“If you hope to continue to exist after Kundalini is awakened completely you must be able to make Her go from the Muladhara to the Sahasrara, and then in the reverse direction, downwards from the Sahasrara to the
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Muladhara, under perfect control. Prana and Apana are then perfectly united. Apana is represented as a downward-pointing triangle, and Prana as an upward-pointing one. Their union forms a six-pointed star.
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Kundalini Yantra
At the center of the yantra is the goddess Kundalini coiled around a linga within a downward pointing yoni triangle. This rests on two intersecting triangles placed over two intersecting squares, which represents the union of Kundalini Shakti with her Shiva. On the eight lotus petals are the six chakras, the Sahasrara and the yantra of Shiva and Shakti in union.
“We call this freed Kundalini by a special name: the Kula Kundalini. Like every Sanskrit word, the word kula has many different meanings. Its most important meaning here is ‘Supreme Consciousness of the Universe.’ It also
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refers to ‘form,’ because the job of the Kundalini Shakti, the Supreme Con sciousness, is to finitize, to give form and limits.
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Yantra of Shiva and Shakti
“In the astral sense kula means ‘family.’ The Kula Kundalini, the Kundalini once She is uncoiled and straightened out along the Six Chakras, takes the form of the Goddess Who is meant to be worshipped by the family into which you have been born. Kundalini is by herself formless and pure, but when she moves through the body She must be qualified, possessed of attributes, so She takes the form of one of the Great Goddesses and guides you. The partic ular form She takes is determined by your ancestry. Then you realize why you were born into a particular family, which allows you to understand your kar mic debts, which in turn gives you knowledge of your past births.
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“Take my own deity, Smashan Tara, for example. The word tara comes from a root, meaning among other things to swim. You know that when you swim you must remove all your clothes. To swim across the ocean of sam sara you must remove all the clothes’ of your attachments. This is one rea son why Tara is always shown naked except for severed arms and heads, which represent the karmas and emotions that clothe’ you, preventing you from seeing Her in Her full, unalloyed purity and beauty. Tara is meant to be worshipped only by the select few who need to worship Her to fulfill their destinies. Only they are fit to worship Her; only they can succeed.
“If this sounds complicated,” and he could see that it did, “it is because it has a lot to do with your heredity and the state of your consciousness. As long as your ego self-identifies with your body your consciousness resides in your brain and is affected by the chemical environment there, which is influenced by the tastes in your diet and by the hormones produced by the brain cells. The hormonal pattern is determined by your genes and chromo somes, which are in turn determined by your ancestors.
“You told me a few days back that scientists have discovered a gene which produces a protein which causes depression. These scientists have a long way to go yer; they will find that many previously unsuspected things are included in our hereditary material. One of the main differences between ordinary humans and Rishis is that Rishis can play about with genes and chromosomes, and we humans cannot.
“Your genes and chromosomes determine which rasas you can manufac ture yourself and which you have to imbibe from the world. When I say rasa (flavor) I mean both the physical tastes of your food and your emotional ’tastes’ and tendencies. If your guru gives you the correct form of Ma to wor ship you can, by obtaining Her Shakti, perfect your personality, which involves bringing your brain chemistry into perfect balance. Then it becomes very easy to merge with the infinite.”
“Does Rasa Vidya (Tantric alchemy), which I have been studying in Ayurveda, also help do this?"
“Of course! That is the whole purpose of Rasa Vidya. Rasa Vidya is a sadhana by means of which you gain control over your rasa, and transmute it into Maha Rasa, a transcendental flavor, within you."
Oh my. “No one talks about this at the Ayurvedic college," I complained.
“No one knows about the real Rasa Vidya over there, my boy,” he said, and returned to making his point. “The followers of Tantra who perform this practice of making Kundalini into Kula Kundalini are called Kaulas. When the ordinary sadhaka’s Kundalini is awakened the experience is so over
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whelming that Nirvikalpa Samadhi is followed by cessation of individual existence. But with Ma’s grace Kaulas deliberately come down to duality again and remain in those final three chakras that I mentioned earlier: Golata, Lalata, and Lalana. What they do there I can’t tell you, but think about this: Krishna lived as a cowherd in Gokulago + kula, the family of cows’–when He was young, and He herds the ‘cows’ (sense organs) of those of His devotees who reach Him in Goloka. The head is a Gokula itself, a ‘family of sense organs.’ Goloka cannot be described; it can only be expe rienced, in one of these chakras.
“After you become Kaula, abhisheka (ritual initiatory bath) is performed on you to make you Maha Kaula. But mind you, you become eligible for abhisheka only when you surrender yourself completely to your guru. Only when you are completely empty can you be filled with shakti. The liquid used for abhisheka is first charged with mantric energy, so this abhisheka is a kind of Shaktipat Diksha, initiation by transfer of shakti, and it perma nently alters your personality. In India a king (raja) used to be given a Raja Abhisheka in order to fill him with sufficient shakti to govern well. This practice was not limited to India, mind you: Jesus’s baptism by John the Baptist was a kind of abhisheka, as was the ancient Hebrew practice by which kings were anointed by prophets.
“When the Kundalini of a Maha Kaula is completely awakened he becomes Maha Atharvan. Maha means ‘great,’ ‘immense,‘‘cosmico; Maha Atharvan is he who has gone beyond the limitations of the Atharva Veda, which is the source of Tantra. As I tell you constantly, the results you can achieve with the Vedas and Aghora are exactly the same; only the paths dif fer.
“In spite of all this explanation you may still wonder, “Just what exactly is the Kundalini Shakti?’ Shakti is shakti, whether it is the Kundalini Shakti, Chit Shakti, Maya Shakti, or some other shakti. Energy is energy. Einstein tried for twenty-five years to prove it with a Unified Field Theory, but he couldn’t do it because he didn’t look deep enough. He was stuck in the physical universe. To fully understand the Kundalini Shakti, you must go beyond Her external manifestations, for which sadhana is necessary.
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