“If you are working to awaken your Kundalini and you try to do every thing on your own, you only need to make one slip and you are gone; but if · you worship and self-identify with a deity He or She will protect you when the energy becomes too strong for you to control. This is especially true if, like an Aghori, you are in a hurry to succeed, and you decide to practice dangerous sadhanas like Panchamakara. Meat, fish, wine, parched grain and sex are all intoxicants, and the purpose of intoxicants is to stimulate your nerves to be able to withstand the force of the Kundalini Shakti. You can use
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alcohol, sex and the rest to make fast spiritual progress only if you know how to use them properly; otherwise you just bind yourself down more tightly to the wheel of existence.
“If you do choose to use them, you must never lose your presence of mind. This is why I only permit one line of talk, one topic, during a session at which intoxicants are consumed.”
“Like tonight,” I said pleasantly.
“Like tonight. If you take intoxicants and then you switch from topic to topic your mind may wander; staying on one topic encourages control. Control is absolutely essential when you take intoxicants, no matter what anyone may tell you. If you hallucinate when you are intoxicated, it indi cates that your system is not yet ready for that quantity of Shakti.
“I have used intoxicants for many years, and only once did I fail to finish a ritual because of them. That happened when someone fed me a tremendous quantity of marijuana without my knowing it. By the time I realized what was going on and took steps to counteract the effect I had missed my time for worship. I had to start the whole ritual over again, and this time I refused to accept any food from anyone’s hand. I completed it successfully.
“Some years ago some people tried to poison the ears of my mother and father, telling them I was an alcoholic and spent all my nights drinking. I am a drunkard, as anyone can see,” he said without pride or guilt, proffering his glass to me to be refilled, “but I am not an alcoholic; I am in perfect control of myself. So one evening I decided to demonstrate to my parents what I was doing with alcohol.
“After dinner I produced a bottle of Scotch and a glass, and started to drink the Scotch, neat. My father was annoyed, but he didn’t say anything; he just glowered. My mother wanted to tell me that it was wrong to drink, and whatnot, but then I announced, “Now let us discuss the Upanishads.'
“Now, the Vedas and the Upanishads were my father’s pet subjects, and he used to take pride in his knowledge of them. But after I completed my discourse there were tears in his eyes, and he said, ‘I never realized that you knew. My mother said nothing at all, but the next time I visited them and we were sitting together after dinner she produced a bottle of Scotch and said, ‘Here, son, take this and talk.’ I’m proud that my parents appreciated my talks, and understood that I was not ruining myself with my drinking.
“The reason I am not ruining myself with my drinking,” he continued, punctuating his words with a sip from his glass, “is that I perform a Soma Yaga, or Soma Sacrifice, when I drink.”
People have been arguing over the meaning of the Vedic Soma Sacrifice for
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many years, and many authorities have claimed to have discovered the plant from which the divinely intoxicating drink Soma was made. Vimalananda had no patience for such scholarly presumption, maintaining that the divine intoxication of Soma can be produced by a variety of substances, each of which can be made into Soma only in the context of a specific place, time and method of preparation and a particular consumer.
“The Soma Yaga has nothing to do with drinking the juice of some plant, although that external ritual still does exist in some places. I perform the Soma Yaga in quite a different way. When I drink alcohol I convert it into Soma with the help of a mantra. The mantra is necessary because Soma is full of Sattva and alcohol is full of Tamas. In addition to the karma of having crushed the life out of the yeast cells during the brewing process there are also powerful curses which must first be removed from the alcohol before you drink it. Alcohol has been thrice cursed: by Brahma the Creator; by Shukracharya (the planet Venus), the guru of the asuras; and by Lord Krishna Himself. If you drink without the proper mantra you will suffer from the effects of all three curses, and then you are sunk.
“Alcohol develops Sativa when all the miserable little yeast ceils who gave up their lives in the brewing process are given jnana. When this is done they enter my body and instead of perverting my consciousness they begin to dance for joy. Then both they and I get some benefit out of drinking. This is only possible if I offer the drink into the fire of the Bhuta Agni, so that it can reach Smashan Tara. This is the sacrifice part; the alcohol is sacrificed to Her, and She takes the prana that all the wretched little yeast cells contrib uted to the alcohol and then saves those cells. What do I mean by ‘save’? I mean that She fills them with jnana, and makes them be born again in higher wombs. This process is entirely internal, which is the best way to per form a yajna.”
I had started to read Arthur Avalon, so I interpolated: “And this is why the Tantras call wine ‘Tara Dravamayi,’ the ‘Savioress Herself in Liquid Form.””
“Yes, and how wonderful it is, to feel Her dancing within you; I just can’t describe it! Intoxicants are wonderful–but you can’t just start with these things directly; you must do plenty of sadhana first, to make sure that your control is strong. I will repeat this again and again: unless you know this process you should not drink, because sooner or later the curses will come upon you, the alcohol will start to drink you, and you will be finished.”
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