55) Worshiping World Mother – Tantra

Hi Friends, first of all, I am happy to share the news that my research article from a conference proceedings is now published in the Journal of Physics: conference series (IOP). These kind of achievements help me to keep a check on my work life and spiritual life. I am happy that neither are compromised in my pursuit of different modes of TRUTH 🙂

In Today’s article, as a gratitude to the world mother, whom I adore to the core and who is behind my every correct step of life, let us explore the enigma of subject of Tantra and World Mother. We will, in brief, explore some of the basic and interesting aspects.

God-Perception:

There are three ways to look at the creation in and around us (including us):

• The male aspect (Source): To address the god as “He” and look at everything as his drama.
• The female aspect (Energy): To address the god as “Her” and look at everything as her drama.
• The neutral aspect (Background-Immutable): To address the god as “It” and look at everything as it’s drama.

In all the above statements, we have someone named “GOD”, something named “Everything” and the process of “observing and addressing” this peculiar fact. Let us say this is the basic triangle, which we will talk about shortly.

Look at the following cube. Though it is a planar diagram, imagine it to be a 3-D representation of a solid figure. If so, can you tell me if the smaller square is towards you or away from you?

One can not definitely answer. Sometimes we see it inside out and sometimes outside in. The reason is, when a 3-D figure is brought into 2-D plane, some information is lost. This lost information actually exists as difference of opinion or perception. The probability that it can be towards or away from us shows the nature of this loss of information or transformation of information. This is the enigma of perception and cognition.

On similar lines, when the UNIT creation descends as manifestation, it diffuses into plethora of perceptions of each individual manifestation. Then it is only natural to have so many descriptions of one observation. For humans, this perception happens in the above said three ways, for, those three ways form the very basic elements of understanding – Gender (as called in English). We perceive the TRUTH, in the name of GOD, as a MALE or a FEMALE or a NEUTRAL personality. To go beyond this, is the goal. The way is only through this mapping.

Other than these three elements, do you have anything else? But these three are not what GENDER in English mean. They are something more. The following will summarize the sense in which we are using these three terms.

• The male aspect: This is the source aspect which acts as sound basis of all creation. It is like clay. From clay any dolls are formed. But without it, none exist. So, seeing the creation as an emanation of this source and thus worshiping HIM forms the path here.
• The female aspect: This is the dynamic aspect. All the dolls above form a set – “DOLLS”. In similar way, all the plethora of emanations form a set “CREATION”. Thus, anything that we can perceive forms part of this path. We know that clay exist as the pot. But, without pot, could you know of clay at all? Even if you knew there was clay as pot, what use is it to you? DO you use clay or the emanated-clay called POT? SO, this forms the path of Female worship as HER.
• The neutral aspect: When the above two aspects unite and exist as ONE, there is no dual to speak about. It is beyond qualities and attributes. The “clay+all dolls” as whole completes the creation set. We, being one of those dolls, are subset of this set. Thus, there is nothing more to speak except to contemplate and meditate. This forms the path of Neutral worship or IT (called BRAHMAN in vedanta).

Interesting link to SANSKRIT:

I will dedicate a whole article on this topic in future, but for now, I will show you an interesting link that connects this aspects of GOD and Sanskrit syllables. 

The Sanskrit syllables are no brainchild of human imagination. They are scientifically designed and constructed set of sounds and symbols, made after a thorough observation of metaphysical nature. The above diagram gives an example. The Vowel “AṂ” has a “ṃ” in it which is a bindu. It is a bindu because, it is a nasal sound. Nasal sound is basis of any uttered sound i.e., symbolic of breath itself. When it multiplies to two, we have a sound of “Ha” (called as visarga) which is expressive in nature. The usage is also similar – “Ha” implies existence in Sanskrit, and hence manifestation in metaphysical sense! So, Bindu being Śiva (male) and Śakti (female), we have their union as a symbol of “ ∴ ” which is the basic triangle of this creation. AT the center is a black dot, which is the immutable background which is neutral. Also, it is beneficial to refer: 36) Mystic nature of Numbers.

World Mother:

The above forms a sound basis for our further approach without many questions left, as of now. Though I understand the three scenarios, I am pulled towards the worship of Female aspect of creation. This is sometimes called worship of WORLD MOTHER. World mother forms the first ray of dynamism in creation and unfolds into many aspects. Just like SUN is known through sunlight, we can know of who we are only through world mother.

As long as ice exists in water, it floats as a separate entity. The moment it dissolves, it becomes one with it. Yet, it is made of same water. Similarly, as long as we maintain our individuality, as a ego-centric personality, we will exist separately from HER, though are made of HER and are in HER. The moment we dissolve our shell of individual personality, we will become verily HER. This forms the basic principle and goal of worshiping World Mother. Remember, we spoke of the basic triangle before? We also explored this elsewhere. The essence of the goal in our daily life is that, we need to break the triangles that exist in us. This I depicted in a previous article by following figure, which is equivalent to the figure above, except, I put the black dot outside for clarity.

(54) Beauty of concept of a Mantra)

A  tiny digression into Saundarya Laharī

In Saundarya Laharī, an exquisite poetic piece on worship of World Mother, Sri Sankrachārya starts as follows:

Śivaḥ Śaktyā yuktō yadi bhavati Śaktaḥ prabhavituṃ
Na chēdēvam devō na khalu kuśalaḥ spanditumapi |

Thiese two lines catch the quinctessence of the whole concept of World Mother. Sri sankara is saying that “When Śakti (World Mother) is united with Śiva, he is capable of manifesting the creation.But if SHE is not united with him, he still and inactive and can not even move.” This shows the importance and reality of ENERGY aspect of this creation. Saundarya Laharī also forms a basic exposition for TANTRA and thus, you can see the purpose and approach of tantra in these two lines!!

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Tantra:

Now, we are ready to enter into the enigmatic subject of Tantra. All the above effort was to lay a solid foundation for entering into this subject.

A serious note to be considered:

What is tantra? It is a “mode of worship” of World Mother. That’s it. Unlike many modern day stupidity, TANTRA is no where related to SEX or abuse of human greed. SEX is a natural element of life. It is  a beautiful and sweet way of expressing a particular kind of an intimate bond. Of course there are ways discovered by sages, to regulate and increase this experience of sweetness (not by over indulging, but by right indulgence). But, TANTRA is not that branch at all! Those aspects belong to “Rati” part of “Kāma Śāstra”.

I pity those (including some prominent personalities) who expounded and extolled tantra as an instrument of SEX. They even came down to a level where, they associated a triangle with its apex downward as a human VAGINA (ps: Yōni in Sanskrit does not mean vagina in it direct sense) and started to worship it. TANTRA is a worship of WHOLE, while vagina is “part of the whole”. How can TANTRA, then proclaim this? Even if it did, it could have asked us to first worship  fellow human and help him before considering her (or our) sex organs. These kind of phallic worships and phallic associations, over the time, made TANTRA, a mere pleasure gratifying tool (in their own defined way) to sex mongers, which otherwise is the most beautiful way.

Now that this clarity is gained, we can peacefully proceed further. The basic way of TANTRA has two associated parts:

• Mantra: This, we have seen in previous article 54) Beauty of concept of a Mantra.
• Yantra: This is a graphic design to bind the emanations of world mother into a comprehensible patterns.

An example of a yantra can be Śri Yantra:

 

(By Ranjithsiji – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=14796037)

What do you see? Many intersecting lines forming triangles and nodes. This basic pattern is enveloped by many petals of lotus. All other yantras can be derived from this, with minor modifications. That is why this is called “Yantra Rāja – King of Yantras”. 

I will go into particulars of this chakra in future article, but here, I want to lay the outline of Tantra worship. The worship in Tantra is predominantly feminine, though we also have male aspect worship. But what ever is the mode, the goal is to go to the SOURCE or Neutral. This is verily seen as the many triangles and central DOT as explored by us before. The same can be seen in the uttered sounds (mantras). The same can be seen by the behavior of those who are successful in this path (like Bhāskararāya, Sankarāchārya, etc.)

So, TANTRA is an art of combining the vocal sounds as powerful potencies, called MANTRAS and invoking the many aspects of GOD (male or female but not neutral – because it is attribute less) into the geometric patterns or enclosures of the YANTRA (which is again a replica of human body), whereby, we are awakened into HIS/HER presence by way of dissolving along this path.

Conclusion:

In this article, we have explored first, the sense of god-perception. Then we entered into an interesting aspect of Sanskrit. Through that, we approached the worship of World Mother. To achieve that, we took shelter in concept of TANTRA. This, in a simplified sense, forms a basic brick to understanding pure TANTRA of the ancient sages. In coming articles, we will go deep into the subject.

Thank You.

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