44) Nakhadīdhiti-saṃchanna-namajjana-tamoguṇā
Here is the needed assurance for the followers of Vama mārga that it is indeed a correct path. The light from Her nails eliminates the tamasic elements. The idea is that whatever is done in the name of and in worship of Śrī Devi is a purifying act, even though it is wrong in the common notions of right and wrong. That is, the worshipfulness associated with the act starts a process of introspection which will not permit the continuance of wrong practices for long. The real danger in committing wrongs in the name of Devi comes not so such from the wrongs themselves, but in the lack of worshipfulness in the performance of the act.
Let us consider two specific instances.
Suppose a vama mārgi seduces another man's wife and enters into a carnal union with her for worship of Devi. If he is really worshipful, meaning he obeys the canons in letter and spirit, he will seduce her with the lady's permission and without violence, well protecting her against exposure. The coitus engaged in then becomes properly a pūjā for Devi, and She is pleased by it because the purpose of testing the non-duality, which is the purifying agent here, is met.
But suppose he does not follow the canons, causes violence to the name of the woman, exposes her indecently, or ridicules her infidelity either in public or in private, it no more leads to yoga, but to self destruction.
If we consider deeply, practically every woman in India who offers her body, mind and soul to the embraces of Kṛṣṇa, and visualises Kṛṣṇa in the embraces of their respective husbands, can be considered to be vama ṃārgis in spirit; neither does Madana Gopala Kṛṣṇa stop from being a yogi for all this might seduction whose real purpose is to give the taste of nirvāṇa and self realization to the seduced.
Let us consider the other ritual requirement of alcoholic drinks, fish and flesh in Vama mārga. Alcohol hurts the drinker and the meat hurts the other life forms which have no say in the matter! All these can be considered to be ritual violence cases.
What is the purpose of such practices in the first instance? The purpose is to test one's ability to remain detached and retain control of one's self in situations which tend to disturb the equilibrium. After all what is yoga if it is not permanent? It is easy to be an abstainer of drink in a place where liquor is not available. The real test comes when it is available and then you have control. There is so much drinking, so much meat eating and so much lust around which is promoted without batting an eyelid. The primary sex instinct is commercialized, degraded and sold on the streets for the purposes of lust and greed of money makers.
If a proper vama mārgi uses a little sex for ritualistic purposes, in an experimentally and clinically controlled atmosphere, for the highest purposes of life, all eyebrows rise at once in unison, there is much derisive laughter! “Is this a religion, or is it pornography?” they say. Let it be noted once and for all that the highest achievements of mankind have been a result of sublimating the sex drive. Be it science, art, music, sculpture, or poetry, in its origin is sex drive. Now it is at once clear to even the cost befuddled fool that in order to subliminate something, you must have that something first! You can't sublimate nothing! If you did that you will just get nothing. Because sex is a life force, a dead thing can't be sublimated. Vama mārga is based on this pre Freudian intuition that even such a fundamental thing as God realization is based on culture, which is based on the genetic code, which is based on the seed produced during, yes, coitus. What is wrong in offering the highest of bliss to God whose nature is bliss?
Tantra means technique. This is the technological age. The technique of self realization does not concern itself with the extraneous issue of the general current of the cycle of births and deaths and to gain nirvāṇa. It is trying to free the individual of shackles of self created bondages such as aversion, doubt, fear (of social approbation), shame, hate, notions of belonging to a particular class, culture, behavior; in other words, of an egocentric personality. A certain leeway has to be given for the practitioners of Tantra, even in the Vama mārga, to follow their ways without obstruction. The ends justify the means. If prostitution can be justified, if exploitation of woman by the man can be justified by society, if permissiveness can be justified, then surely the use of sex, or what externally looks like sex must be permitted for the purposes of worship, and yoga.
Why do we say that it looks like sex, but it is not it? This is so because the coital posture is used as an āsana, an āsana being a posture where no physical movements occur. Now, what kind of sex is it, if after penetration has occurred, the partners cease all motions, and the mind is concentrated on stillness? Most of the problems came in the first instance of proper explanations not being available, and the secrecy associated with the ritual. Why is the coital posture used as an āsana if sex is not the motive? The reason is very simple. The idea is to generate a constant source of libido which is to be used to create torrents of revealed knowledge. Also, the movements of Kuṇḍalinī can generate fear but sex is an antidote for fear; and fear has no place in the merger of two, because the blissfully pleasant factors take control.
Moreover, the world today is threatened by visions of going up in the flames of nuclear warfare unleashed by the co-called suppressed sex drive expressing itself as science in the hands of warlords. Who are these warlords? They are certainly not people who operate on the basis of love, but operate on the basis of greed and lust, which are direct consequences of suppressed sex instincts. They in turn generate a fear psychology which is self perpetuating. Fear broods on fear producing core fear. Can violence destroy violence? It is sheer sadness to think that it can. As the karma yogi Gandhi proved, only a peaceful revolution can bring about a lasting peace. The so-called decadent societies become soft, and incapable of war, and self defense against aggression. But consider – Is it not better to be defenceless in a world which needs no defences rather than live in constant fear of man by man?
A society based on the principle of love really will not be like the society that we have now. We only hear what Christ says: “Love they neighbor as thyself.” But we do not stop to consider the implications. Why do I love my wife? Because it gives me happiness. After she is dead, will I love her dead body? Not for long! Why? Because the dead body does not give me happiness as the living one does. So I continue loving one thing and another as long as it gives me happiness. So I love everything for the sake of myself, my inner Self. When will I be able to love my neighbour as myself? When I can know my neighbour as myself; then and only then will I be able to love him as I love myself. Before I can love my neighbour as myself, I must know him as myself. If I know him as myself, his possessions are my possessions. His house is my house, his children are my children, and, yes, his wife is my wife. All relations merge in non-duality. Moreover, the notion of neighborhood is successively extendible. When I become my neighbor, his neighbor becomes my neighbor; the same formula is applied again to that second order or neighbor, to his neighbor, and so on without limit. So this love is like a wave, starting at a center no doubt, but ever expanding in its scope; but this is the difference of the love wave, that as it expands, it gains in intensity rather than dying out as in the case of a material wave. The universe collapses in the love of the saintly lover. Kṛṣṇa is such a lover, Christ is such a lover, Buddha is such a lover. Bocaccio, Nero, Rasputin all these modern sex experts pale in comparison with the infinite loves of the masterminds steeped in the spirit of advaita.
It is said: “The saint is the sinner who never gave up.” Tyāgarāja, the musician saint, has said that there is no right path for music without devotion to God. Śiva, no less a yogi than Tyāgarāja, and the prize author of all tantras along with Pārvatī, has said with no less authority that there is no proper path for sex unless it is dedicated to God. The scriptures of Śiva are called Āgamas. The origin of this word itself is meaningful. “Āgataṃ śivavakttebhyo gataṃ ca girijā mukhe.” They came from the face of Śiva and entered the face of Pārvatī.
This nectarine flow of revelations is thus coming from the liṅga (the membrun virile) and entering the facte of Śakti (the vulva). It is obvious that if you wish to worship Śiva, that is, be attentive to Śiva, you cannot reject his teachings and still be a proper worshipper.
The word Nigama has the opposite meaning. The flow came from the Śakti and entered the liṅga. Now what is this reverse flow that goes from the head of the penis inside and up towards the head of the person? This is called ūrdhvaretas, or Kuṇḍalinī, the semen which is going up. Both Śiva and Viṣṇu are characterized by the quality of ūrdhvaretas. Of Viṣṇu, it is said, “Ūrdhvaretam virūpākṣam | jvalantan sarvato mukham,” meaning, his semen goes upward, his axis is lack of form, he is glowing, his face can see in all directions at once.
If we identify Viṣṇu as space, the womb of manifestation, it becomes clear how Viṣṇu is the wife of Śiva, is none other than Śakti Herself. This ūrdhvaretas is not confined to the males alone as is wrongly imagined, but can also be experienced by females as well. Now what is the face which can see in all directions at once? The skin is such a face, it sees in all directions, it is aware of contact in all directions. This generalized sense of touch, contact interactions in all forms, is what is described as "coitus" in the tantras. Thus, seeing an object at a distance becomes a contact with light coming from the object, and hence coitus, hearing, tasting, spelling all become coitus. Modern understanding of how the brain processes visual information clearly shows that it is quite similar to how the tactile information is processed. The eye is more sensitive to edges than to continuous tones; similarly the skin is sensitive to discontinuities in touch. The eye recognises an object by moving the image slightly to discover the edges in it. If an object is in contact with the skin and not roving with respect to it, the skin no more sees the object. The sensation is present only when there is a relative movement. In this sense then, a coital posture, fixed and unmoving can only lead to an elimination of sense of contact and also the mind, if memory is not allowed to operate. This is the proper condition for ūrdhvaretas; a condition where retas is being generated and being continuously transformed, and ejaculation is controlled. Among the three gods Brahmā, Viṣṇu, and Śiva, only Brahmā is not called ūrdhvaretas, because in that case, where a physical creation is desired, the semen is allowed to flow into a physical vulva.
The seed of man can do one of two things.
To use it for any other purpose is wasteful and exhausting.
The Āgama says thus:
“yonistu vaiṣṇavī śaktiḥ lingo rūpassadāśivaḥ
ānandam brahmano rūpam tasmin tatra avalambate.”
The womb is the Śakti called Viṣṇu. Sadāśiva is the erect penis with an indestructible erection (this is why the Śiva liṅga is made of rock!) The formless Brahmā is pure joy itself which is the contact between the Śiva and Viṣṇu.
In both ūrdhvaretas and adhoretas, the upward and downward movements of semen, the purpose is the same. The purpose is giving a life form. In adhoretas, a baby is born in the physical form. In ūrdhvaretas, a God is known. And that God is within you, it is you, it is pure joy itself. A being who has become pure joy itself, is only a source of joy to others, it is never violent. Since tamas involves violence, the light from the finger nails of the feet of Śrī Devi eliminates tamas of Her devotees; they move from the darkness of ignorance to the light of knowledge, from the misery of bondage to the glory of liberation; from the sense of personality, from the limited love and joy to universal love and bliss, the brahmānanda, the Ānanda of Brahman.
Source: Śrī Amṛtānandanātha Saraswatī "Sudhā Syandinī Bhāṣyaṃ" Typed Manuscript
(an incomplete commentary on Lalitā Sahasranāma)
