Aum Adi Shaktyai Namaha!

28

Adi Shakti

Indriyanam adhistatri bhutanam chakhileshu ya,

Bhuteshu sathatam thasyai vyaptidevyai namo namaha!

She who governs the senses of all creatures,

And who is present in the elements,

To the goddess of all pervasiveness, hail! All hail!

As has been mentioned before, the Shakta cult is one that affirms the ultimate reality to be a duality of masculine and feminine—Shiva and Shakti, with greater accent on the feminine or Shakti. Tantra is the practice of this cult; it is an esoteric teaching handed down from guru to shishya (disciple). Even though Shaktism accepts the presence of an all-pervading reality, it insists that this reality has a dual aspect of consciousness and energy. Shiva is consciousness, and Shakti is energy. Shiva is the static principle, which remains as pure unconditioned consciousness. It is only at the behest of Shakti that Shiva is motivated to action. Shiva and Shakti are complementary to each other at every level. If he is Shambhu, she is Shambhavi; if he is Maheswara, she is Maheswari; if he is Rudra, she is Raudri.

The Shakta cult probes and analyzes the nature of ultimate reality as feminine. However, Shakti is the kinetic power of the divine, so we find that even Vaishnavites (followers of Vishnu) and Shaivites (followers of Shiva) worship Shakti or the goddess as power. The expression shakti thus denotes not only the great goddess Maha Devi but also the energizing power of any particular divinity. Unfortunately, Shakti worship has been misunderstood by many people, including Indians themselves. Shakti worship is the worship of God’s glory. Devi belongs to all sects, for she is the conscious power of the deva or of God. The Upanishad says, “Parashakti, the supreme power of God, is the nature of God manifesting as knowledge, strength, and activity.” In fact, we can say that everyone in the universe is a Shakti worshipper, for none can go without all these things. Physicists and scientists have proved that everything is pure imperishable energy. This energy is nothing but the divine Shakti who exists in every form of existence.

What are the vital aspects of the theory and practice of the Shaktas? Shaktism is dynamic Hinduism. It reconciles and amalgamates all aspects of Hindu philosophy. In the Puranas, Devi is known as the sister of Vishnu and the wife of Shiva, the mother of Ganesha and Kartikeya. Thus she is the center of all the great deities who are worshipped in India. The Puranas are considered to be among the authorities of the Shakti cult. The Brahma Vaivarta, the Skanda, and the Kalika are the main Puranas that inculcate the worship of the supreme as feminine. But the principal rites, rituals, and incantations of this sect are found in a different source: the bija mantras that are used in Shakta rites are all derived from the Tantras.

The Tantras are therefore the main books for the worship of the goddess as Shakti. Adi Shankaracharya asserts that the books on Tantra are sixty-four in number. The authorship of these books is attributed to Lord Shiva. It is said that the saintly sons of Brahma—Sanaka, Sananda, Sanatana, and Sanat Kumara—begged Lord Shiva for a simpler method of sadhana (spiritual practice) than is given in the Vedas, and so Lord Shiva taught them the secret doctrines of the Tantras.

Another and more popular theory is that Shiva taught these esoteric doctrines to Parvati. She asked him for an easy means of liberation for human beings who are born in this Iron Age of Kali, and he answered that Tantra was the easiest method of release. He disclosed this esoteric doctrine to Parvati, and Vishnu confirmed it. The Tantras are therefore collectively known as the Agamas, since they issued from the mouth of Shiva, were heard by the mountain goddess Parvati, and were sanctioned by Vishnu. (There are three syllables in the word agama.)

In the Shiva Tantra, Shiva says, “The five scriptures [the four Vedas and the Tantras] issued from my five mouths. They correspond to the five directions—east, west, north, south, and above. These five are known as the paths to final liberation. There are many scriptures, but none are equal to the one ‘above’ [meaning the Tantras].”

In the Tantras we find that Brahman is synonymous with Shakti. Brahman stands for the formless ultimate or Turiya Brahman that is ever united with Mula Prakriti or fundamental nature. Shakti is another name for Mula Prakriti united with Turiya Brahman. Brahman cannot exist without Shakti, nor can Shakti exist without Brahman. Brahman is static Shakti and Shakti is dynamic Brahman. In Tantric books, Shiva stands for this Turiya Brahman, which is pure unconditioned consciousness.

The excellence of Tantra lies in its emphasis on sadhana or spiritual practice. There can be no siddhi (spiritual perfection) without sadhana. Complete knowledge of anything can come only by becoming that thing; to know Brahman (the supreme), we must become Brahman. Tantra is popularly known as mantra shastra and sadhana shastra, for it is a practical science that makes use of mantras. This sadhana is meant not merely for transcendental but also for material benefit, for the Tantrists consider the material world to be the foundation that upholds the spiritual structure. One has to start from the base to reach the summit. The Vedic vac or creative word becomes the adya spanda or primal throb that develops into the seed sounds or bijaksharas used in Tantric mantras. These sound vibrations take us to their ultimate cause or original throb that is the supreme.

The Tantras give a set of rituals, mantras, and yogic sadhanas that supplement the Vedic sadhanas. These are meant to give the fastest results if practiced properly. They are open to all castes and both sexes, unlike the Vedic sadhanas, which are meant only for initiates, mainly Brahmin males. Thus we find that especially in Bengal and southern India, Tantric rituals have superseded the Vedic fire ceremonies. Tantra offers the means by which the undying reality within oneself can be uncovered through yoga, ritual, selfless service, art, study, and total dedication to the goddess in whatever form you conceive of her.

The meaning of the word tantra is found in the word itself. It is a combination of two words, tanoti (“expansion”) and trayati (“liberation”). It is a method of expanding the mind to its fullest capacity in order to attain liberation. Expansion of the mind allows us to experience a reality that lies beyond the realm of the five senses. The knowledge derived through the senses is sadly restricted to the boundaries of space, time, and causality. But if we know the technique of turning the mind inward, it will go beyond these boundaries and expand into the cosmic mind. When this happens the apparent differences between matter and energy disappear. Just as a river loses its limitations when it enters the ocean, so the individual mind becomes a receptor and transmitter of cosmic truth when it expands into the ocean of the infinite mind. There is an explosion of energy, and the apparently small individual consciousness is freed from the thralldom of matter. It is only in this modern age that physics has accepted the fact that matter and energy are interconvertible. Over two thousand years ago, however, Tantra went one step further and asserted that matter, energy, and consciousness are all interconvertible. Modern science is slowly and reluctantly coming to the same conclusion. Today Tantra stands as the only spiritual tradition that has kept the sphere of practical application alive and uses it as a scientific treatment for the human mind and consciousness.

The ancient rishis dissected the human personality and made different sciences that would raise each aspect of the personality to its highest potential, thus creating a holistic and complete human being. Ayurveda is a method of maintaining a perfect physical body, while Tantra is a mental science, a meta-psychology, a method of exploring the mind and developing the range of one’s perceptions. In fact, it is the science of personality. Tantra declares that the path of liberation is open to every type of nature—sensual or spiritual, atheistic or theistic, weak or strong. It helps one discover one’s own path. All human emotions, from passion and love to fear, hatred, and anger, are energy forces. If controlled, they can enable one to experience higher realities.

The universe possesses all possible qualities and attributes, and each creature within the universe possesses a limited number of these qualities and attributes. The human psyche is itself a field of all possibilities, though we don’t make use of it. The personality of an individual depends on his or her identification with a certain set of attributes. The supreme, according to Shaktism, is Adi Shakti and possesses the ultimate personality, the supreme expression of the totality of manifested existence. Illness, according to Tantra, lies in having a limited, nonintegrated personality. Health is derived both from internal balance as well as from harmony with the environment. On the physical level, our body’s immunity lies in the number of white blood cells and antibodies that it has; similarly the strength of the mind lies in the degree of its personality integration. The aim of Tantra is to replace the limited human personality with an unlimited, permanent one. Anyone who continues to live with a limited personality can be considered to be diseased. Only those who choose to go beyond the three limiting factors of time, space, and causality can be said to be in harmony with the cosmos and, therefore, truly healthy.

Tantrists use certain types of medicinal plants, metals, and gems in their practices. They discovered the obscure secret of mercury, which has an infinite number of uses. The Tantrists also searched for the philosopher’s stone, which would change base metal into gold, but esoterically speaking, the change they sought was the transmutation of the individual’s limited personality to the gold of enlightenment, a state of unlimited consciousness.

One area of Tantric research lies in seeking methods of prolonging life, since that would give a practitioner more time for integrating the personality and attaining harmony with creation. A Tantric practitioner may fail to gain immortality in one lifetime, but it is very possible that he or she would gain siddhis (extraordinary powers). Wisely used, siddhis can accelerate one’s spiritual evolution. But if they are commercialized, as they very often are by foolish Tantrists, they will only bind one down more firmly to the wheel of cause and effect.

Though Tantra may seem too complex for the ordinary person, one cannot fail to be filled with awe at the amazing thoroughness and attention to specific details that the ancient sages displayed in this science. Thankfully it cannot be exploited, for only one who can practice it in its every detail would be qualified to teach it, and such practitioners are rare.

As has been mentioned before, there is no siddhi or perfection without sadhana or spiritual practice. The sadhanas, which make use of mantra and yantra, are essential for the procurement of any siddhis. A mantra is a particular vibration of the original creative throb of the cosmos and represents the seed sound of a particular godhead in the structure of consciousness. Mantras are chanted during rituals in order to invoke the appropriate deities. All gods have their own mantra, which has the ability to conjure up the form of the deity when used repeatedly in the prescribed fashion. Yantras are a particular arrangement of the original light emanating from the absolute. They represent the form pattern of a god. Yantras are normally diagrams drawn on bark, crystal, or copper plates. They can also be drawn on the ground with different-colored powders or sand; this is done before the commencement of a yajna (fire sacrifice) or puja (ritual). In other words, mantra is the seed sound of the deity and yantra the form pattern. In this way the rishis captured the nameless and the formless in sounds and forms!

Tantra insists that no worship of a deity is complete without the worship of the deity’s body in a material image like an idol or a yantra or chakra. Inner worship leads one to the path of knowledge, but for the full development of both the spiritual and the material aspects of life, outer worship is necessary. Outer worship is more powerful; it intensifies devotion and stabilizes the inner realization to the outer conditions. When practiced in an automatic and lifeless manner outer worship will have no results, but when done with knowledge it can open up the body and mind of the aspirant to the heights of consciousness and delight. If offered to the higher force within oneself, any act, however mundane it may be, becomes a medium through which one can expand awareness.

Tantra teaches that through the name and form of any deity it is possible to attain the nameless and formless Brahman. Mantra, the sound, and yantra, the form, are both used in the path mapped out by Tantra. Therefore mantra and yantra are both necessary to obtaining siddhi. Mantra is the energy that moves the vehicle or yantra according to the path as described by Tantra. The best yantra is said to be the human body. The divine is already resident within this body, and through the practice of certain Tantric rites the individual will be able to reach his or her full divine potential. The highest self is said to be a priceless gem locked in a chest that is buried in mud. Tantric disciplines consist of cleaning away the mud of our petty desires and negativity and opening the treasure box in our brain to expose the gem of self-awareness within.

Tantric sadhanas are divided into three different types to be used by different types of personalities. The pashu type is the tamasic individual whose life is akin to that of an animal inasmuch as he lives only for the sake of externalized enjoyments. Such an aspirant should perform external worship in its grossest form to control these urges. The divya or divine type has a sattvic temperament and tends to be introverted. Such a person need not bother with external rituals, even though he or she may continue to practice them with devotion and knowledge. The vira or heroic type is rajasic in nature and likes activity. Such a person can perform both external and internal rituals. He or she is capable of giving complete attention to every detail of the ritual, which is an important point in all Tantric rites. The true divya and vira types consider every act of daily life to be a ritual. Every breath is an offering to Adi Shakti. Their whole life is an offering to the supreme. Their goal is to awaken the inherent feminine Shakti or energy within in order to attain union with the supreme consciousness known as Shiva. Every act of theirs is geared toward this consummation. Without awakening this energy, one can never attain the supreme.

Tantra insists that there can be no mukti (liberation) without bhukti (experience). Though Tantra affirms the existence of the transcendental Brahman, it also affirms the existence of the universe as a manifestation of the divine Shakti. So everything that takes place in the universe is divine, and every experience that comes to the individual, whether good or bad, has to be accepted gratefully. The Tantrist does not mind regarding the world as maya so long as it is understood that this maya is nothing but the Divine Mother herself. Tantric sadhana is used for procuring not only spiritual benefit but also material goods, for they are the foundations on which the whole spiritual structure stands. The sadhaka depends totally on the magnanimity of the goddess to protect and provide.

The Tantric attitude toward life differs greatly from that of some of the other schools of Indian philosophy. Advaita Vedanta or monism, for example, the philosophy of a nondual Brahman, proclaims that Brahman alone is real and the world is unreal. If the world is unreal, then our view of the world is clouded. The world is considered to be the source of pain and sorrow, for it is evanescent. Adi Shankaracharya, the founder of Advaita Vedanta, viewed the world from the transcendental point of view and thus concluded that it was unreal. Tantra, on the other hand, takes the standpoint of the jiva. To the jiva, the world is real and Iswari, the goddess as creator of the universe, is also real. It is her shakti that brings forth creation out of herself, like the spider spinning the world of its web out of itself. The Tantrists consider the goddess to be Anandarupini, pure blissful consciousness. From this they derive the idea that the universe is not only real but also joyful in character and meant for enjoyment. However, because of our desires for transitory things we are unable to enjoy this life as it is meant to be enjoyed.

Tantric rituals are sacrificial rites. Though herbs, minerals, and sometimes even animals are used as offerings, they are only secondary to the true offering, which is the sacrifice of one’s limited self into the fires of penance. Contrary to popular belief, Shaktism, like other schools of Hinduism, affirms that a healthy physical and moral life is absolutely essential to the practice of Tantra. One who has not refrained from evil acts and has no peace of mind and self-control cannot attain God by any means.

Tantra is divided into two main branches: the Dakshina Marga, or the right-hand path, and the Vama Marga (sometimes called the Kaula Marga), or the left-hand path. The Dakshina Marga is meant for those who seek steady progress with reduced danger of setbacks. The Vama Marga is described as fast, terrible, and intense. On this path the chances of a fall are great unless one has the protection of a powerful guru. The sexual rituals that have made Tantra notorious are part of this path. There is much misunderstanding about this path even today. The Vama Marga is the most esoteric teaching of Tantra and, as has been said, should never be practiced without a competent guru who has mastered the art and is capable of leading the aspirant step by step through this walk on the razor’s edge, where the slightest fall could lead to death or insanity.

The Dakshina Marga or right-handed path devotes itself to the worship of the goddess in her most benign form, while the left-handed path worships her in her most terrible and base forms. With the typical fearlessness of Hinduism, Shaktism insists that worship of the goddess should reconcile all aspects of the deity, both good and so-called evil. Since she is Adi Shakti, she encompasses everything, so there is nothing that can be considered beyond the pale. This is one of the reasons why Tantric practices have been a closely guarded secret. There is a great danger of them being misinterpreted and falling into the wrong hands. One should never practice classical Tantra without a guru because there are no Tantric texts that give accurate information about the rituals. All the texts either omit an essential step or give false information so it is only through the guru that the esoteric information can be received. It is always handed down from teacher to disciple.

One of the first steps in Tantric practice is tattva shuddhi, the purification of the elements that make up our material body. These elements are earth, water, air, fire, and ether. By continuous practice we can divine these elements in our body so that they are seen not as gross matter but as forms of the divine Shakti, who is nothing but the supreme consciousness. To achieve harmony these elements must be purified, and to experience pure consciousness we have to go beyond the matter these five elements comprise. Tattva shuddhi releases and transforms the energy that is locked in matter. The universe, including our own bodies, has evolved out of Shakti or pure energy. Her cosmic counterpart is Shiva or pure consciousness. Although Shiva and Shakti have momentarily separated to give rise to the whole of creation, they are forever striving to unite in the human body in order to reexperience the cosmic unity from which they evolved. The whole object of Tantra is to attain this cosmic union.

Panchamakara is one of the many Tantric rituals that aim at tattva shuddhi, sometimes called bhuta shuddhi. Its name, panchamakara, denotes the five offerings of the ritual, whose names all start with the Sanskrit letter ma: madya (wine), matsya (fish), mamsa (flesh), mithuna (sex), and mudras (mystic gestures) Sometimes parched grain (grain that cannot sprout) is used as the fifth offering in place of mudras. These five have different meanings according to the type of aspirant who practices the ritual. The pashu or tamasic type alone is meant to follow the verbal meaning of the panchamakaras, or five offerings. The intensity of these five articles of worship, like the eating of fish, meat, wine, and parched grain and having controlled sex, is supposed to overwhelm the dullness of the tamasic person and stimulate his or her brain. If the aspirant has been properly taught by a competent guru, this increased mental energy can help to hasten his or her spiritual evolution. A half-baked aspirant, on the other hand, will be overcome by this stimulation and descend into debauchery of the worst type.

Rajasic or vira types have active minds that must be properly channeled. They need less stimulation and more control. So they use ginger instead of meat, radish instead of fish, boiled rice instead of parched grain, honey instead of wine, and flowers instead of sex in their panchamakara rituals.

The divya or sattvic types are naturally balanced and harmonious and do not require external aids to worship. For them meat is their own flesh that is eaten through fasting and silence. Fish is breath control through the practice of pranayama; breath flows through the two nostrils like fish swimming upriver. Grain is the use of concentration techniques. Wine is the intoxication obtained from God, and sex is the union of one’s limited ego with the absolute.

Esoterically speaking, madya is the nectar flowing from the sahasrara chakra. Matsya and mudra stand for the two nadis (tubes of astral matter that carry psychic energy) of kundalini: the ida and pingala. Mithuna is, of course, the joy of union of the atman with the Paramatman in the sahasrara chakra at the crown of the head.

Panchamakara is a fast, intense way to achieve tattva shuddhi. Each of its five offerings represents one element. Meat stands for earth, fish for water, wine for fire, grain for air, and sex for ether. By the correct use of this ritual we can balance these elements in our body and thus achieve perfect harmony with the universe, which in turn gives us the perfect physical health that is so necessary for spiritual practice.

The doctrine of kundalini and the chakras is also closely connected with the five great elements. When the elements have been thoroughly purified in an individual, Kundalini Shakti, the embodiment of kundalini that is the individual equivalent of the cosmic Adi Shakti, has a free path upward through the chakras and is able to meet and unite with Shiva in the sahasrara chakra in the brain. Each of the five lower chakras is the seat of the subtle form of one element. As each one is purified and harmonized, Kundalini Shakti can free herself from their grasp and rise upward. Many methods like the panchamakara are advocated in order to enable this psychic force to rise. The chanting of the Lalitha Sahasranama, a listing of the thousand and one names of Lalitha, with an understanding of its esoteric meaning as a description of the rise of Kundalini Shakti, is one of them.

The wonderful hymn of Brahma to the goddess in the Brahmanda Purana gives us a clue to the form of the goddess worshipped by the Shaktas. It is addressed to the goddess Adi Lakshmi or Kamakshi, who is said to be the mother of the Trimurtis (the Hindu trinity). She has the glorious form of light and shines in the hearts of all. She is Jaganmata (mother of the universe) as well as Tripurasundari (most beautiful in all the three worlds). She creates, preserves, and destroys the universe, but none can really know her. She is known only to herself. She is to be meditated upon by Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva as well as by Indra and the other deities. She is jnana shakti, and it is at her command that the sun and moon light the earth and fire burns brightly. She is the immanent soul of all souls.

There was no mind there with its need to know,

There was no heart there with its need to love,

All people perished in its namelessness,

There was no second; it had no partner or peer.

Only itself was real to itself.

—SAVITRI BY SRI AUROBINDO

Thus ends the twenty-eighth chapter of Shakti, known as “Adi Shakti,” which describes Tantra, the cult of the Shaktas.

Aum Aim Hreem Kleem