The remedy for Tara’s universal shadow of self-deception is her light of truth, one of the yamas of the Yoga Sutras. Her sword cuts through our falsities in one fell swoop, leaving no room for inauthenticity in our dealings, which have to be uncompromisingly aligned with truth—it forces us to grow up.
Shiva-Shakti is the infinite potential before creation begins. Self-awareness is the first indication of a stir within this potential as Shiva separates from Shakti. Tara is Shakti as Shiva’s self-recognition. Her sound, AUM, is the vibration from which creation arises.
“Tara” means “star” because her grace guides us, like the North Star, from identification with the I-self back to the pristine vibration of the Self.
Exercise: Contemplate Tara
Sit in Tara’s presence and simply notice what you feel. What does her hum mean to you? Can you sense it?
The primordial AUM that Tara represents is saturated with divine will (iccha shakti), divine knowledge (jnana shakti), and divine action (kriya shakti). Divine will, or desire, is symbolized by Tripura Sundari (chapter 5), which drives limitless awareness to will itself into the limitation of matter. Divine knowledge, represented by Bhuvaneshwari (chapter 6), shapes the will, directing it into knowing how the vibrations must evolve. Will and knowledge are crystallized into divine action that is personified by Tripura Bhairavi (chapter 7).
Driven by divine will, Tara’s vibration goes through recurring rounds of self-recognition and becomes denser with each consecutive loop to give rise to the five great elements: space (akasha), air, fire, water, and earth. The unique properties of the elements arise from their unique vibratory frequencies—vastness of space, lightness of air, heat of fire, wetness of water, and heaviness of earth. Powered by divine will and knowledge, the elements combine to form the innumerable objects of the cosmos, each with its unique vibratory frequency. Matter is thus born of energy.
The will, knowledge, and action of Tara’s AUM not only give birth to the objects of the cosmos but are also responsible for all the ways we define ourselves. We know from quantum physics that everything in existence is energy. Our mental and emotional states may feel more fluid than a coffee table, for example, which can feel very solid and fixed. But if we were to look very closely at the coffee table, we would see that it is made up of atoms, each of which is made up of electrons spinning around a nucleus. Atoms are made up of smaller particles, such as quarks, that can turn into waves of energy. Thus, solid objects and our mental states are made up of waves of energy, and Tara represents the source of all forms of energy.
In us, she represents the pure sense of being, the “I-Am.” The various frequencies of our thoughts and emotions arise from this I-Am. Anger, anxiety, joy, and contentment feel different because they have different vibratory frequencies. Grief feels heavy and weighs us down, while joy feels light and lifts us up—yet both arise from the I-Am. All the ways we define ourselves, such as woman, man, black, white, Hindu, Christian, worthy, unworthy, human, divine, and so on, are modifications of the I-Am.
The forces that lead to the creation of matter are also in play in us. Think of the times when you had the will to do something, like start a family or take up singing. The wanting led you to knowledge, when you planned for it and perhaps took parenting or music lessons. Will and knowledge fueled action—before long, you were in the throes of childcare or performing music. Will, knowledge, and action spur never-ending cycles through which we come to define ourselves. Take parenting, for instance. What we want for our children changes as they grow. At every stage, our wanting spurs the know-how for our action. With each will-knowledge-action cycle, how we define ourselves is fortified.
Tantric sages describe Tara in three forms. As the white, or Sukla Tara, she is the pristine primordial throb of the I-Am, her austere topknot symbolic of her concentration. Blue and skylike, Neela Tara symbolizes her descent into the five elements. As the multicolored Chitra Tara, she symbolizes the full descent of the Divine into countless forms and objects, each with its distinct vibration. These three forms exist simultaneously; Tara remains pristine and untouched even when she becomes the innumerable forms and objects.
Like Tara, even though we take on many identities, our true nature remains pure and unchanging. Like the funeral pyre that Tara stands upon, all of our identities arise from and dissolve into the eternal and unchanging I-Am.
Exercise: Tuning in to the I-Am
Even though your life has constantly changed, can you sense that there is a part of you that has remained constant? When you were in high school, you identified yourself as a student or an athlete. When you grew up and found a job, you became a worker or professional, and when you had children, you became a parent. If you were diagnosed with a disease, you became a patient, and if you were cured, you became a survivor. Through all of your shifting identities, the one thing that has been constant is that you simply are. This pure sense of being is the I-Am. Can you sense it?
Tara’s descent into creation in her multicolored form is symbolized by the descent of kundalini in the chakras of the subtle body (see figure 1 in chapter 3). This descent is said to occur in a top-down fashion when we are in the womb, beginning at the crown and proceeding downward.17 Each chakra has its own unique vibration and is associated with specific characteristics and life issues:
Making her way down, kundalini comes to rest at the root, forgetting her true nature (as discussed in chapter 3). The subtle vibration of I-Am at the crown becomes masked by the vibrations of the lower chakras that in turn arise from the vasanas that reside in the causal body. Our particular vasanas drive the ways in which our will-knowledge-action mask our true nature. If your early life experience was of health challenges, you might have anxieties about falling ill (root chakra), or if you were deprived of enjoyment, you may crave pleasure (sacral chakra). These early life experiences will determine how you understand the world and how you act in it.
There is a loose progression of the will-knowledge-action cycles along the chakras. A hungry, homeless person who is faced with the daily problem of survival is less likely to want to enjoy art, music, or gourmet food and probably won’t think about meditating or contemplating the nature of reality. On the other hand, once our material needs are fulfilled, we are attracted to sensual pleasures, as is seen in affluent nations and communities where personal and national resources are more readily devoted to entertainment and luxury goods. Fulfillment of our basic needs frees up our vital energies that we spend on pursuing relationships, ambition, fame, success, and political or religious beliefs. Only when we have exhausted our desire for survival and pleasure do we become interested in Self-knowledge.
How we define ourselves depends upon the particular chakras upon which our vasanas act. Our will-knowledge-action cycles arise from the vasana-driven chakras to become our identity. Veiling of our true nature by this identity is the result of Tara’s shadow: self-deception.
Exercise: Contemplate the Chakras
Spend some time every day feeling the energy in the general area of the body that corresponds to the chakras. Journal about the memories, images, thoughts, and sensations that come up at each. What do these associations tell you about how they define your identity?
Our true nature is unlimited, eternal awareness. To believe that we are anything less is Tara’s shadow of self-deception. Self-deception begins in childhood. Just as soon as you were able to stand or talk, you were told that you were so-and-so with a particular name, family, history, and culture. You were taught to aspire to certain goals and made to believe that they would fulfill you. As soon as you learned that you were not perfect and whole, as you are, your cycles of will-knowledge-action began to seek ways of finding completion.
Whether it is for money, love, fame, pleasure, or spiritual attainment, seeking arises from believing that we will be complete when we get “there.” Most often, we model our seeking after our caregivers, peers, and society, and imbibe their ideas about what we must want to feel whole. For example, we soak in messages from television and online advertisements that we need the car, insurance, makeup, food, or lifestyle to be whole. The predicament of taking borrowed ideas and concepts to be true is that we can’t tell what we really want.
We innocently pass these beliefs on to our children, coaxing or forcing them into our ideas of success and convincing ourselves that their happiness depends on it. They, in turn, fall prey to Tara’s shadow by believing that they are lacking and must find completion in objects.
Tara’s shadow is also seen in spiritual circles, where we may learn that we must only desire liberation. However, our vasanas for wealth or pleasure may be so strong that the teaching causes great inner disharmony. We can struggle for years or decades with our innate desires, butting heads with what we are supposed to desire. The resulting angst, confusion, and anxiety can play out as resentment toward those who have what we want. Tara’s shadow of self-deception is such that we project it on to the world. If our real desire is for material comforts and we are discouraged from seeking it, we may criticize those who are affluent, particularly if they are also on the path of sadhana. If our real desire is for love, we may envy those who are in happy relationships, and if we desire stability, we may resent those who seem secure and satisfied.
When we lose clarity of will or desire, knowledge and action stemming from it also become murky. In these distorted will-knowledge-action cycles, we become entrapped in Tara’s shadow of self-deception.
The fundamental nature of the I-self is a sense of lack. We keep it alive by constantly justifying and validating what we want, whether it is a job, a relationship, or a meal. Say you really want that promotion at work. You justify your wanting with thoughts like, I’ve been here the longest. Look at my track record! I mean, without my contribution, this company wouldn’t have made that profit last year. If you get the promotion, you feel validated. Even if you don’t, you feel validated in your belief in the unfairness of the situation, particularly if your friends agree with you.
Consider the explanations and excuses that we make up about our habits and lifestyle choices. Whether they are related to a particular diet, smoking, exercise, spiritual practice, or the next cup of coffee, we are always justifying our choices to ourselves and others.
The voices of justification and validation are usually parked in our head at a very early age and can belong to parents or authority figures. The voices serve the purpose of keeping the I-self feeling safe through constant inner dialogue that refers to the past, projects to the future, compares itself with others, and judges them. Justifying our reasons and validating our actions make us feel that we are good or worthy enough. What we don’t easily realize is that we become accustomed to seeking approval—from ourselves and others.
Justification and validation are based on seeking approval, admiration, and acceptance from others as well as from the voices in our head. Our sense of worth is based on what we think others see in us, which influences how we see ourselves. When we seek approval from others, we create karma, the invisible bond that leads to a cascade of actions and reactions. I do something to gain your approval and to validate myself. If you don’t approve of my actions, I resent you and justify my resentment. My future interactions with you become contaminated by what I think you should have done but didn’t. My will-knowledge-action becomes tainted by whether or not you acted in ways that made me feel validated. In the throes of karma created by validation and justification of the I-self, distorted will and knowledge result in distorted actions—the hallmark of self-deception.
Tara’s shadow gets perpetuated because the subtle movement of seeking approval is based on the fundamental self-deception: that we are somehow lacking. Self-deception can be so subtle and pervasive that it can be difficult for us to see. We can steadfastly believe that our actions and thoughts are based in truth until we critically examine our motives for our will-knowledge-action.
The remedy for Tara’s universal shadow of self-deception is her light of truth, one of the yamas of the Yoga Sutras. Tara’s sword cuts through our falsities in one fell swoop and leaves no room for inauthenticity in our dealings, which have to be uncompromisingly aligned with truth, forcing us to grow up.
We have seen how Tara’s shadow of self-deception creates vasanas through the voices in our head. Radical growing up occurs when we stop referring to these voices for how we must think, feel, and live.
If you attend a high school or college reunion and spend time with your friends from back then, you may find they react to life in the same ways they did decades ago. A high school bully can go through life intimidating others, while a friend who suffered examination-induced anxiety continues to live with it, which now shows up during her children’s finals. Although our situations change, the way we relate to them remains the same, based on how we learned to deal with life as children. Our reactions become locked in through the creation of vasanas and become firmly established in adolescence, setting the stage for how we will operate the rest of our life. The high school bully may learn to mask the aggression with politeness, and the anxious mother may close off emotionally to protect her children. We may mistake these “fixes” for grown-up behaviors.
However, radical growing up is not about closing off emotionally or hiding behind masks of politeness. It is the ability to process experience in wise and wholesome ways while keeping the heart wide open. It is the process of breaking out of our vasana-driven patterns and coming into our own. Very often, we become locked into patterns of thinking and living just because our parents, grandparents, or gurus thought and lived like that. While there is no harm in cleaning the house or loading the dishwasher in the particular ways that our parents did, blindly following the commands of the voices in our head is not conducive to radical growing up.
In growing up radically, we dissolve our karmic patterns to see that our true nature is unlimited, eternal bliss. This doesn’t mean we stop cleaning the house or start acting in unsavory ways in society. When we grow up this way, our thoughts and actions don’t arise from lack or needing approval, but from fullness and sweetness.
It was a revelatory step in my journey to realize that the voice in my head belonged to my mother. It spoke her language and reflected her worldview. One day, I woke up to find it missing. The vantage point from which I had learned to view myself and the world had miraculously crumbled during the night. The silence was deafening at first. With the loss of the voice that sought constant justification and validation, the world appeared different, with a vividness and clarity that were previously absent.
I began to see how I had innocently exchanged a material facade for a spiritual one. For instance, even though I didn’t feel comfortable in a spiritual circle, I continued to attend meetings and classes because my diligence seemed to win the approval of others. Until then, I had believed that my interest was solely in the teaching, and was surprised to see that the need for approval was much greater. The voices of justification and validation had been so loud that they had masked the self-deception.
It is true that faithful following of a teaching is crucial at certain stages of sadhana. However, it chokes our growth when the I-self finds validation and justification in it. As soon as I become a disciple, my approval-seeking I-self finds validation as a spiritual seeker. One mode of self-deception (being an ordinary woman) is replaced by another (being a spiritual seeker). Without Tara’s light of truth, we can continue to live in falsehood, where we give up one voice for another.
Aided by Tara’s light, my dilemma gradually resolved. As soon as I perceived my motivation for will-knowledge-action accurately, I could disentangle from the situation with no concern for approval. Self-deception stopped fueling my motivation for action.
Radical growing up occurs when we learn to stand alone, guided solely by the vast silence within. Mantra sadhana is particularly conducive to opening to Tara’s light because she is the vibration underlying sound. We register the five sense perceptions via the subtle forms of the five great elements—sound through akasha (space), touch through air, sight through fire, taste through water, and smell through earth. Tara’s vibration is most easily accessed through sound because it is the subtlest of the senses. This is the principle behind the practice of mantra sadhana.
We are either given a mantra by a teacher, or we pick one that feels right—it can be a single word, such as the name of a deity or a phrase.18 Mantra here does not refer to affirmations, but the sadhana is based on the ability of the syllables to open us to the Divine. It can be repeated with the eyes closed for several minutes every day or silently during activities like cooking, cleaning, or waiting. The more we repeat the mantra, the greater is its ability to settle into our subtle body.19 You can download a document detailing the mantra sadhana at http://www.newharbinger.com/39102.
Exercise: Moving from Shadow to Light—Opening to Truth
In this exercise, we will identify the voices in our mind that create the need for validation and justification. We can then see the deceptive power of learned beliefs and open to Tara’s light of absolute truth.
As you go about your day, observe how you justify your thoughts and actions, and how you seek validation. For instance, consider what you share on social media. How do you feel if someone likes or comments on your post? How do you feel if nobody acknowledges your carefully crafted post? How do you respond to comments? How do you justify your actions, choices, and lifestyle? Observe the voices of justification and validation carefully—can you identify the speakers?
Once you have identified the voice(s), examine your relationship to it (them). Do you obey it (them) blindly? If so, why? Whose belief is it that the rules you live by are the right ones or that you are unlovable, unworthy, or lacking in any way?
Merely observing the constant commentary in our mind has the profound effect of quietening it. When we are able to stand apart from the voices and observe them nonjudgmentally, we can examine the relationship between them and awareness, which is the purpose of the following non-dual inquiry.
Exercise: Non-Dual Inquiry on Tara’s Role in Creation—Sound and Vibration
By looking at our learned concepts with non-dual inquiry, we can identify the chattering voices in our mind simply as arisings in witnessing awareness. In this exercise, we will investigate sound and vibration in direct experience. Begin with the Heart Opener (chapter 2).
In this exercise, we see that sound does not exist independently of hearing—hearing is the only way to directly experience sound. Hearing doesn’t exist outside of awareness. This is not our experience, because awareness is always there, even when hearing isn’t. The only thing we directly experience is hearing, an arising. And because we have seen that hearing is not separate from awareness, inquiry shows us that all we experience at any given time is awareness.
Descriptions of sound (chime, voice, musical note, and so on) are based on memory, which is itself an arising (see the non-dual inquiry exercise in chapter 3).
Now repeat the exercise using the sound of the voices of justification or validation. Is the sound separate from awareness? Would you be able to experience anything outside of awareness?
When we look closely, we see that there is no separation between awareness and the arising, be it the sound of the chime or the voices of justification or validation. This is true for all vibrations—even those without audible sound. All vibrations arise in awareness, stay a while, and subside back into it. At all times, awareness is experiencing itself, regardless of the type of arising, just as the ocean experiences only itself in all its waves.
Tara’s light of truth shows us the root cause of self-deception—the I-self’s need for validation and justification that arise from the voices in our head and lead to vasana-driven cycles of will, knowledge, and action. Inquiry into our learned concepts reveals the identities of the voices, which upon further investigation are seen to be arisings in witnessing awareness. Her grace leads us to discard the vibrations of self-deception and open to her primordial vibration of pure awareness.