sets of notions then you are Paśupati, you are Śivā. When you are confined by these notions, you are a paśu, a beast.
A beast is tied by strings. The strings that bind you are your fear, your seeking for sensations, your power addictions, and in a limiting fashion the love you have for others. These are all strings.
(from "A Jewel From My Mother's Crown"):
The word “mother” brings to our minds usually the “one who gives birth to”. I was born out of her womb and that is my place of birth. The birth channel, the yonī = vagina is the only entity that really qualifies to be called the mother. It is indeed a temple where the Goddess who gives birth is located. We call the Goddess there as Gaurī (creatrix).
The yonī is also the place where billions of sperms who are trying to get a chance to live are destroyed. That is why she is known as Kālī (destroyer). Gaurī is the one who accepts the seed and gives it life, and Kālī is one who accepts the seed but destroying it. For this reason, it is important to worship Kālī during menstruation, when conception is not possible. They are different, yet they are located at the same place, called by different names at different times. They are both located in the Mūlādhārā Cakra.
So as the Mother of all, who gives birth to us through her yonī, Gaurī is worshipped in the yonī. She is the base in which the Liṅga (phallus) of Śivā stands. Lalitā Sahasranāmam speaks of Bhagārādhyā (meaning, worshipped in the yonī). There are so many names in the Lalitā Sahasranāma that relate explicitly to the sexual aspects of the Mother Goddess worship.
There were times when fertility rites where the love between man and woman was offered as an intimate service to the Goddess. Devī the universal mother is located in the Svādhiṣṭhāna cakra. Sva by self, adhiṣṭhāna residing in. The place where Devī is residing in, is the genitals. The seat of the Kuṇḍalinī power, the energy which gives supreme pleasure of orgasm is located in the genitals.
The starting point of Kuṇḍalinī is known as Kumāra. He is like the young Śivā. The big Śivā is the male liṅga = phallus. Kumāra, his son, the small liṅga in the female is the clitoris. The female liṅga is the seat of happiness and pleasure and the origin of Kuṇḍalinī Śakti.
The first movement of the Kuṇḍalinī is to make you lose your sense of body identification, and that is exactly what happens in orgasm. You are flowing out of yourself as the seed and you lose all your tensions. The word orgasm is used in Tantrā in the broader context as losing all your tensions. If you are worried, losing your worry is an orgasm.
There was one fellow who used to wear shoes three times under size. He used to walk with those shoes all day long. He would suffer excruciating pain throughout the day. When asked, “Why do you wear those undersized shoes and bear the pain?” He said, “There is only one happiness left in my life and that is when I remove this shoe from my foot, only then I feel extremely happy.”
We are all wearing this undersize shoe, called this body, and once you find the release from this body you find happiness, the only happiness that we know, and that is called an orgasm. We want repetition of that happiness because we want to be permanently in that state. The only way to achieve that is to recognize the stress developing and be able to relieve that stress. This is the main point of Tantrā. Try to be in a state of constant orgasm, to be in the perpetual union between Śivā and Śakti.
The mother who gives birth is called Gaurī. Man is very incidental to the process of creation. He just deposits a seed in the womb and then walks out; there finishes his duty. We think we are the mothers of our children that we beget. But are they our children? They are not, they are the children of Gaurī.
Do we know how to give form to that formless seed? How to make the face, the eyes, the ears, how to make the tongue, how to put the taste in the tongue? How to create the limbs that can grow and where each should be located, in what proportion, what size? What color eyes, what looks? None of these things we know. All of this happens automatically. There is a power of transformation which is coded in the genes which is doing this job. That power Gaurī is located in the womb. It is the seed that we are worshipping.
You cannot say that the seed is male or female. So before the egg, which came first, the egg or the hen? It was the seed that came before either of them. That seed is (knowledge) information.
It is the seed that is Gaurī, the bindu. That is the first mother that we know. In the womb, initially you as the child experience a tremendous growth potential. Every moment you are multiplying yourself into two and it appears as if there is an infinite possibility of growth. You are enjoying that happiness and richness available to you of the multiplication of yourself.
But then after some time, the womb being limited in size offers resistance to growth. You are being confined. You don't like that confinement. You want to grow and after some time you are pushed out forcibly.
At first you do not know what touch is, you were not even breathing. You were floating in the womb for nine months. You were breathing through your navel through the blood of the mother. At the time of birth you were pushed out, suddenly a cold metal comes and grasps your head and pulls you out before you have learned how to transfer from one system of life to another system; your navel thread is cut.
At the time of birth you are fighting for life. This trauma is tremendous. You cannot say that this trauma is not present in caesarean births because they also cut the navel cord. From navel breathing you have got to move to nasal breathing, and that transition is very traumatic.
(from "A Jewel From My Mother's Crown"):
The center of every experience is yourself. That is Śivā, called the invariant point, bindu. The word bindu means three things: point, seed and mind. All that is experienced is Śakti. The function of Śivā is to unite you, that you are, into the cosmic being. The function of Śakti is to separate you from being Śivā, to bring an experience to that awareness—flowing and movement in time.
Śivā is the awareness full of experience that flows not in time. It is a frozen experience that has no evolution. The first movement (in time and space) is the creation of an interval—an interval between the knower and the known, between the seer and the seen, between the one which is aware and that of which it is aware. The chaitanya and jaḍa. Jaḍa is what you are seeing, which you are not penetrating. It is something that somehow separates itself from itself, and this separation manifests itself as an interval between the seer and the seen. This is the birth of relativity / relativeness.
This interval can be compared to the distance between a point and its image in the mirror. A point is dimensionless. The point is reflected in a mirror and it appears as if it is another point unto itself. The first point, the second point, and the distance between these two points exist, connected by the space (distance) and time (required by light to cover the distance) interval.
Once the space-time interval is formed, something has to have the property of movement. Time is the one which has the characteristic of movement. This statement is not absolutely true, but is a good first approximation. (It is equally proper to say that space, not time, has the property of movement.) However, our experience tells us that it is time which is moving and space is not moving, and this experience is valid in a sufficiently large number of cases so that we can accept that it appears to be true. This law breaks down as you are approaching the velocity of light. That is where the relativistic theory takes over.
The space-time interval is the first creation and that manifests itself as interaction between space and time, and out of the rotation of space around time matter is formed. The bindu, the center point, is unique; it is dimensionless; it is awareness, but it is not even aware of itself. So it cannot be even called a creator. It is a liṅga, a characteristic of invariance. It is awareness and non-awareness combined. What you see and what you are is combined in that. Knowledge and ignorance are combined in that.
It is not negatible. It is invariant to negation. If you have knowledge alone and when you negate it you have ignorance. When you have ignorance alone and negate it, it becomes knowledge. But when you have the sum of the two and you try to negate the sum, knowledge moves over to ignorance and ignorance moves over to knowledge, and the sum total is not changed even when you deny it. It cannot be denied. It is self-evident. It is your own knowledge that you exist. It does not have to be proved to you.
The awareness has this property of self-proving, svaprakāśa. Awareness is self-enlightening; that does not require another light to show its existence. It is proof unto itself. That pure awareness is God.
What is to be enlightened is our own ignorance. What is ignorance? One sees the world and what is seen appears different from oneself. If illumination is there then this difference will not exist.
Absorption of the interval back into the point is the function of Śivā. Creation of the interval is the function of Śakti. They are opposites of each other. Śivā kills your individuality to make you the Cosmic Being. In being a killer, Śivā is giving you birth into your cosmic consciousness. Śakti is trying to limit your cosmic consciousness into your individual consciousness and therefore Śakti appears to give life. Śivā appears to give death.
What we interpret as death is the cosmic awareness. What we interpret as life is the cosmic death. These are the functions of the two creators, Śivā and Śakti. They are co-creators and they have equal potency and equal powers. This is the Śivā–Śakti identity.
(from "A Jewel From My Mother's Crown"):
This transformation of your own character is what is important to the ritual.
You start with your present situation; this includes and implies fears, lusts, greeds, possessiveness, hunger for power, all kinds of limitations and your feelings of separation. It is from this starting point you have to move, to shed your inhibitions one by one and learn what it means to have intercourse with the world.
Every aspect of your life is maithuna or intercourse, not just sex; Tantrā redefines this as the enjoyment of the beauty. Tantrā teaches that you do not have to own anything in order to enjoy it. Do you own the ground that you walk upon? Do you own the air that you breathe? Do you have to own the sun, the stars, the moon and the clouds for you to see and enjoy?
Ownership is not there, except in the broad sense of “Yes, I own the whole world!”
Your body is a Śrī Cakra. The awareness that is spreading throughout your body is the Śrī Devi. Then you will understand that the different awarenesses felt inside you are the different forms that are shown here. By you we mean not merely your body, but the entire Cosmos. These are all giving shapes to the feats of awarenesses, the feats of consciousness. In Patanjali Yoga Sutras, he says that if you keep your consciousness in different parts of your body, then you will get a different Siddhi, or attainment.
These idols define places in the Śrī Cakra. They have certain kinds of weapons. You have to understand what their places in the Śrī Cakra are and you have to understand what kind of concentration you must have in them in order to get a certain attainment. All these things are embedded in the locations of these idols and the ornaments and weapons they are having are all significant.
Why so many idols? It is confusing, but it is to prove to you that in-spite of all their variety, they are just one. You must de-confuse yourself. This deconfusing process is Sādhana. Confusion is created in Hinduism as a problem for you to solve. To solve this problem is what liberates you.
You have ears, you have eyes, you have skin. You are experiencing the world through your eyes, seeing a visual picture. You are hearing the world through your ears, hearing as a musical expression; musical expression is totally different from the visual expression or experience. Each one has its own individuality. Yet you are not looking at the eye and saying it is an ear; nor looking at an ear and saying it is an eye; nor at skin and saying it is an ear or an eye. You have given them different names because they are appearing different to you, you are experiencing them differently.
So what is wrong in having different aspects of your awareness appearing in different forms, in different identities? So, if in your body there can be so many different individualities, why can't there be different flow of awarenesses in the cosmic, creative, sustaining, nourishing and deabsorbing powers?
You are one. You are experiencing these different things, but are they different from you? There is unity in you. The same way in the Cosmos also. There are differences and there are unities also. So to show these differences, you show the different forms. And to find unity, you look at the top of the Śrī Cakra, in the Bindu.
Where are “you” located? Are you located in your eyes, in your hands, in your legs? You can lose your hands but you continue to live; you can lose your legs, but you continue to live. You are not located in any of these things. But you are located where your awareness goes. Your expression varies according to the location. So, in the same way that your body merges into the unified awareness of your Self, the Cosmic Awarenesses are also merging into the Parashakti. The transcendental Śakti is one, but its expression is many.
For example - there are the Pañcabhūtas, there are the five elements, the five properties, the five organs of action. They are different, they have different functions, spaces to work in.
The woman is the symbol of the beauty and aesthetics of nature. In this whole world it is only mankind that is wearing clothes. Every other living form is in the nude, in its natural state. So .0001% of the entire universe is wearing clothes. So if you want to represent Nature, it should be shown in the nude.
While the idols are shown in the nude, we are not seeing them as nude. It is only because we are wearing clothes that when we take them away we think of the body as nude. Our clothes are helping us to cover our blemishes, to create an artificial beauty where it is not there. The clothes help us to create a distinction between the Self and the non-self, between who I am and what I am seeing.
Here, all the murtis as depicted as Devatas. They wear the clothes appropriate to Devatas. the Devatas are all-pervasive. They go to the ends of all directions. They are in every place and every time. So they can't be covered by anything. They wear decorations and ornaments. And that is natural. But their beauty is such that the ornaments become beautiful through their example only.
Śrī Mata is the Mother that gives birth to everyone. When we say that she is the mother of everyone, then we have to ask the question, "Then where is everyone born?" The obvious answer is through the female genitals. That is the place where the procreative power of God lies. For the Śakteyas who worship the Motherhood of every woman, she is called "Bhagārādhyā" in Lalitā Sahasranāma. Bhagā means the yoni, the female genital, and she is worshipped in that. That is why it is important to display the genital, because you have to worship it, to develop an attitude of worship towards that.
Śrī Cakra means the whole world and the place where it is displayed is the womb of the Mother. If you look at Kañci Kāmākṣī idol, there is the picture of the womb in front and the Śrī Cakra is shown inside. The Śrī Cakra She is the Universal Mother. She has given birth to the entire Cosmos which is kept inside Her womb.
Adi Deva, the primal God, is Liṅga Svarūpa. Its place is Garbhalaya, Garbha means the womb. Creativity, procreation is the duty of mankind, because life is so rare. The line of life should not be broken. This dharma, this duty, that we have towards our parents who have given life to us, we must repay that debt by giving life to continue the race.
This dharma is personified as “Vṛṣabha'' which is another way of saying Vṛṣaṇa which means the testes. The testes is the seed container. You must first look through the bull (Nandi) in front of the Liṅgam, which that first you must energize the Liṅgam towards creativity and then you must look at the Liṅgam. Śiva is the Liṅgam which has the desire to procreate, otherwise it is called Śava. In the Saundaryalaharī it says, "Sivaḥ śaktyā yukto yadibhavati śaktaḥ prabhavituṃ…." Only when Śiva is united with Śakti, showing the desire to procreate, then He is to be worshipped, not otherwise. Then He called Śiva. Otherwise He is a corpse.
Only the erect male member is considered to be Śiva. Just as the female genital is the mother in the Sṛṣṭi, which is taking place through the intercourse, the male genital is the father of everyone. That is considered to be the Śivaliṅga.
In the olden days, the Śivaliṅgas and the Yonis were shown as the male and female genitals. But when the Muslim and Christian rule was there, our people accepted their arguments that this was nonsense. So they have changed their shapes into unrecognizable round objects without any contours in them, which kept them from being recognized as the male or female genitals. They have become names only - Liṅgam and Yoni.
There are four aims in life. They are what we call in the Saṅkalpa at the beginning of each Pūjā, "Dharma, Artha, Kāma, and Mokṣa”.
Dharma is Duty, and it is personified by the desire to continue the race;
Artha means the acquisition of wealth and prosperity. You should be prosperous and you should make the people around you prosperous;
Kāma means lust, and it is to be directed towards liberation, towards Mokṣa.
Mokṣa means liberation, the liberation from the identification of yourself with your body, the shackles of your body. You pass a life-long sentence of imprisonment when you think that you are only your body. You have to get out of that prison and move towards liberation. That can be possible only when lust is directed toward liberation.
Now, there are other human weaknesses besides lust like anger, like fear, like greed, like delusion, like pride, like jealousy. None of these things have been considered as aims in life. Why was lust listed as one of the aims of life? Because lust has the potential to be transformed into love. And love has the potential to transform itself into liberation. It is for this reason that lust, Kāma, has been included as one of the Puruṣārthas.
All the Tantric texts state that once lust is universalized and used in the context of worship, then both here and there are available. But this loud voice that the texts are using is in the Sanskrit language, and Sanskrit is no longer spoken in India and so we can't understand it. Mechanically we recite Dharma, Artha, Kāma, Mokṣa, but we don't stop to consider what Kāma means really.
If we say that lust should not be there, if we put a halter to it and say that we should not have it at all, and deny ourselves the joys of union, even then it will not go away. It will change its form and become anger. When you are denied what you desire, then it becomes anger and anger becomes violence, aggressiveness, terrorism, all those things which tend to destroy the society. The reason that these aggressive acts are there is because of unfulfilled desires. All the criticism that says that the Hindu scriptures are obscene do not really understand what the Tantras intend. They do not know the purpose of lust, they do not know how to utilize that.
Convert lust into love in the proper way, into Śriṅgāra. Śriṅgāra means, find out what the other person wants and offer him that.
When you are able to transform lust into love, then it becomes Madhura bhakti, sweet devotion, the path of devotion and love towards God. That is why Śrī Kṛṣṇa was supposed to have 16,000 lovers. And that is acceptable. So why can't Lalitā have 16,000 lovers?
Lalitā is the equivalent of Śrī Kṛṣṇa. She is the Guru. When you convert your lust into love, then it flourishes as literature, as Music, Dance as Fine arts, as the creative qualities of everyone. The best qualities of everyone come up in this transformation process: having a good heart, a compassionate heart towards everyone; not deceiving others; Ahimsā - not violating or hurting others in any way in body, mind or spirit; harmony takes the place of violence. All these things happen when lust is transformed into love. In God or in Devi when you have Śriṅgāra, then you are converted from being a human into being a Divine Being.
This is what is meant that the Gopis have love towards Kṛṣṇa. If you want to have union, then you must have union with God. They say that if you sing, then God dances for you; if you dance for God, he comes and embraces you; and if you shed your ego and offer yourself, and request God to have union with you, then you receive liberation. These truths work equally well for Devi.
The reason all these figures are seen in the nude is to tell people that you must worship creativity in the form of Devi, in the form of the female. You must request Devi to give you Saubhāgya, give you prosperity, give you the pleasure and enjoyment in this life. You have got 10,000 million women in this world. You you can worship all of them as the Divine Mother then this will be your last life, you will receive Mokṣa. This is the purpose of the Yoni Pūjā. When you transform lust into love this way, then the Kuṇḍalinī Śakti becomes awakened.
For those people who are not interested in mere criticism and who truly want to understand and appreciate and learn more about these things, then we are here to instruct them in the intricacies and details of the Sādhana according to the Kaula Saṃpradāya.
Mother is worshipped as Gaurī, Lakṣmī and Vāṇī, as Kriyā, Jñāna, and Icchā Śakti.
As the Kriyā Śakti, the Devi manifests in intercourse. And intercourse resides in the genitals of the female.
As Jñāna Śakti, Devi is Lakṣmī, the one who nourishes the baby when it is born. She resides in the female breasts, and she resides in the mother's nourishing and life sustaining milk.
She is the Mother worshipped as Saraswati when Devi resides in the tongue, because speech comes from the tongue, the educative function of the mouth.
By meditating on these places in the body and worshipping them you are getting Kriyā Śakti, Jñāna Śakti, and Saṅkalpa Śakti, or Icchā Śakti.
It is to demonstrate that you must worship the Mother in the female body that these female idols are shown in the nude.
