“You know, the whole purpose of Tantra is to free us from all limitations. The world is full of negative influences that limit our consciousnesses, and one of the greatest of these limitations is that of the Five Great Elements which make up the universe. If you can purify these Elements within you you can free yourself from their influence, and then your Kundalini will be free to rise unimpeded. As I have told you before, Bhuta Shuddhi is the essence of Tantra. All puja (ritual worship) is really Bhuta Shuddhi, and it is impossible to worship Shakti unless you use representatives of the Five Ele ments in some form or another to help purify those very Elements.
“The simplest possible puja, one which is performed by tens of millions of people daily, involves offering to God flowers, to represent the Ether Ele ment, incense for the Air Element, a lamp for Fire, food for Water, and san dalwood paste, or another fragrant unguent, for Earth.
“Panchamakara also uses representatives of the Five Elements, but they are different from the ones that most people use. Panchamakara means “the Five Ms’: mamsa, matsya, mudra, madira, and maithuna. Normally these are translated meat, fish, parched grain, wine, and sexual union, and one of the reasons Tantra has a bad name today is that people have read or heard about this ritual and believe that you must be a drunken carnivorous libertine in order to be a Tantric. Ha!
“The people who babble on about such things don’t understand what they are saying. It is so typical. Think of this: How many Catholics have ever considered that by eating Jesus’ flesh and drinking His blood, as they say they do during their communion, they have become cannibals? If you love Jesus, can you ever think of eating his flesh and drinking His blood? Never!
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Unless, of course, you are an Aghori, but none of these padres are Agho ris—far from it. This is why I say there are very few real Christians left. Almost all those who claim to be Christians just follow the ritual without any idea of what they are doing-like most Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Parsis and followers of all other religions who also perform their rituals mechanically. At least people should think of the implications of what they believe and practice.
“Each M of the Five Ms represents a different Element. Grain corresponds to Earth, fish to Water, alcohol to Fire, flesh to Air, and sex to Ether. In this way the universe itself is used as the articles of worship. This is why the Tantrics can say, ‘Liberation is achieved by use of that which causes bond age.’ Normally the use of meat, fish, other stimulating foods, alcohol or sex binds you down more tightly to the world, but if you use these same sub stances in the Tantric way they can be the source of your liberation from bondage, by stimulating the free movement of Kundalini. The key of course is to use them in the right way.
“In the physical type of Panchamakara most of the stimulation comes from the substances themselves. In small amounts alcohol increases appe tite; it is a very hot substance, and hot things always stimulate the flow of blood in the body. Fish has a lot of phosphorus in it. When you remember that phosphorus bums whenever it is exposed to air you can imagine how hot it is. Phosphorus increases the appetite by increasing blood flow to all organs, including the brain. This appetite stimulation makes you hungry enough to eat the meat and the parched grain, which further increase this blood flow. All the extra circulating blood dilates the capillaries in the brain, filling its cells with extra energy. This makes the sex ten times better than normal, since full excitement is present. Full excitement improves satiation and helps turn the mind away from sex for its own sake. The sex itself of course increases the excitement even more. If you know what you are doing, all this excitement will help you awaken your Kundalini.
“Only a few people are fit to use these Five Ms,” he concluded, delivering another blow to my spiritual ambitions. “Others can use substitutes, or bet ter yet, if they are well advanced, they can perform the spiritual Pancha makara directly. Can you imagine how that might be?”
I shook my head no.
“In the spiritual Panchamakara mamsa is the tongue. You ‘eat meat’ by preserving silence. Matsya is the breath, and eating fish’ means holding the breath via pranayama. Mudra, ’eating grain,’ is the holding of the body in a certain posture to encourage free movement of Kundalini within it. Madira
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is the ‘wine’ of Amrita which drops from the glands within the head into the body, and Maithuna is the union of the Kundalini Shakti with Her Shiva in the Sahasrara.
“There is even an adhidaivika version of Panchamakara, but it is too advanced for you to even hear about right now. Suffice it to say that the Adhidaivika Panchamakara involves fiddling about with the genes and chro mosomes. The world of the adhidaivika is very difficult for most humans to comprehend, because it is the world of the gods and goddesses, the embod iments of cosmic forces which have assumed personalities in order to inter act with other beings.
“The puja in which Panchamakara is performed is called Chakra Puja. Chakra here means circle or ring, because during Chakra Puja the partici pants sit for worship in a large circle. There are Sattvic versions of Chakra Puja, like the Bhairavi Chakra, and there are also Rajasic and Tamasic ver sions, Most forms of Chakra Puja are varieties of the Panchamakara Sadhana.”
“Does ‘chakra’ also refer to the chakras in the body?”
“Definitely. Such names are never chosen arbitrarily. I once wanted to go to the West and start a Chakra Puja cult, but of course my mentors would not permit me.”
When he didn’t want to answer a question he would change the subject.
“I really admire Westerners, and Americans in particular, for their practical attitude. They are the true Vedantins in this respect, not like our gasbag preachers of Vedanta here in India. Westerners, or at least a few of them, could learn how to do Panchamakara properly because thay are not as inhibited as today’s Indians are. The only thing is, I’m not sure they could do without sex long enough to gain control over it, because sex has become so free and so common over there.
“The Tantras state that eating, excreting, sex, and sadhana all should be done strictly in private. Both the West and India have deviated from this ideal, but in different ways. Westerners believe in open sex, sex in any pub lic place, but they are strict in insisting that you must eliminate your bodily wastes in private. Here in India, on the contrary, we don’t care where you piss. What if you are an old man? You will be troubled if you have to hold your urine for very long. But we don’t believe in open sex; we believe that love should be secret. We believe in getting rid of the filth within us, and Westerners believe in holding onto their filth and displaying their treasures in front of everyone where they can be stolen.”
That was going too far, but I knew he was exaggerating for effect so I let it pass.
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“The only way to progress, at least in the beginning, is to throw sex out completely. Forget even the existence of sex and you will be able to make progress; otherwise you will always be yielding to temptation, mentally if not physically. This is why most sadhakas who experiment with sexual sadhanas before they have become really firm inside succeed only in dissi pating themselves. Sexual sadhana is one thing, and ordinary sex quite another; ordinary sex and sadhana just don’t mix. If you try to both raise Kundalini and continue with ordinary sex at the same time you may develop a ravenous appetite for sex.
“I still believe that the best way to deal with the problem is to ignore the opposite sex in the beginning, until your consciousness is firm. Until I was in my twenties I never had anything to do with girls. I was a wrestler, and wrestlers are supposed to shun sex. Once I was going to have a bout with a wrestler named Imam Bux, so I went to an old man to get suggestions as to how to fight him. As soon as the old man saw me he said, “This boy has never even seen a vagina, much less used one; how will Imam Bux be able to fight him?’ And in fact I had no trouble defeating Imam Bux when I did fight him.
“The old man could say this because he knew that before you get caught up in this sex business you are completely innocent, and if you set your mind to something you can easily achieve it without any distraction. But once you see a vulva, or a penis if you are a female, it has such a queer effect on your mind that sometimes for no reason at all you will remember it and your concentration will be broken. This is true of everyone, not just you and me. Even a Rishi as powerful as Vishwamitra fell prey to an apsaras.”
The apsarases are dancing girls in the court of Indra, the king of the gods. Famous for their bewitching beauty, they are powerful beings whom Indra sometimes sends down to Earth to delude sadhus into sexual excesses.
“Vishwamitra had been medicating with perfect concentration for ten thousand years when one day the Apsaras Menaka strolled by. Suddenly a gust of wind blew away the flimsy diaphanous garment she was wearing, exposing her full, firm, voluptuous body to his gaze. Without warning Vish wamitra’s eyes led him astray, and he was overwhelmed with lust. He took Menaka aside to fornicate.
“Their sexual embrace lasted for thousands of years, until one day Vish wamitra told her, ‘O beautiful woman, it has been pleasant dallying with you here for these few hours, but now I must prepare myself for the evening worship.’
“She told him, ‘What are you saying, Maharaj? That afternoon when we
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first met was centuries ago. Here is our daughter Shakuntala.’ As Vishwami tra suddenly realized the depth of the Maya into which he had fallen Menaka slipped quietly away, knowing how potent a Rishi’s curse can be.
“Any fool can tell this story, but how many can, or will, explain its esoteric meaning? Indra means indriya, sense organ; Indra is Lord of the Senses. An apsaras, in the esoteric sense, is a particular mode of movement of prana in a particular nadi which causes you to suddenly become sexually excited for no reason at all. Once prana starts to move in that nadi it is hell to remove it. Vishwamitra’s mind never really recovered fully from being shaken by Menaka, and eventually he married again. There was no need for him to marry; he had been a king in his youth and had had plenty of wives whom he had all given up for sadhana. But after renouncing sex and then being reminded of women he could never quite forget them again. Forgetting sex is really a chore.
“And what about Indra himself? He is described as having one thousand eyes, but did you know that those one thousand eyes were once vulvas? He was burdened with one thousand vaginas because he seduced Ahalya, the wife of Gautama Rishi. Indra allowed his consciousness to be dragged away by his sense organs, and was cursed by Gautama as a result. Indra became extremely embarrassed when he found he was covered with vulvas, and so he meekly propitiated the Rishi, who modified the curse, and the vulvas were converted into eyes. Can you guess what this story means?”
I could not. “Those one thousand vaginas represent the thousands of ‘holes’ you can fall into, the thousands and millions of wombs which can trap you into being reborn when you crave the enjoyment they offer. They became eyes because you are usually led into temptation by your eyes.”
He fell silent briefly to let this sink in, and then continued. “This tendency to be tempted into sense pleasures has been with us from the very beginning, of course, but it is much, much stronger during Kali Yuga. You have probably heard about the Four Yugas?”
I had: “The Four Yugas are the Four Ages through which the world passes, over and over again. Each one lasts for so many thousands or millions of years. Kali Yuga, our current age, is supposed to last for 432,000 years. Are these real calculations, or are these numbers mainly significant numerologi cally?”
“They are mainly numerological.”
Joseph Campbell found that while the number 432 (4 x 108) is numero logically significant in Indian, Norse, Babylonian and Jewish myth it is also
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significant in the world of physics. 432 results when one divides the 25,920 years in one cycle of zodiac progression by 60. A heart beating sixty times a minute beats 86,400 times a day (864 + 2 = 432), and lungs breathing fif teen times a minute breathe 21,600 times a day (216 x 2 = 432). Even the Wilson Company, after long research, concluded that its golf ball should possess precisely 432 dimples for maximal flight.
“Each period of creation, or ‘day’ in the lifetime of the Creator, is called a kalpa. Each kalpa is named; our current kalpa is called the Sveta Varaha Kalpa, the White Boar Kalpa. Each kalpa lasts for billions of years, and is divided up into fourteen periods called manvantaras which are ruled by a manu, a being who is the progenitor of the races who live on the earth dur ing that time. We are currently in the Vaivasvata Manvantara, the seventh manvantara of this Kalpa.
“Each manvantara is made up of about seventy cycles of the Four Yugas. The Four Ages are Satya Yuga, Treta Yuga, Dvapara Yuga, and our era, Kali Yuga. We are now living in the twenty-eighth Kali Yuga since the beginning of the current manvantara.
“At the end of each Kali Yuga there is a pralaya, a period when all societies and communities are destroyed, usually by natural calamities. Then there is a period of rest, and Satya Yuga begins again. At the end of each manvantara there is a more extensive destruction, and at the end of the kalpa the entire cosmos is temporarily resolved into its elements while the Creator ‘sleeps.’ When He wakes, the cosmos is again recreated by His thought. We are all actors in the Creator’s dream.
“At the end of the Creator’s life even He is resolved into the Absolute, and although He is currently in the second half of His life there is no need for concern since He will die trillions of our years into the future. Even after He dies another Creator will eventually be born and the cycle will continue. Creation and destruction, destruction and creation: time marches on.
“The influence of the time in which we live affects both our desire for God and our ability to fulfill this desire. As long as you are mortal you are subject to time, and you will be molded by whatever Yuga you take birth in. In Satya Yuga, which lasts at least four times as long as our present age, people have at least four times as much righteousness as they do today. There is nothing like religion during Satya Yuga; everyone worships by identifying the indi vidual Self with the Universal Soul. During Satya Yuga (which is also known as Krta Yuga), people obtain everything they need by power of will. There is no disease, no discord, and nothing to interfere with your sadhana.
“In Treta Yuga one-fourth of this righteousness is lost. Sacrifices begin,
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and people get what they want through sacrifice. Then in Dvapara Yuga another fourth of righteousness disappears, and plenty of diseases and calamities arise, and so penances become necessary. People in Dvapara Yuga achieve their desires thanks to their austerities.
“Now, in Kali Yuga, only one-fourth of the normal amount of righteous ness remains. Or maybe less, considering what I see going on in the world today. Everything is in flux and always changing, and you are likely to get contrary effects from any religious rituals you perform. But, the texts say that Kali Yuga is the best of all ages because it is the age in which everyone, regardless of caste or karma, can realize God. The problem is, most people are so overcome by Maya that they have no desire to know God.
“Kali Yuga eventually develops into the Ghora (’terrible’) Kali Yuga, when things get really bad in the world, at which point the gutters are overflowing with filth. Nature then cleans out the gutters, by whatever means She sees fit to use, and Satya Yuga begins again.”
“These yugas seem to be some sort of cosmic seasons,” I interjected.
“Yes, they are, and just as each season has its own characteristics, so does each yuga. Even the types of beings which predominate in the universe dif fer according to yuga. During Satya Yuga the devas (literally, ’the shining ones’) have a chance to exhibit their play. The devas or suras are what most people call gods. They are very high ethereal beings who like to help humans out if we request their help in the proper manner. They have an excess of Sattva in their natures, so they are very benevolent beings. But they are not pure Sattva, because we find that they are always getting into trouble in some way or other. Not only that, they are complacent. Once they have achieved something, they try to hold on to it; they don’t want to progress further. Complacency is a characteristic of Tamas. Because of their complacency they are always getting conquered by the asuras.
“The asuras (“anti-suras’) are also highly evolved spiritual beings, but they are jealous and selfish. They are creatures of Tamas; they are eternally plot ting wars against the devas to challenge them for dominion of the universe, But they also possess some Sattva; if they didn’t they could never get the idea to perform penance, and they can perform terrific penances, austerities which the devas could never dream of doing. Unfortunately, when they obtain shakti as a result of these austerities they always misuse it. For exam ple, they have learned how to control the minds of other beings. If they were to use this power for good they could be very beneficial to the universe. But they use it only to delude.
“There is a big difference between Sattvic intellect and Tamasic intellect,
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between the intellect of the devas and that of the asuras. A Satovic man who has an animal looks on it as a living toy and watches it enjoy its life. An asura, who has a Tamasic intellect, looks at such a toy and wants to crush it, kill it, and eat it. An ordinary American will look at a cow and think, ‘Sirloin steak ! But an ordinary Indian will look at a cow and the way she feeds her calf and licks it clean and think, ‘Mother!’ Asuras have no use for that type of love. They are not fools; they are knaves. What does one do with a knave? You tell me. A fool one can forgive, but a knave? Better just to leave him and let him continue as he is. Why bother?”
“Would it be fair to say that sura means “su’ (good) + ‘ra’ (the Bija Mantra for the Fire Element), and that the devas have good fire,’ while the asuras, the ‘non-suras,’ have ‘bad fire?”
“That is exactly what I just said. The devas have Sattvic intellect; their Bhuta Agni is strong, and they are not so dedicated to the physical existence as are the asuras, whose Jathara Agni is strong and whose brains are filled with Tamas. Asuras direct most of their energy into their bodies, not their consciousnesses.”
“Which is why we don’t worship the asuras,” I added helpfully.
“There are some people who worship the asuras, but they usually regret it in the end.”
“Couldn’t the universe have done without them, and only had altruistic
gods?”
“You can’t have the one without the other. If only devas existed, the uni verse would stagnate and nothing would ever change because the devas believe in the status quo and change only when the asuras force them to change. Asuras believe in change; they are always willing to try something new, whereas the gods are stuck where they have always been. But if the asuras alone existed they would destroy the universe in no time because of their selfishness. Nature has created the two groups to balance one another. Which is natural; if there were no evil, could there be any such thing as good?
“The asuras get a chance to demonstrate their play in Kali Yuga. Satya Yuga lasts for millions of years and Kali Yuga for just a few thousand. Satya Yuga is slow-moving, nearly static, reflecting an almost complete absence of the power of the asuras. Because of that, if you want to reach God during Satya Yuga you must do penance for at least ten thousand years. Kali Yuga, on the other hand, shows the ascendance of asuric power: fast change that is very hard to maintain. You see, the basic difference between devas and asuras is that the devas have more awakened and far-reaching intellects. An
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asura will usually do exactly what he should not do, and he will not under stand his mistake. Asuras are rather like children: they can be both very kind and very cruel.
“Asuras can achieve great things, but they also make great mistakes and cannot be trusted with authority. In their own ways they can become very good Siddhas. They can even become Naths and Munis (higher-ranking immortal beings), but never Rishis.”
“Why not?” I was beginning to understand his concept of hierarchies among ethereal beings.
“How can he? The Rishis are in charge of the universe. If an asura were to become a Rishi then the whole world would be finished in no time. An asura can never change his nature to the extent of becoming a deva, even though he can merge with the Ultimate, which is nearly as good. Fortu nately for us not all asuras are experts at sadhana. The majority of them are very, very foolish. For some time they will follow the rules and restrictions of sadhana nicely; then suddenly they will break it-eat meat, have sex, or what-have-you. This is because they have no inherent sense of purity.
“It is a great blessing to be a guru to a bunch of asuras, or to be their king, because then you are in a position to make them into true knowers of Real ity! And that is beautiful. Unfortunately they tend to fall back into their old habits very easily, since their innate natures cannot change, and so even the guru of the asuras became tired of them after a while. I call most Americans, and many Indians, asuras; even when they have the desire for sadhana they have great difficulty ever succeeding, because they cannot persist in follow ing the basic rules of discipline. And so I too have grown tired of them.”
He fell silent for a moment, and I thought of a story from the Brhadarany aka Upanishad: The men, gods and asuras came to their father Prajapati and asked him, “Please instruct us.” Prajapati told the gods, “Da,” and asked, “Have you understood?” Thinking that he meant the word dama, which means “restraint,” they said, “Yes, we have. You are telling us to control our selves.” Prajapati said, “Yes, you have understood,” for the devas are natu rally unruly. Prajapati then told the men “Da,” which they understood to mean dana, “give,” for men are naturally avaricious. He also told the asuras “Da,” which they interpreted as daya, “have compassion,” as asuras are nat urally cruel. The story ends by suggesting that a person should learn all three “Da-s,” since unruliness, avarice and cruelty are present in everyone to some extent.
So I asked, “If the devas have Sattvic intellect and the asuras Tamasic intellect, I suppose humans must have Rajasic intellect?”
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“Of course; our world is the world where things can change. This is why even the gods vie to be born down here, so that they can progress. Wher ever there is change there is Rajas. Change occurs because of desire; the whole universe is created by desire, and each human is created as a result of sexual desire. If you follow the path of the devas, you go toward Sattva; if you follow the asuras, you develop more and more Tamas.
“This is all on the cosmic level. On the microcosmic level, your own per sonal devas are your good thoughts, your unselfish thoughts. Every selfish thought and attitude that you have are your asuras. We say that the asuras are so good at sadhana because most people who have selfish reasons for doing sadhana-who believe they will profit from it somehow-are really enthusiastic about doing it.”
“Can everything that has been written about the devas and the asuras be interpreted internally?”
“Everything. I will give you some specific examples about the devas and the asuras another day; right now though, let us concentrate on the Yugas and their esoteric meaning–one thing at a time. Most people who talk about the Four Yugas do not realize that they also exist inside each of us, in our heads. Satya Yuga is the mind itself. Treta Yuga is formed by the three eyes, the two physical eyes and the hidden ‘third eye’; treta means ’the third.’ Dvapara Yuga is represented by the two nostrils; dvapara comes from the Sanskrit word meaning ‘two.’ Kali Yuga is the mouth.
“Now see why this is so. In Satya Yuga, the perfect mental age, no one bothers to talk because all communication is telepathic. Everything is men tal in that age; there is no need to use any of the sense organs. People eat mentally, taking in prana, the life force, directly with their minds. Even reproduction is mental. In Satya Yuga a man can look at a woman with such intense affection that she will conceive, or he can make her conceive merely by wiping the sweat off his forehead and giving it to her. Such is the tremen dous mental power available in those days that people can even create beings without bothering to use the womb.
“In Treta Yuga trataka is performed. Trataka is a form of meditation in which one stares fixedly at an object. If done properly trataka can open the third eye. In Treta Yuga people use trataka to obtain prana from the sun; they eat with their eyes. They communicate with glances and make romance with significant looks. This ability exists together with telepathy, which is only possible after the third eye is opened.
“The quality of time changes further in Dvapara Yuga, and it becomes more difficult to use your eyes alone for all your work. The people of Dva
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para therefore begin to take in prana through the nose instead of through the eyes or the mind as before, and they practice pranayama as their primary sadhana. Some of this emphasis on the breath survives even today, as among the Eskimos and the Hawaiians where the traditional greeting is an exchange of breaths.
“In Kali Yuga we receive most of our nourishment from food, through the mouth. And what’s more, we talk—no telepathy. And that is why they say that in Kali Yuga the best penance is repetition of the name of God, because it controls everything we do with our mouths, and purifies the prana we take in.”
“Then why bother with things like Panchamakara?”
“Well, remember that I said that Panchamakara is not for everyone; it is only for those who can avoid being tainted by Kali Yuga.”
“Just like Bombay is only for those who can avoid being tainted by it.”
“Precisely. Even though Kali Yuga surrounds us everywhere, there is no need for Kali Yuga to exist on the inside. As long as you have your mind and sense organs, and you control and cultivate them by sadhana, you can cre ate and live in whatever Yuga–Satya, Treta, Dvapara or even Kali–as you so desire, internally.
“This is how the Rishis did it when they lived on earth: They would begin before dawn by practicing samadhi, perfect equilibrium of consciousness in which the mind is utterly still and inactive, for three hours. This was equiv alent to Satya Yuga. At dawn came three hours of dhyana, dharana, and pratyahara-meditation, concentration, and withdrawal of the senses which represent Treta Yuga. For three hours until noon came Dvapara Yuga: pranayama and asana.
“The three hours just after noon were reserved for food, for conversation and for interacting with other beings according to the rules of good and bad conduct, yama and niyama. These last two are particularly necessary in Kali Yuga, when humans must live by regulation. At the evening twilight the Rishi would perform certain rituals, and after night fell he would take another meal, enjoy sexual intercourse, and sleep, all of which belong to Kali Yuga. Do you recognize all these practices?”
The eight limbs of the Ashtanga (“Eight-Limbed’) Yoga of Patanjali, are those very eight practices, in reverse order: yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana, dhyana, samadhi. Since he had already made clear to me his belief that Patanjali’s method as it is commonly taught today is not appropriate for Kali Yuga, he was now stressing that he respected it when implemented in the proper way at the proper time.
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“We who are not Rishis may not be able to perfectly imitate their lives, but we can learn from their examples. We must begin where we are, in Kali Yuga, and work our way back to Satya Yuga. The first step is to learn yama, external disciplines. Do you know the Five Yamas Patanjali mentions in his Yoga Sutras?”
Oops. “Uh… nonviolence, truth-speaking, refraining from theft, sexual continence, or if you are married, monogamy, and, uh, …"
“And noncovetousness. After you establish these disciplines to prevent bad habits, then you must introduce good habits, which are collectively called niyama. Patanjali’s Five Niyamas are purity of body, mind and spirit; contentment with whatever one possesses; penance; study and recitation of sacred scriptures; and devotion to God.
“Niyama is a very meaningful word. ‘Ni’ represents constraint or control. Take the ‘ni’ away from niyama and what do you have left? Yama, life’s essential restraints. Yama is also one of the names of Death, which means that if you take the control away from your sadhana you’re heading for fail ure. No matter how hungry a lion may be he will never stoop to eating grass. He is a meat-eater, and he will eat meat and nothing else or he will die. It should be the same with you; when you follow your niyama you should fol low it strictly. If one day you cannot get the food you are permitted to eat it is better to starve that day than break the rules. Ultimately you will find that it was all worth it.”
I nodded thoughtfully; it made visceral sense to me. “Do you know the story of Nachiketas?”
“Yes. His father performed a sacrifice in which he gave away as alms old, lean, hungry cows. Nachiketas was grieved by his father’s miserliness, and asked him sadly, ‘Father, to whom are you going to give me?’ His father flew into a rage at his son’s seeming impertinence and replied, ‘I give you to Yama’!” I paused to let him pick up the thread and tell the rest of it; I loved to hear him talk.
“Yes. When he heard this, Nachiketas did not wait to be collected; he walked all the way to Yama’s abode. Yama, who drags souls off to the after world, was out doing his work, and Nachiketas had to sit alone on the door step of Yama’s home for three days and three nights without any food or water.
“When Yama finally did retum home he was amazed that a human could have located his house. Then he became concerned about the bad karma involved in forcing a small Brahmana boy to suffer from hunger and thirst for three days. A guest is equal to God, after all. In recompense Yama offered
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to grant three boons, one for each day that Nachiketas had had to wait.
“For his first boon Nachiketas requested that his father should be pleased with him. His second boon was for the secrets of the fire which leads to heaven. Yama granted both these boons readily. The third boon was, “Tell me the truth of the identity of the Self.’ By asking for this Nachiketas was really asking the god of death, ‘Who are you? Tell me your nature.’ Yama knew that to answer such a question would be equivalent to giving Nachiketas full knowledge of birth and death, so he offered the boy all sorts of material benefits if he would withdraw it. But Nachiketas stood firm, however, saying, ‘All that you have promised me is useless, because my sense organs are feeble, and my life is limited and will someday end. I have requested my boon.’ Finally Yama had to answer the question, realizing that Nachiketas was a fit pupil. As a result of what he learned Nachiketas became immortal.
“Many people know this story, but few ever ask the obvious question: When Yama is able to take thousands of people and millions of animals every day all over the world, how was it that he could not even locate one little boy for three whole days? The answer is very simple: Nachiketas was following niyama. Anyone whose niyama is strong is always protected; Yama can never come to such a person. Nachiketas was practicing a particular type of sadhana to the exclusion of all others; that was his niyama, and he stuck to it. When you break your niyama it loses its first syllable, and then you once again become prey to Yama.”
“That’s not all there is to this story, is there? There must be some deep esoteric meaning to it.”
“Of course there is.” But he had no intention of talking about it at that moment.
“The hardest sadhanas and niyamas are often the simplest. The Ajagara Sadhana, for example, is easy to describe but very, very difficult to practice. “Ajagara’ means python. You know about pythons; they don’t eat very often. If a python eats a big meal today it may not eat again for days, or even weeks. Whenever it is not eating it lies around peacefully, totally inert.
“In the Ajagara Sadhana you become just like a python. You are not allowed to move from where you lie. All your appetites—for food, sleep, sex, whatever—have to go; you must lose all desire to ’eat. You are only allowed to eat when someone comes to you and takes pity on you and puts food into your mouth, and even then you can accept only what is offered without asking for anything more. Does this sound simple and easy to you? Oh, no! But Aghoris go even further. They learn not only not to move, like
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pythons, they learn how to melt their bones, so that they cannot move even if they want to. Of course such drastic niyamas are far away for most of us, because we have to allot a good portion of our attention just to remain in one piece.”
“I can just imagine what would happen to me if I was to practice the Aja gara Sadhana downstairs on the street in Bombay today.”
We snickered at the thought of what would follow. “But there are many other niyamas that you can follow. For example, since today we are living in an age in which everyone you meet is ready to cheat you in some way or another, learning not to cheat in return is a fine niyama. What about our dhabawalas? They practice a true niyama, a niyama that is practical for today. They are an amazing illustration of the power of niyama.”
“What about them?” The dhabawalas are men who bring hot home cooked lunches to hundreds of thousands of workers in Bombay every day. Each moming they carry long racks of neatly stacked metal lunch pails by train from the suburbs to downtown Bombay, and then tote them on their heads from office to office, distributing them to their owners. Because most dhabawalas are illiterate the pails are identified with a complex series of symbols, but so well does the system work that almost never do mixups occur.
“What about them?” he retorted indignantly. “They live in Bombay, and yet they have not been affected by the curse which ruins everyone else’s mind. They have never gone on strike; if they ever did Bombay would grind to a halt, because there would be no way for everyone to eat.” That I knew for a fact.
“They have never been known to molest any lady, though they have plenty of chances to do so since they collect and return the lunchbox from the worker’s home every day when only his wife and other female relatives are there. Dhabawalas don’t even look lustfully at women. Compare this to America, where milkmen are well known for entering the house to enjoy the wife once the husband has gone to work. This never happens among our dhabawalas.” OK; I nodded sagely to agree.
“Why is this?" he went on. “It is because they are all followers of our Jnan eshwar Maharaj. They all worship Vishnu in the form of Vitthala, and to a worshipper of Vishnu everyone is a family member, a member of ‘vasudeva kutumbam’ (“Vishnu’s family’). Who will such a person cheat, or have an affair with? The dhabawalas go on regular pilgrimages, and spend their time reading the Jnaneshwari and singing God’s sweet name. I think these are the people to be respected, not all the priests and all the so-called saints and
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swamis who have sprung up everywhere. These dhabawalas have really put Krishna’s teachings into practice: ‘Do your work, and offer all the fruits of your work to Me.”
As he fell silent we both traveled mentally to Jnaneshwar’s shrine in Alandi and bowed to the saint who had such compassion that even after seven hundred years he was still guiding and inspiring whoever came to him.
“Eknath Maharaj, thanks to whom we have the Jnaneshwari, is another example. His fellow Brahmanas hated him because of his love for the com mon people. One day as Eknath was returning to his home after bathing in the sacred Godavari River one of these vicious Brahmanas spat on him. Eknath, saying nothing, turned around, walked back to the river, and bathed again. Again when he emerged the Brahmana spat on him; again he tumed back to bathe. This happened many, many times; some versions of this story say that it happened as many as one hundred times. It went on until finally the spitter realized Eknath’s greatness and fell at his feet begging for forgiveness. But Eknath said, ‘My friend, I think that I should thank you, because it is thanks to you that I have had the blessing of bathing so many times in the sacred Godavari.’
“Eknath’s control over his temper was something superb, the product of a powerful niyama. To dedicate yourself never to become angry no matter what the provocation is a terrific niyama, one which is not easy to keep. Although such control is essential nowadays in Kali Yuga it is very hard to achieve, unless you have help, like I do. I used to be a real firebrand; now, thanks to my mentors, I have cooled down considerably. Around here I think I need it.”
I knew exactly what he meant.
“Although I have lived with Roshni’s family for many years, Roshni’s mother has never changed. She will not change, no matter what you tell her. If her mind was directed to God she would have been able to do unique sadhanas, but it is impossible. I have tried for decades, but I have had to give up; I am tired.
“The Ramayana says that you should always live near someone you can’t get along with because they will help you remember God, and this lady cer tainly does help me remember God. You know very well that often I will expect that the preparations for lunch will be ready for me by a certain time, but when I ask I find that she has forgotten something. It happens time and again, and when I ask her about it all she will say is, ‘I forgot.’ Then what can I say? I have to keep quiet, and remember niyama.
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“But I am fortunate, because whenever this happens, call it coincidence or whatever you like, I find that within fifteen minutes or so a knock will come on the door and there will stand someone who has brought some food to me, for no apparent reason. My Tara will not let me go hungry. You know this, Robby; you’ve seen it so many times.”
Yes, I had, and I continued to see it. Once he and I were on a train going from Copenhagen to Paris, and I had forgotten to purchase any French money while in Denmark. It was Sunday; no banks were open; the vendors on the train refused to take any other currency. We were hungry. But then a lady got on the train in Namur, Belgium, and after a few miles opened her sack and offered each of us a Christmas cake. How good they were! In Tokyo, when everything was closed, the cook himself shouted to us from a restaurant and made us come in, and then all Vimalananda had to do was to look at the proprietress with a certain ‘sweet gaze’ in order to get vegetarian food even though it was not on the menu. Ma never let him down.
“This is all because of niyama. In Patanjali’s system asanas were to be practiced only after yama and niyama were perfected. Here is another thing I get angry about the people who have so debased Yoga that it is now simply a system of physical jerks. I agree that a flexible body is useful in sadhana; but you cannot become enlightened just by standing on your head. Asanas are for other purposes too.
“The word asana comes from the Sanskrit root meaning ’to sit.’ To ‘make your asana perfect’ means to learn to be able to sit comfortably without squirming or fidgeting for at least three hours at a time. In the past, the real yoga gurus would tell their students, ‘Go into that room and sit there for six months.’ After sitting for that long the student’s mind and nervous system would automatically become calmer, which would make the next step pranayama—safer and easier.”
Some years later I heard Baba Hari Dass tell of an old guru who used to test his disciples by making them sit in a cross-legged position and then fill their laps with dirt and plant grass seeds. When he returned a few days later to inspect the crops, only those students whose sprouts were rising straight and true passed the test; only they had obviously not moved. Those disci ples whose sprouts sprawled every which way failed.
“I believe you have been taught Shavasana, the corpse posture, in your yoga classes?”
“I have.”
“And I’m sure your teacher has taught you to do it at the end of an asana session in order to relax.”
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- He has.”
“But was the corpse pose created just to help you relax? Of course not! It’s another example of how superficial today’s spiritual teaching has become. The purpose of Shavasana is to make you into a shava, a corpse, to make it easier for you to control your prana and disengage your mind from the outside world. When you do Shavasana you should become just like a corpse, not just with your muscles but also with your mind. In Aghora we believe in sitting on corpses, it is true; we believe in sitting on our own corpses. We say, ‘Make your own body into a living corpse’; let the body live and perform its actions and you be away from it."
It made immense sense.
“Now think about pranayama, which means ‘control of prana.’ It is not necessary to hold your breath in order to control prana; if your mind is con trolled your breath will slow and eventually stop automatically. Any method which slows the breathing is a form of pranayama. The purpose of pranayama is to slow the breathing as much as possible. Whenever your breathing is deep, slow and calm your mind is slow and calm; whenever your breathing is fast, shallow and agitated so is your mind.
“After pranayama comes pratyahara, which is detachment, withdrawal of the senses from their objects. The senses like to ’eat’ things, to take in impressions from the outside world. Pratyahara (which can also be inter preted to mean against eating’) occurs when the calmed mind stops craving sensory pleasures. Once your mind is disengaged from its cravings it is ready for dharana, dhyana, and samadhi: concentration, meditation, and that perfect equilibrium of consciousness which is the goal of ordinary sadhana.
“But perfect equilibrium of the consciousness is a difficult thing to achieve during Kali Yuga. There are so many distractions! Having sufficient time is not the problem; on the contrary, you can make very fast progress in Kali Yuga. In Satya Yuga it takes ten thousand years of penance to catch even a glimpse of God, because everyone in Satya Yuga is righteous and sincere in their worship, and God is in no hurry to appear before them; He tests them thoroughly. But in Kali Yuga the force of illusion is so powerful that only a few people want to worship God, and most of them don’t know how to do it effectively. In Kali Yuga God feels so lonely that no one is remembering and loving Him that He will appear to you very easily. This is why Kali Yuga is the best Yuga of them all for sadhana. In Satya Yuga you have to sweep your guru’s floor for years and years before he will deign to initiate you, much less teach you anything.”
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5
Another reference to my situation. I did appreciate his willingness to spend time to teach me, and I could not claim to be a worthy student.
“In fact, Kali Yuga is the time when all the experts in all fields are writing books and selling their knowledge, begging people to take it away from them. For just a pittance you can obtain knowledge that they have worked a lifetime for, and you don’t even have to steal it from them. Read, Robby, read, keep on reading; you can never learn enough, because there are always new things to learn. Just remember that learning is also a form of Maya. It is very valuable, no doubt, but you can still become attached to it, just as you can to any form of Maya.
“The force of Maya is so strong during Kali Yuga that it is easy to get caught up in learning and forget to do anything with what you learn. This is where niyama comes in. As long as you make everything you do a sadhana, as long as you direct all your energy to achieving your goal, you will only want to learn those things which will help you progress, and you will use them to help improve your sadhana. If you want to practice Tantra sadha nas, you have to start with an unshakable niyama.”
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