“But since right now I do know what time it is,” I said, “all these anustha nas and so on will not only help awaken my mantra but will also help me develop my devotion.”
“That’s right.” “Are there other practices I should know about?” I asked, knowing well that he expected me to continue asking even if I did not know what to ask.
“Well, there is nyasa. Very few people talk about nyasa, because so few people know about it. But without nyasa there is no Tantra.”
‘Nyasa’ was another word that no one had been able to explain to me clearly and accurately, so I began to pay even closer attention.
“Nyasa,’ which comes from the Sanskrit root meaning ’to place,’ helps infuse your being with the power of the deity you are worshipping, by plac ing that deity in your body. If you have already purified yourself to some extent by removing a good bit of the heavy overlay of filth in your conscious ness, you have dissolved part of your old being. This is a type of khandana. Now the deity’s ethereal body can be invoked into you, and His or Her limbs will take the place of the ethereal limbs which you have dissolved or chopped and burned by your sadhana.
“Nyasa is important because it enables you to identify yourself with your deity. The more you think of and visualize your deity the subtler your con
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sciousness becomes. When your thoughts have been perfectly transformed, so that there is no khandana of projected desires, then your being is trans formed. Nyasa also helps you by balancing the energy in your physical body and making it steady, which makes your worship steady.
“Steadiness is always best in sadhana. This is why I encourage all my chil dren to repeat their mantras mentally. Mental recitation is best because of the problem of pronunciation, and also because it enhances the firmness of your consciousness. When you recite a mantra nothing in your body should wag: not your limbs, not your cock, not even your tongue-nothing. Only when you are absolutely still and stable can the mantra’s shakti fill you; any movement will distort the effect and weaken it.”
“What about the people who claim that when you recite your mantra your body will automatically begin to move into strange contortions, which proves you are making progress?” I knew what his answer would be.
“It’s all just so much bull. If you are singing kirtans and bhajans (devo tional songs) you may be so overwhelmed with devotion that you will begin to dance. That is a good thing; it shows that your kirtan is doing what it should. Kirtana actually means kartana (cutting) of karmas; the ‘i’ indicates that it is done musically. As your karmas are cut and you feel lighter, won’t you dance? But this has nothing to do with mantra sadhana, for which your body must be firm.
“When you do it properly nyasa can be very powerful. Once in the jungle I met an old sadhu, whom I saluted respectfully. He got wild: ‘Why don’t you touch my feet to show respect to me like you know you should, you insolent young fool?’
“I told him, “Maharaj, I am happy to do that, but I have been busy prac ticing my nyasa. If I touch your feet you will be finished, which I don’t want to happen. That is why I do not touch your feet. If you insist, give me your wooden sandals and I will salute those.’
“When he did I touched them, and they turned to powder. He got the shock of his lifetime, and realized what kind of force he was dealing with. I don’t claim that I am so great and powerful,” he added, seeing a certain glint in my eye, “this is just the result you get when you do these practices cor rectly.”
“I remember your telling me that each syllable of the Vedas is supposed to be pronounced with emphasis on a different part of the body; is this is a sort of nyasa?”
“Yes. There are so many things that are only hinted at in the texts, that most people never even suspect their hidden meanings. Always remember
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that both the Vedas and the Tantras are interested in the external mainly as a symbol of what is going on internally. Consider this: that aspect of pranayama which is concerned with holding your breath is called kum bhaka, from the word kumbha, which means pot. But which pot?”
I had no idea, which seemed to irritate him a little; since I had been studying Yoga I suppose he expected me to know. But no one had yet explained it to me, so how was I to know?
“Here the pot they mean is the pot of the torso, the chest and abdomen, in which you can store prana. You have seen how a potter makes pots; here you ‘make’a pot by making your body completely steady. Once this hap pens you can proceed to the stage of kevala kumbhaka, when there is a ces sation of breathing for minutes at a time. Only when there is kevala kumbhaka can your mind become completely firm, and your worship will only be as steady as your mind is.”
“So this is what pranayama is for?”
“Pranayama is for what its name suggests: control of prana. Most of the people teaching Yoga think that this means you should achieve control over your prana by holding your breath. But kumbhaka does not mean actively holding your breath; it means the balancing of your inhalation and exhala tion so that they cancel each other out. For kumbhaka to be of any value to you, it must be effortless; you must learn how to forget to breathe.”
I had never told him the details of how I had strained myself by trying to hold my breath in the approved Yogic way, but I knew that he knew any way. Suddenly I became aware of how little most people who try to teach
Yoga really know about it.
“So as far as pranayarna is concerned, the ‘pot’ means the body. But don’t assume that pots always represent the body! Oh, no! What meaning a pot, or anything else, has depends on the specific practice. Every part of a Tan tric ritual is significant, but you can’t just do guesswork about it; you have to know its precise meaning.
“You probably have seen that in formal ritual worship there is always wor ship of a pot. During Nava Ratri, when we worship Ma, a pot is the central focus of attention. The pot, here called ghata, is infused with shakti in the procedure known as Ghata Sthapana (The Establishing of the Pot). Now, what do you think the ‘pot’ represents here?
I didn’t hazard any guesswork.
“Here the pot is the pot of the head, filled with Amrita and other “juices’ or hormones, just as during the ritual the pot is filled with water before shakti is invoked into it. We worship the pot to make our minds firm, and to
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fill our minds with energy so that our worship during the Nine Nights will be totally steady.”
“Which will help to awaken Kundalini in a controlled way.”
“Exactly. As soon as you learn to control your Kundalini Shakti She will be at your disposal. But remember: only one who knows Shakti can control Her. If you hang a sword on your wall it may injure a child who tries to play with it or a servant who comes to dust it. As long as it exists, even for thou sands of years, a sword retains its inherent nature, which is to slice, to sever. This is the true test of shakti: there should be no limitation of time.”
“Another reason why it is difficult to control Kundalini.”
“You should say, ‘why it is almost impossible,’ because the average per son’s personality is simply not strong enough to deal with cosmic energy. Which is why I say, over and over again, that the only safe way to awaken and raise Kundalini is to personify Her. Convert Her into a goddess and wor ship Her, love Her like your Mother, and then you will be safe.
“I always prefer to call Lord Shiva’s Grand Consort Uma, instead of ‘Par vati’ or one of Her other names because ‘Uma” is made up of the same let ters which make up the word ‘Om,’ which is actually ‘Aum.’ Uma is not inherently different from Aum any more than Shakti is different from Shiva; they differ only in form. ‘U’stands for Vishnu, the Preserver. ‘Uma’ is there fore ‘U’ + ‘Ma,‘’the Mother Who Always Protects,’ who shields the child from any danger or calamity. What can be higher than that? You can achieve Uma if you can learn how to love her.
“And if you want to learn how to love Ma you need to learn how to love Her creations. Every being has its own variety of love, some of which we humans can’t even comprehend. I personally think rocks have the best form of love, because they are so stable, so firm. Once they love you they never change. A rock has its own forms of expression that you may not be able to understand. Suppose you heat it. After a certain temperature it starts to flow; it makes an offering of heat and light to you. How many people under stand how to love a rock? Very few, but those who do, know something of how to love Ma.”
He left me with that thought to think about until our next conversation, at the end of the next Nava Ratri.
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Vimalananda usually went into retreat during Nava Ratri, fasting and repeating mantras, requesting his beloved Tara to enter and enliven him. I loved to meet him on the day he finished his worship, for he was quite a sight to see. His entire countenance would be filled with an intense other worldly radiance, and the talks he would give in the expansiveness of that mood were particularly pleasing.
On this occasion he began: “Even yogis and sadhus are not spared the poison of ahamkara. One day someone was reciting some verse from Tulsi das, and suddenly my friend Chotu said, ‘Why are you repeating what those fellows used to say as if it were because of them that they had written it? If they were really sincere in their absorption in God why should they have added their own names to so many of their verses? Was it necessary for them to write so often “Kabir says” or “Raidas believes” or “in Tulsi’s opin ion”? Why should that ahamkara of name be there? Why should they worry about whether future generations will praise them as the authors? If their words are really prasadika vani (words gifted from God), then how can the poets be considered the authors at all?’ The other fellow didn’t know what to answer. What could he answer? Chotu was right. Sometimes Chotu says the most amazing things.”
“So even doing intense sadhana and developing great devotion, as all these saints did, is no guarantee that ahamkara will be totally kept in check,” I suggested.
“It is no guarantee at all. So long as you retain your individual existence ahamkara must identify with your personality, even to a very tiny extent and even a single thought of ‘me’ and ‘mine’ is enough to ruin everything.”
“What is the answer, then?” I asked, despairingly.
“The answer? You know the answer: Throw yourself at God’s feet. Offer everything you have to God, including your very existence. If your donation is honest, God will accept it, and will direct your path from then on, so long as you always remember Him or Her. The moment you forget God, ‘you’ return. I have told you many times, and I still maintain, that it is much eas ier to surrender to a personal God than it is to surrender to some cosmic form. It is all well and good to appreciate the vastness of the cosmos, but how can you grab hold of it to love it? You can’t; but you can grab hold of Krishna, or Ma, or Whoever, though, and love Them.
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