Transformation with Sri Vidya

Guruji: Sri Vidya means sacred learning in 13 steps: removing negatives  1. Hatred 2.doubt 3 fear 4 rigidity 5 abhorrence 6 caste 7 color and 8 conformity; and promoting the positives 9 food 10 breath 11 thoughts 12 meditations 13 play

It is also a large body of rituals held secret for ages, restricted only to priests because of the immense powers the learning unfolds with practice. The idea was that destructive powers should be not be made available to minds without proper discipline and love. The world with all its infinite variety of creations presumably has one or many creator/s, even if it is some powers. We call it/them the God/Goddess, as a generic name.

Those who worship God as male are Saivas. Moslems, Christians, some Hindus are Saivas. Some worship God as female; they are Shaktas. Some worship God as both;. Since kula means total, they are Kaulas. They worship the universal male, female and balanced energies of both in union.

What is Sri Yantra.

Sri Yantra is the sacred geometry of cosmos and its hologram, you. It helps to connect you to powers creating the world for co-creating a wonderful new world with the Goddess, with grace, abundance, will, knowledge and creation. Sri Yantra begins your own journey to cosmic powers starting with awake, dreaming and asleep states.

The outer most square, 16, 8 petal enclosures, and the circle within.
In the waking state we experience the world around us with our senses, and act on it with our motor organs. There appear to be some common feelings about what we know and what we do. We can agree that the world of my experience is the same that you also experience. For example, we decide to meet at a time and a place, and we do meet. So, there is this common world out there, and your world is pretty much the same as mine. These knowledges, or actions are called open yoginis. Yogini is one who connects you to another, rather like a cell phone! She brings you experience of the other. They are common to all. For example, we are afraid; fear is a yogini called chamunda. We are using technical names, please do not be confused with common usage of the names below.

We experience richness and confusion created by abundance; the yogini is Mahalakshmi. We are attracted to beauty,  Brahmi = kama = lust is a yogini. Similarly, Maheswari = krodha = anger, Kaumari = lobha = greed, Vaishnavi = moha = clinging, Varahi = mada = pride-vanity, Mahendri = matsarya = jealousy. These are all yoginis, eight in all. All the passions we experience are called yoginis.  As long as they keep connecting us to outside world, they will not allow peace, they control us, and disturb our poise.

We learn during sadhana processes of how to control these passions and make them serve us. These processes are called Mudras. They bring us peace and pleasure by keeping our passions in check. These are 10 in number. 1. Samkshobhini = agitate; 2. Vidravini = fluidise; 3. Akarshini = attract; 4. Mohini = delude; 5. Unmadini = madden; 6. angkusa = controlling critical points ( like a small goad controlling a big elephant ); 7. Khecari = Fly up and away from danger; 8. Bija = Seed of evolution: 9. Yoni = cause and 10. trikhanda = creating and dissolving three parts into one, the most important being, merging seer and seen into seeing or space, time and matter.

When we learn how to apply Mudras to Matrikas, we attain divine powers, called Siddhis. Anima = Becoming small like a particle(elongating distance and changing perspective); Laghima = Losing weight (levitation / anti gravity; super fluids go up walls of containers); and its opposite garima, becoming heavy / increasing gravity; Mahima = becoming large; Isitva = Fulfilling any desire; Vasitva = Control; Prakamya = Huge desire; Bhukti = Enjoy; Ichcha = Will, desire to achieve goal; Prapti = Fulfil goal; Sarva Kama = All desires fulfilled. Most of these attainments imply the ability to control space, time and matter, the trinity, whose Sanskrit names are Vishnu(space), Kaala(time) and Brahma(matter) respectively. When we merge all three into one, then we get all these siddhis.

The outer square enclosure of Sri Chakra houses all these waking state powers namely, 10 siddhis, 8 matrikas and 10 mudras. Inside of this there is a lotus of 16 petals describing powers attracting our dreams without censorship of ego. Our dreams are ours, they are not common to others. The causative factors are called Gupta yoginis, the secret passions. And deeper inside, there is a lotus of 8 petals describing powers active in our deep sleep. Even we are not aware of their workings. They are ananga =  bodyless, even more secret yoginis.

We live in one of these three chakras as an individual separated from the world, nature, the mother. When we leave these three chakras, we die to this world of individual experience, and enter a world of astral entities. They are all inside the circle we call the death of ego. We cross it to take birth as a nature spirit.

What is the difference between sleep and death? When we awaken from sleep we wake up into the same body; when we wake up from death, we wake up into a different body, we change our whole address. Every thing about us; our body, environment, language, knowledge, shape, relationships, age, changes. We have to learn afresh who we are, who our parents are, who our brothers, sisters, friends, enemies. All these relationships are temporary. The only relationship that survives death is the sense of I-ness. In I–am–so and so, the feeling I-am is common; but the so-and-so gets re-defined every time in every life. A thousand years may pass un-noticed; but the same feeling of I is known to all, self obvious, sort of. That pure common awareness is the God/dess. It is just a witness. It looks like a male when in a male body, and like a female in a female body. It has no gender by itself; looks like the container. Therefore it is compared to water, which takes on the shape of the container.

The middle three chakras are channels to know about the 14 worlds, inner 10 the five cosmic elements and their attributes, outer 10 the same for devas.

The inner set of 3 chakras reveal the 8 vibrational frequencies making up the pre-cosmos, 3 of space, time and matter, and 1 of an unchanging world of constants like numbers.

There are two great lineages of gurus: Dattatreya and Dakshinamurty.

Guru Dattatreya was given to Atri, a sage and his wife Anasuya, and 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 through pancha makaras, namely, madya= wine, matsya=fish, mamsa=meat, mudra=woman willing to receive puja, and maithuna=intercourse. These ingredients could mean literally what they say (open, external meaning), or something different than what is apparent (secret, internal). His system is called Kaula, meaning total; internal as well as external worship. Guru Datta taught his system to Parashurama, an avatar of Vishnu who encoded it tightly into his famous Kalpasutra. It is difficult even for pandits knowing Sanskrit well to follow the book because of the secret encoding. In recent times, many translations have been available in print decoding the texts into user friendly forms.

Guru Dakshinamurty was an incarnation of Siva himself. He mostly teaches meditation, and taught his disciples to visualise the Sri Chakra and do inner worship in silence. The rituals he taught use Sri Chakra, the greatest of yantras containing the cosmic powers of Shakti. The instructions were given mostly for teacher class brahmins who were taught vedas and followed strict disciplines including celibacy except when children were desired. He propagated chakra puja with secret meanings for madya= goddess intoxicated state, matsya=enjoying free flowing movements like a fish in the ocean of god, mamsa= tongue rolled back to touch nasal septum in khecari, mudra=eating fried cereals like bhajias, maithuna = taking awareness up the spine to top of head to experience joy of uniting Sakti (female principle) with Siva, the male principle. The highest bliss is to forget who you are and to flow into a world-less timeless awareness, or to merge the seer into the seen. Therefore this state is like the orgasmic release of tensions, when two loving souls forget separation and merge to become one.

We follow both traditions. We recommend meditative techniques to calm going, peace loving people (mostly who eat light satvic foods) and ritual techniques to action-oriented people (mostly who eat junk / nonveg foods). We have a natural leaning to peaceful and at the same time exciting rituals. We do not insist in changing food habits, or to practice celibacy running away from life. We do require that to be on the path, listen attentively to Guru, practice with devotion, and to be aware of Godd/ess while enjoying worldly comforts.