The Curse Of The Goddess
Page 11
Chapter 11: Tantra Mystery
The skeletons and the skulls they had discovered convinced Nil, Doma and Samten that the tantric worshipped the goddess with human sacrifice. Nil felt it necessary before further adventure to get some more information about the tantric from the guru at Tarapith. So he left for Darjeeling alone. Samten had given him an address of a reliable Sherpa near the Victoria Falls at Darjeeling. When Nil called at his house the man gladly received Nil without any query. After some rest he went to the mall and from a cyber cafe emailed to Shyamal informing him about everything and also asking him to meet the guru immediately and gather detail information of the tantric here.
Going out of the cafe he opened his cell phone and found the battery down. He turned around to look for the recharging pluck and was panicked to find Namsell quickly receding into a lane. Then he had even come to Darjeeling to espy him? 'No I can't prevent him. I should not waste time on him any more. Let him do whatever he likes. I should only be cautious,' Nil said to himself and recharged the battery from a call center and called Shyamal standing at a clear spot so that the Bhutia could not be at audible distance without being noticed. Nil asked Shyamal to read his email and reply immediately. Shyamal sent an sms that he would meet the guru soon and email back the next day. So Nil had to stay at Darjeeling for one more day. Next day he got the email with an attachment. He opened it and asked the cyber owner to give him a printout of the text. He deleted the file before leaving. He took the printout and after meeting the Sherpa left Darjeeling and reached the caves in the evening after two days.
Next morning Nil invited Doma to his cave and started reading the emailed text The printout was about thirty five pages giving details about tantra cult and the background of this tantric. Nil read the text with rapt attention and after reading each paragraph he explained the contents to Doma and thereafter they openly discussed the matters and in this way they could have a clear insight into the mystic cult of tantra.
No body could tell when the tantra cult originated. It appeared as a parallel to Hatha-Yogic cult which contained similar physiological postures and breathing exercises and also the ultimate goal of self realization and unification with the supreme was the same. But they differed radically as regards the approach towards our desires, emotions and passions, especially those pertaining to food and sex habits. Yoga cult considered all our physical desires as vices and suggested repression and abstention from the very beginning. On the other hand tantra cult considered our worldly desires as natural and endowed us by god. They are vices so long as they remain crude and confined to transitory gratification of desires. So the tantric recognizes them as reality and without repressing them he is to be taboo-free about all desires for sex and food. His endeavor should be to transcend the crude aspect and get all these desires sublimated to a higher plain. In this way sex ultimately transcends to a level where the physical union of the male and the female transcends to the cosmic union of 'purusha' and 'prakriti'.
The first evidence of these esoteric cults dates back to about 5000 B.C. Sculptures of yogic postures have been discovered in excavations pertaining to Indus valley civilization. The first literary evidence of esoteric cult is Atharva Veda which is not considered as pious by the orthodox Vedic school. However, the magic and charms depicted in Atharva Veda are considerably different from the tantric practices. Later on tantric cult evolved and took various forms under Vazrajan and Zen schools of Buddhism, and Sakta, Vaishnab and Saiba schools of Hinduism. During the fifteenth century the Hath Yoga cult was rejuvenated by borrowing heavily from the physical rites of tantra.
The rigorous tantra cult of the Sakta school is popularly known as tantrism in India. This school belongs to the vamachari Sakta cult. Their descriptions of inner human anatomy and physiology are the closest to modern bio-scientific discoveries of human economy. The tantra cult developed in course of millennia long trial and error but the tantrics had no scientific theoretical knowledge and so they mixed up mysticism and extra mundane speculative philosophy with tantra. Their goal too was mystic, to resolve the mystery of life and death and union with the creator of the universe.
Tantra cult describes seven chakras (wheels) in human body. Their locations are: coccyx (muladhar chakra), sacrum (swadhisthan chakra), lumbar close to the navel (manipur chakra), thoracic close to the heart (anahata chakra), cervical close to the throat (visuddha chakra), base of the scull in between the angle of the eyes and the pituitary gland (ajna chakra) and top of the cerebrum (sahasrar chakra).
These chakras rest at important nerve plexuses, major points of contact between the central, sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems and some major endocrine glands.
Tantrics like the yogis believe that our main source of life force and vital energy is stored in a dormant form in the coccyx. They get this shrouded in mystery by visualizing that goddess kundalini as the source of our life force lies dormant in the coccyx in three and a half fold coil.
In fact this is nothing but our life force in the form of genetic code of the DNA. For ordinary persons only an insignificant fraction of the genetic potential become manifest. Moreover the coccyx region is one of the two most important feedback centers (the other is at the top of the cerebrum) for the central and autonomic (sympathetic and parasympathetic) nervous systems.
Central nervous system relates to our conscious knowledge. But most of the vital functions are performed without our conscious knowledge by the autonomic nervous systems. They are like an extremely powerful computer mechanism with programs embedded in the genetic code. For ordinary persons only a tiny fraction of these programs are operative.
The tantric rites through breathing control and auto suggestions endeavor to retrieve from the hard disc stored in the coccyx the dormant genetic potentials. They, however, define this as awakening of the kundalini goddess, the supreme mother goddess responsible for giving shape to the palpable universe and the energies that flow through this universe. She is lying dormant in three and a half coil inside the muladhar chakra. We are to wake her and let her move upwards along the path of the chakras toward the sahasrar chakra at the top of the cerebrum where the supreme god 'purusha' (the inert and invisible creator by whose command and will the supreme mother goddess has created this visible universe) resides. With the ascent of the mother goddess along the path defined by the chakras the tantric acquires extra ordinary supernatural powers and ultimately if the goddess can get untied with the supreme god at sahasrar, the tantric becomes one with the supreme and gets free from the cycle of birth and death.
The tantrics or yogis learnt about the immense power that could be acquired by complicated postures and breathing exercises and meditation through millennia long trial and error process. Without any scientific knowledge, they ascribed this to be the manifestation of power of the goddess kundalini who after being awakened moves upwards with continued efforts of the tantric and higher and higher she moves the man is endowed with more and more spectacular powers.
Breathing processes (pranayam) and mudras (complicated yogic postures) are very crucial to the awakening of the kundalini. The breathing tracks are called nadis (rivers). Three rivers are visualized by tantric cult. All the rivers originate at the coccyx and end up at the top of the cerebrum. The first river 'Ida' starts from the left side and the second river 'pingala' begins at the right side of the coccyx. They alternate sides by crossing each chakra. Ida touches the left nostril after crossing the visuddha chakra and gets connected with inhalation through the left nostril and thereafter crosses the ajna chakra to reach the sahasrar chakra from the right side. Pingala, on the other hand, follows an opposite course, gets entangled with breathing through the right nostril and ends up at the left side of the sahasrar. Beginning at the coccyx like the other two the central river susumna crosses ida and pingala at each chakra and eventually meets with them in the sahasrar from the middle. The three rivers may be compared with the sympathetic, parasympathetic and central nervous systems. It is bel
ieved that with tantric practices the kundalini force rises along the susumna river toward the cerebrum.
From the logical and scientific standpoint, with the rigorous breathing exercises, complicated postures, meditation and auto suggestions our dormant genetic possibilities open up gradually and we have gradual access to the hitherto autonomic nervous systems. More and more we have command over the autonomic systems along the spinal column from coccyx to sacral, sacral to lumber and so on, our latent genetic potentials open up more fully.
From the very beginning of this awakening the tantric experiences tremendous energy and power which the ignorant person considers as supernatural. Majority of the tantrics fail after the initial achievements and because of their degeneration they cannot continue further practices properly. Their minds do not elevate in conformity with the elevation of the genetic possibilities. The most important reason is the freedom from taboos resulting in abject surrender to passions. The yogis fail because of ruthless repression of natural desires and tantrics fail because of over indulgence with these desires.
The most important hindrance is sex. Sex is the most powerful aspect of our vital force as nature demands from us in the first place that we procreate for continuation of the species. Therefore the initial success of tantric practice is accompanied by empowerment of libido and sexual capabilities and the power to attract the females into sex orgies. So most of the tantric is carried away by obsession with sex and this disables him to continue further practice successfully.
Some tantrics start making a show off of their acquired power through magic described by them as supernatural power. They attract people in large numbers to become disciples. This guru cult fulfils his greed for money and power and he loses his way.
Now his limited power cannot be enhanced through tantric practices but his greed demands more capabilities and he now resorts to fancied ideas of worship like offering sacrifices of animals and even human beings to the goddess Kali whom the superstitious and misguided tantrics consider as a blood thirsty goddess.