gratitude

gratitude is such an amazing feeling. these days i go around looking around me and realizing how amazing my life is. the more i love every part of it, the more i love everything. gratitude attracts gratitude

question - how to make sure you made the right decision

sometimes making a decision is a problem for smart people.  the confusion is the separation of the heart and the brain/mind. it may be good for you to start distinguishing between what your intuition tells you (your heart) and what your mind tells you. if you follow your heart you will find happiness and success

first *breathe*
then close your eyes
then put your hand in your heart and listen to your heart beat
when you find yourself relaxing then ask the question
listen to your heart beat
if it changes then ask again... is this good for me?
your body will override your mind
but you have to listen carefully because right now your mind is cloudy
the body never lies
the mind lies most of the time for its own purposes smile emoticon
reasoning is lying in fact... use your intuition
and remember there are no wrong decisions so you cannot be wrong
you will be guided towards your life purpose anyway

take your time - i don't know what decision you are making but it is not a decision that has to be taken in 2 minutes
then once you are sure clear away the other decision etc... then again sit with it and imagine your life and start visualizing what it would be like - then you will know if it is the right fit for your dreams
do this as many times as you need to feel comfortable that you made the right decision

question - my life is good but why do i feel restless and worried?

how about shifting the focus? instead of fear ask yourself: what would be the next challenge to conquer. So your drama hook is satisfied as you are also able to navigate life. your questions are very human questions. when is enough enough and how do we *guarantee* anything? In the Buddhist path I was reading the teachings (for my phD) and the first Noble Truth is that life is suffering. I paused to think about this. And I realized that it is the nature of life to have ups and downs. so when times are good just know that there might be other times that may not be so good. one trick that has been working for me is to focus my worry into a creation rather than in maintaining what I already have. Life is a work in progress.

does the advice of a psychic determines our destiny?

Well since I was a little kid I could read palms so I did - I used to think that the lines of the hand tell us our destiny. Guess what? i have changed my lines successfully! Many times. 

The first time I realized that change was possible in other people too in that way was through a woman. She came to ask me about whether she should stay with her bf. I saw imminent death and I told her "get out now". She actually listened to me. A couple of years later she asked me to read her hands again and I saw a brand new life line and I had of course forgotten the incident. So I told her that I admire her greatly because she created a brand new life for herself! It is then that she told me that a month after I read her palms her boyfriend overdosed (they found his body days later) and that if she had not left him this would have been her as well! I changed completely how I talk to people - I let them know that everything just everything is a choice. 

What we see as psychics is a possibility, an eventuality that people bring to reality through their choices. So yes a psychic can see something but it is your choice whether you want to bring it to reality or not. 　 What is even more strange? I can change other people's lines simply by touching them?! I would tell them a possibility and then they tell me that their palm would hurt for a few days as the new line is growing. I hope that explains to you that you can use a psychic's advice as an advice of what your karma held - the rest is up to you. what you do with your life is up to you! love love love

what is a clearing and why do we need it?

A Simple explanation is that "like attracts like" and a Clearing Allows someone to Attract their true Essence as opposed to a Build-up of what You Can Call "Splat bug" in the Road of Life. (We all have it. We all get some garbage every day. This is the nature of life) The more we clear the truer our "vibration" is. So when we go around life we shine and attract what is our true essence and ultimately our life purpose. This also has the benefit of making us truly happy. 

Another way to think about it: Imagine that you are carrying around your garbage bag wherever you go. It is not pretty, it smells bad and it is probably going to attracts rodents, insects, bacteria etc...  (we call it bad people, users, abusers, selfish people, situations and events that are not aligned with what we want etc..) But we are used to this garbage bag because we have it every day and it is a part of us. "This is MINE." A clearing usually would "show you" your garbage bag (gaining awareness) and it will also allow you to clear it (sometimes by letting it go completely "I don't need this kind of garbage in my life!" or at least getting rid of the most smelly pieces in the garbage collection bag.) The funny thing is that people get so attached to their garbage that they might even get aggressive when someone tries to remove it, or get sick, or whatever. This is why we say "fill the space with light" so we do not miss the garbage and pickup something else to replace it in the bag of garbage. The more light we have the less garbage we carry because we see it and once we see it we are smart enough to not want to carry it around anymore... The reason we need the clearing is because well... we cannot always see our garbage. it is carefully hidden away from sight. The problem is the it is always there and it follows us around. People see us and step away because we "smell" bad and we have no idea why we are not attracting the people we want in our lives. 

One thing I would like to stress is that we are not bad people or that we are not flawed or broken in any way. We are just people who are committed to improving our lives and the world and we want to do it without having the load of the garbage bag we carry around. This garbage bag is useful. It allows us to navigate through life fast. We don't always have the time to process things as they happen. This is why for example a daily meditation or spiritual practice helps because it allows us to clear the daily garbage and replace it with light. Also there is some we collected early on in life (especially as we were growing up) and we were too little to even process it with our rational mind. Trauma is also a great way to collect a huge pile of garbage. 

today this is a very relevant message for me - i have been feeling that i gave up everything to pursue this spiritual path and it has been hard, unnerving, and i feel like i am failing. in reality i am just making a path that no one made before, "my path" and that path is a difficult one to make.one day i will look back though and i will have made it - doing exactly what i love, and helping people in need.

https://www.facebook.com/DavidAvocadoWolfe/videos/10153024488451512/

good karma versus bad karma

This is a post that I am sure may sound strange - but i have been operating my whole life assuming that I had terrible karma before - thus my life was horrific this time around - and my job was to help everyone I came in contact with. yesterday a woman who for a few days has only been helping me and being kind to me offered me a gift. She told me "Maria I think you were my mother in another lifetime and this lifetime I want to express gratitude to you for what you have done for me...." I was shocked. All my life people tell me that I have mother energy and for the first time in my life someone wanted to express gratitude. what an amazing woman... and also what an amazing feeling. I realized that for months now people have been expressing gratitude to me and appreciation and good feelings and I have only been hiding by myself - what if all these people have been trying to give me the same message. What if I need to do nothing to help and I deserve to be loved just for being myself?

I grew up in an environment where I was abused. I have believed that I deserve nothing and I have believed that I can only be bad. I also believed that it is only by serving others that maybe I deserve to be loved. which really translates to "I don't deserve to be loved". After all these years I realize that maybe I deserve to be loved. Maybe I deserve to be accepted and loved. What a beautiful realization. It is still new to me, this beautiful feeling of deserving love....

thank you beautiful friend for your kind words

loaning money

I am grateful that I was in the position to loan money - it taught me a very hard lesson though. people are very strange around money. they will take it in many ways and they will keep it in even more ways. I feel that I have a lot to say about this but I also feel that I need to really learn how to simply say "no" from now on. for no reason, for no circumstance. no. i feel that this is important for me to learn.

i will come back and revisit this post because emotions are still raw inside me.

letting go of what does not serve me

last week i was very lucky - i spent it with a woman, a sister, a friend of the heart - it was an amazing experience for me not to be alone in my journey and rather to be surrounded by love and caring. we were in Bali so we even worked out the mystery of the roaches - she had something she needed to work through and to let go - and she kept attracting them to remind her...

today i spoke with a man who does not make me feel loved - and that is an understatement! he keeps criticising everything i do and finds a spiritual reason why he is right and i am wrong. the real question is why i am still hanging out with him? why do i not let him be a part of the other 7 bil people and instead let him be a part of my life. i remember Oprah had a "positive police" - if people were not positive they were thrown out of her parties - why do i not pay attention to who is around me? even more importantly - now that i know who he is why do i keep him around? do i secretly believe that maybe one day he will like me? maybe if i am good enough or wise enough or something else or someone else he would like me? how about me? do i like him? the answer is definitely not. i had the opportunity to be in a relationship with him and the answer was no. i had the opportunity to be friends with him and the answer is no. so i pretend to be ok with him so maybe he will like me so maybe i get validation? silly maria!

what other people think is their business. my business is to be myself. some people will like me for that. a few people will love me for that. some people will dislike me for that. a few people will hate me for that. in fact there is a balance in this world so the proportions will stay the same... so i have the choice to continue hanging out with those people who criticise me and not like me or i have the choice to find those people who make my life better. what will it be?

for today i chose the one who does not like me. i guess i have many other choices to make today. i hope i pick better later on...

and yeah i like myself despite this silly obsession to waste my time with people who do not really like me. 

a little about healing

today is my first attempt to write a little about healing - i am writing a book about it now

more and more i have been feeling that healing is about healing ourselves. i used to feel the pain in others and i would run away literally - i thought they were hurting me. then years ago someone told me that they are just showing me where they need love and i can heal them that way. i started by healing them - touching that part of them that hurts and helping them this way. then i realized that the only reason i can feel it is because their pain resonates with me. so i started simply praying for them and touching myself in that spot effectively healing myself. today a friend who came for a healing surprised me by asking me for more healing and asking me to touch his heart because it made him feel so much better. then i realized that no matter what touch is healing. no matter what loving is healing. no matter what we are all one and the more we affirm that by being together the more we are likely to heal each other and humanity. so this is dedicated to love and to healing.

love love love

What is mine and what is not mine?

I came back from Bali a few days ago and since then I have been struggling with adapting to the life in Thailand again. I have been avoiding people and barely exercising because I felt a lot of pressure adapting to the new lifestyle. I realize that the key is to differentiate what is mine and what is not mine.
so let me take notice. *I* am fine. I have been fine since I arrived. I have been simply adjusting to a new environment. More and more I realize that a new environment is a drastic change and is almost challenging physically for me. So I made the conscious decision to start separating things one by one. What is mine? what is not mine?
I realize that the weather is not mine. It is a lot hotter in Bangkok than it is in Bali. So adjusting to the weather is an important part of adapting to the new environment. Let me be positive. What do I like about the weather? I really like the fact that I can go out in my balcony early in the morning wearing a T-shirt and it is hot enough for me to simply sit there and enjoy the early morning quiet.
I realize that the other people are not me. I see the people around me a lot more stressed than I am. Well there is no reason for me to absorb their stress. What I can do is to look at them and stay where I am. And they will come to me when they need me. My friend this morning came to see me because he had a pain in his chest. My other friend came to see me because he wanted to give me a gift he brought from his home land. Overall a great morning.
I realize that the food is not mine. I cannot change the way people eat here. I can make healthy food choices despite the fact that there is sugar everywhere. A few days ago I got very sick because of sugar. So I decided to make an effort to avoid sugar now. And it is making me feel much better about myself. :)
I realize that what is mine is a very small portion. I am spending time with myself and in quiet and i am really enjoying this time. what a wonderful time it is now that i am making sure to stay alone. I am happy I am able to distinguish what is mine and what is not mine. i like it as an exercise too!

academic paper - Can we consider Islam to be a local religion of SE Asia? What can the scholarship tell us about this?

Can we consider Islam to be a local religion in Southeast Asia?  What can scholarship tell us about this?

As we consider the adoption of Islam in Malaysia and Indonesia, it is a question of interest whether we can consider Islam to be a local religion of South East Asia. We will explore the question of how Islam came to the Malay Archipelago, an introduction that seems to have been a very peaceful one. Islam can be traced back as a wide spread religion as early as in the 15^th century. Islam came to the archipelago through a peaceful adoption, in what we believe can be seen at the work of the Sufis evangelizing. In today’s cultural evidence the shrines as well as the Islamic music and popular dakwah literature, can be seen as a living evidence that Islam is very much a living religion of the archipelago.

As we approach the question of whether Islam can be considered a local religion in South East Asia it is important to consider that we can only explore the locality of the Malay Archipelago. South East Asia is the region consisting of the countries of Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia and the Philippines, a region that presents a particular ethnographic and religious interest and cohesion. It is home to many cultures and religions and Islam is predominantly the religion of two of these countries: Indonesia and Malaysia. As we consider then Islam in South East Asia it is first important to localize it in the Malay Archipelago. So to localize Islam in all of South East Asia would be an exaggeration. Yet Indonesia today with a Muslim population of 220 million people is the largest Muslim country in the world, 87% of its population (202 million) identifying as Muslims, and Malaysia adds another 30 million people (60% or them, or 19.5 mil identifying as Muslim) to this mix of Islamic population in South East Asia.

When considering the question of when historically the acceptance of the Islamic faith was introduced, Berg in the article “The Islamization of Java” explores the question of how Islam came to Indonesia, as Islam is believed to be widespread in Indonesia as early as the 14^th century. One theory presented is that it was the merchants that wanted Muslim wives that slowly lead the conversion. Another theory is that it was those leaders that were in search of a following that introduced Islam. Moreover Berg explores the idea that some of the stories are fabricated to construct a cultural past, in particular the ancestry and lineage of Agung and his conquest history as well as interactions with the Dutch. Through his expose Berg explores the idea that culture has a complicated structure and dynamics and is created to hold unity through sometimes historical and other times embellished threads.  It is important to keep this embellishment of the history as we explore the historical evidence. There seem to be historical evidence suggesting the first contact with Islam had been through Indian merchants as early as 674 A.D, and that over the centuries they established merchant communities and Muslim families. (Ahmad, p134-135). In the debate of whether it was the merchants themselves or rulers in search of a following that introduced Islam, Ahmad suggest that “the acceptance of Islam by men of eminence was likely to induce their followers as well”, bringing forth the example of Parmeshwara, one such prince in the fifteenth century. It is certain that the expansion of Islam was a peaceful one. Hamid (p 90) proposes:

”Muslim traders were the first to Islamize the inhabitants of the Archipelago. Later, certain Arabs, especially descendents of the Prophet Muhammad, (may peace be upon him), using the title Sayyad or Sharif, completed the preaching of Isiam either as "priests," " priest princes," or Sultans. Hurgronje has proposed 1200 as the earliest possible date for the Islamization of the peoples of the Malay Archipelago. The very early Islamization was the work of Indians, who had been in contact with the Malay Archipelago for centuries.”

The mystical side of Islam, Sufism offers depth to the adat despite the disapproval of the Sharia at times. It is that side of Islam that Heck describes as the showing of the lived Islam (p 253):

“Sufism - spiritual practice, intellectual discipline, literary tradition, and social institution - has played an integral role in the moral formation of Muslim society. Its aspiration toward a universal kindness to all creatures beyond the requirements of Islamic law has added a distinctly hypernomian dimension to the moral vision of Islam, as evidenced in a wide range of Sufi literature. The universal perspective of Sufism, fully rooted in Islamic revelation, yields a lived (and not just studied) ethics with the potential to view and embrace all creatures through a single ethical vision, regard- less of religious or other affiliation. This side of Islam, both acknowledging and surpassing the outlook of the legal heritage, offers important insight into understanding the nature of Muslim society as both Islamic and meta- Islamic in religious orientation.”

The Sufi inspired side of the lived Islam Hamid suggests served as a backbone to the adoption of Islam in South East Asia, a way to spread the doctrines. In fact he presents scholarly evidence to support his claim (p 97):

“H. John, however, has developed a different theory, maintaining that it is unlikely that Islam was brought to this region by traders, since it is not usual in general to consider merchants as the bearers of religion. It is, however, possible that certain merchants, who belonged to Sufi guilds, were accompanied by their shaykhs, who may have carried out missionary work in the Archipelago. S.Q. Fatimi supports this view in maintaining that the Islamization of this region was the work of Sufis.”

It is in the living Islam today that we can truly observe the influence of Islam in the culture and that we can be able to say that Islam is a local religion of South East Asia. Local religion can be focused on material resources, such as shrines and temples. Asher explores the introduction of shrines in the archipelago, through the unusual situation of a shrine for a Sufi saint Shahul Hamid whose dahrab is where he is buried in Mangore and interestingly is replicated in two locations in South East Asia. This paper explores possible explanations for this replication: (1) the Muslim Tamils carrying Shamil Shahud’s memory across the sea with them, (2) celebrating the ability of the saint to perform miracles, and (3) his ability to protect and dominate over water. It is in the spirit of how Islam was adopted in South East Asia that shows that the adoption of shrines across the sea brought the religion locally.

Local religion can also be a tradition of performance, such as music. In exploring the music of Indonesia, Ramunsen states (p67):

“the origins and practice of the recited Qur'än in Indonesia is the major vehicle for the Arab musical aesthetics. […] Indonesian sacred music beginning with the completely Arab-sounding religious song genre, tawashih, followed by the popular Islamic Malay song genre, the qasidah, as well as the relatively new and Western-influenced genre akapela. [are part of the] musical movement known as gamelan dakwah and discuss the performance of its major progenitor, Emha Ainun Nadjib.”

Through an exploration of the music styles in the backdrop of the reformasi (reform) in Indonesia, Ramunsen explores how music reflects and project nationalist politics as well as it is a part of the ritualistic performance of worship, notably the sound of Arab Islam, in addition to the recitation of the Qur’an.

Last, local religion can be a tradition of performance, such as literature. Soernarto explores the original topic of the comic books of the Wali Songo, the nine sufi saints that are reputed to have brought Islam to Java, portrayed as comic book superheroes, and the impact they have on the population. She explores how they are portrayed, explores the concept of dakwah (preaching about religion to convert people), and how it passed from babad (Javanese text in Chronical form) to comic books. The textual transformation of the nine saints, from Sufi saints to dakwah warriors, promotes the faith amongst the abagnan masses.

In conclusion as we trace back the adoption of Islam through history we can say that the peaceful introduction of Islam came to South East Asia, to the Malay Archipelago to be more precise, through Indian traders. It was these traders that first made contact with the locals, yet it was possibly the Sufis that took the task of introducing the religion to the masses, and it was possibly the rulers that were able to adopt Islam as a religion. Over the centuries the religious adoption brought Sufi saint shrines, poetry that was sung in the villages, dakwah signing that is today sung in the shrines and holy places, popular literature that circulates amongst the abagnan masses. This makes Islam today in Indonesia and in Malaysia, a religion that is a living and evolving religion and thus it can be called a local religion of South East Asia.

References:

Muhammad Saleem Ahmad, “Islam in Southeast Asia: A Study of the Emergence and Growth in Malaysia and Indonesia” (1980), pp. 134-141

Catherine Asher, “The Sufi Shrines of Sahul Hamid in India and Southeast Asia” (2009), pp. 247-258

C. C. Berg, “The Islamisation of Java” (1955), pp. 111-142

Isma’il Hamid, “A Survey of Theories on the Introduction of Islam in the Malay Archipelago” (1982), pp. 89-100

Paul Heck, “Mysticism as Morality: The Case of Sufism” (2006), pp. 353-386

Ermita Soenarto, “From Saints to Superheroes: The Wali Songo Myth in Contemporary Indonesia’s Popular Genres” (2005), pp. 33-82

academic paper - Islam in Asia - walking along the path of the Sufis in South Asia

Islam in Asia – “Walking along the path of the Sufis in South Asia”

In exploring the path of Sufism (Arabic: الصوفية‎ al-ṣūfiyya; Persian: تصوف‎ taṣawwuf ), we will inquire about the significance and impact that Sufism had in South Asia, through an exploration of a series of articles regarding Islam in Asia, focusing on Sufi Shrines in India. We will also explore the effect that Sufism had in the Muslim doctrine and its sometimes criticized coexistence with the Umma (the Muslim Society) living under the holy laws as imposed by the more normative understanding of Islam.  Lastly we will compare the holy resting places of Christian Saints in Greece with the Sufi shrines.

Islam is defined as submission to God’s will, to the desires of Allah, specifically the Sharīʿah (literally, “the path leading to the watering place”, the law of Islam) as defined by the Prophet Mohamed, in the holy book of the Qur’an. Total and unqualified submission is the fundamental Allah’s command and it is the Umma’s duty to uphold the Sharīʿah and to convey the message of the prophet and of the Qur’an, for whom the law constitutes a divinely ordained path of conduct for the attainment of purity.  The system of duties that are asked of the Umma constitutes the Sharīʿah, the Islamic law. Sunna is the normative way to attain purity following the way of the Prophet Mohamed, his words, his actions, his deeds as described in the Qur’an, following the fitra (pure human nature), and the Sunnis are the ones who follow those practices.

Sufism was “the inner power of Islam from the beginning” (Denny, pp. 219), some say that it was the way of the Prophet, and yet it appeared formally as a reform movement to the “mosque-centered worship and devotional life formalized and dominated by the Ulama. As Denny explains the origin of the term Sufi could be attributed to ṣafā (purity in Arabic) or to ṣūf (wool in Arabic) referring to the cloaks of the Muslim ascetics. The mutasawwif (novice) approaches the tasawwuf (Sufi master, adept of the mystical path of Islam, as the Muslims refer to Sufis), who use the Qur’an as the primary source of his teachings, not only through a Tafsīr exegesis (literal meaning), but mostly through a ta’wil (allegorical and symbolic interpretation) looking for the batin (hidden) as well as the zahir (obvious) meaning of the word of Allah. In fact the word dhikr (rememberance) is central to Sufi teachings in which the tasawwuf is asked to “remember God often”.

The point of divergence between the Umma and the Sufis, is that for the Sufis remembering Allah often is not only the zahir, through reciting the Qur’an often, through praise and through prayer, but the dhikr extends to a personal connection and interpretation. The Sufis adhere to constant worship, complete devotion to Allah, and additionally they shun away from the splendor of the world, looking for a position of retirement and solitude, avoiding worldly possessions, pleasures and property, endeavors that are consistent with the Sharīʿah.  While all Muslims believe that their life consists of a pathway to God, for the normative Umma, this union will be after death, whereas the Sufis believe that they can embrace God in this life, restoring the primordial state of the fitra, which takes on a more spiritual meaning, and it connotes intuition and insight. In the state of purity nothing defies God as all is undertaken to restore the primordial state of pleasing Allah. Their single motivation is the Love of Allah.

Sufis believe that the Miraj, the journey the Prophet Mohamed made, both a physical and a spiritual journey, is not a one off experience reserved to him but rather can be attained through specific ecstatic practices, and it is not solely an attainment after death. It is the belief of the Sufis that union with God is a constant aim, and the method of union in dihkr is obtained through practices that the normative Ulla would consider bid’ah (technically meaning innovation or novelty and yet extends to heresy).

Practices like Qawwali and ecstatic forms, as in the case of the Mawlawis of Jalal al-Din Rumi, centered in the sacred dance performed by “whirling” dervishes would be examples of bid’ah. Manuel (2008) for examples explores the North Indian Sufi popular music that is alive today, in the context of traditional Qawwali music as well as in the context of the popular music genres and music industry. Whereas rejected by some as a possible fad or as a break from the tradition on Qawwali music the fact remains that it is a popular music style with millions of followers. The normative Sharīʿah looks upon this practice as Bid’ah.

The practices that induce ecstatic states according to the imams or the caliphs are not in the five pillars of Islam (shahadah, canonical prayer, Ramadan, zakat and hajj). So it is in the method of worship of Allah that the Sufis diverge greatly and thus give rise to severe criticism by their fellow members in the Umma, who believe that Islam was established precisely to eliminate pagan rituals involving singing and dancing. 

Aniconism in Islam is proscription against creation of images of worship. The most absolute proscription is that of the creation of the image of Allah, yet it includes depictions of the Prophets, and any representations of human beings or animals is discouraged, with the hope of discouraging any idolatry. This has led over time to the Islamic art being dominated by Islamic geometric patterns, calligraphy, foliage patterns, and the arabesque.

The examples of Sufi Shrines across the South Asian are many. Gold (2005) investigates the shire of Mir Badshah, in the main bazaar of Gwalior Madhya Pradesh, a predominantly Hidnu medium sized city.  Mir Braseh was a Muslim Saint and even though little is known about him his shrine is active today, and interestingly the vast majority of its visitors are Hindu. Hindus believe that guardian spirits get attracted to the place for example. This shrine is an example of the communication of the Hindus with the Muslims in the religious arena, and the shrine illustrates how patterns of intercommunal cooperation are effectuated. Gold is concerned with past and present dynamics of contrast and assimilation presented in the Hindu reverence for Sufi Shrines in a place where Hindus are unquestionably in charge. The shrine appeals to the more and to the less privileged parts of the population. The shrine of Gwalior City  is an example of a shrine that allowed Islam to expand its grip to India through the interaction of the living presence of the Baraka (spiritual essence) of the Saint. 

Green (2004) describes multiple examples of shrines of Aurangabad. Green explores the role that the “twin figures of the Saint and the king” have occupied in pre-modern South Asia. He explores the historical nature of this relationship through an exploration of the textual references, historical accounts and references, though medieval historiography and Persian literature in translation, as well as oral tradition. A point he notably makes is the “Sufis were to be regarded as men of power […] with the power to foretell and shape future events.” The memory they hold is the memory an age of Muslim grandeur and self-rule in India. He presents accounts of the selflessness of the Sufi Saints. It is the tales of these Sufi Saints that provided a means for the abagnan people to find interest in the message of Islam.

It is the Sufi Saints that attracted followers to Islam and allowed for the Islamization of the Malay Archipelago. Asher (2009) explores the unusual situation of a shrine for a Sufi Saint Shahul Hamid whose dahrab is where he is buried in Mangore and interestingly is replicated in two locations in South East Asia. She explores possible explanations for this replication: (1) the Muslim Tamils carrying Shamil Shahud’s memory across the sea with them, (2) celebrating the ability of the Saint to perform miracles, and (3) his ability to protect and dominate over water. The shrine of Shahul Hamid offers an example of a Sufi shrine replicated outside its initial function of being a tomb for the Sufi Saint. In the Sufi Shrines the Baraka is remembered and more importantly venerated. It is close to what the letter of the Sharīʿah would consider idolatry. Yet these are the bridges of interfaith communication that allowed Hindus for example to observe the living miracles of Islam.

In the tales mentioned above the Shrines are an important part of the interaction of Islam with other religions like Hinduism, has served as a bridge for conversions, and throughout its history served as a support to the Muslim rulers. It seems that the Sufis, the Sufi Saints, the Sufi Shrines are a vehicle for conversion into Islam, and maybe this is why they are tolerated, even if they are shunned by orthodox Muslims.

In a similar fashion we can explore the purpose of shrines and holy resting places in Orthodox Christianity as a basis for comparison. The roots of Christianity, as those of Islam lie in the Holy texts, revealed through the holy prophets, and in that aspect the basis for the religion is the same Judeo-Christian heritage that Islam also shares.  The Christian mystics starting point would be the figure of Jesus as a focus of meditation, concentration, and consecration. (Soltes pp. 23-73) The bitter iconoclasm of the fifth and sixth century concluded in the acceptance of the iconography, reliquaries, Saintly cult, and temple shrines. In a similar fashion as Asher describes for Shamul Hamid and the Sufi shrines, temple shrines can be found in repeated locations and are consecrated through a piece of a bone of the Saint to whom they are dedicated. In Orthodox Christianity the concept of Saints is an integral part of the tradition. In fact it is expected in Christian Orthodoxy to have multiple shrines that are the object of pilgrimage and those shrines are a subtle yet important object of the worship.

The shrines in Christian Orthodoxy hold the essence of the Saint. The body of the Saint is fully conserved in certain instances, as is the case of Saint Dyonisios of Zakynthos, spontaneously mummified as such. In other instances it is exuding perfume or myrrh, as is the case for Saint Nicholas bishop of Myra. In yet other instances it is decomposed yet the remains hold the essence of the Saint, as is the case for Saint Nektarios whose body remained intact for 50 years and then spontaneously disintegrated in an allowance from the Saint, as believers heard, to take pieces of the body to other shrines.

A Saint is revered as such because he or she has performed miracles in the past or in most cases is still currently performing miracles. The miracles are expected and are an integral part of the faith, most often related to health, children, money, and the everyday workings of life. In my personal experience Saints have appeared to myself and other members of my family as well to announce a miracle that is about to be performed or to give guidance and direction. In Orthodox Christianity it seems to be understood, in a similar way as worshippers understand their relationship to Sufi Saints that Saints will mediate for the people who worship them and will perform the miracles that the people ask of them. The shrines are centered as well on the body of the Saint although every church that is dedicated in the name of that Saint is consecrated through a piece of their bones that is understood to hold their essence.

In conclusion Sufism seems to be at the core of the expansion of Islam in new territories and the Sufi Saints seems to be at the forefront of that expansion. Normative Islam seems to adopt a stricter version and a more doctrinally charged view of worship. In understanding the differences and similarities between the tasawwuf and the normative Umma it is interesting to observe that both are centered on the constant observance of the Qur’an’s teachings, even if the mystical aspects of the tasawwuf are not necessarily accepted or understood. Moreover, the Sufi practice is divergent in the ecstatic parts of the worship, like Qawwali and twirling that are certainly considered bid’ah. The concentration of the object of worship around the Sufi Saints is also reminiscent more of outlandish practices like those of Christianity. Yet there is a symbiosis of normative Islam and Sufism that allows them to still co-exist and to sometimes even flourish together.

References:

Catherine Asher, “The Sufi Shrines of Sahul Hamid in India and Southeast Asia” (2009), pp. 247-258

Frederick Denny, An Introduction to Islam (2011), pp.  219-266

Michael Feener and Michael Laffan, “Sufi Scents Across the Indian Ocean: Yemen Hagiography and the Earliest History of Southeast Asian Islam” (2005), pp. 185-208

Nile Green, “Stories of Saints & Sultans/Remembering History at the Sufi Shrines of Aurangabad” (2004), pp. 419-446

Daniel Gold, “The Sufi Shrines of Gwalior City: Communal Sensibilities and the Sensible Exotic Under Hindu Rule” (2005), pp. 127-150

Victoria Kennick and Arvind Sharma. “Spiritual Masters of the World’s Religions” (2012) State University of New York, NY.

Peter Manuel, “North Indian Sufi Popular Music in the Age of Hindu and Muslim Fundamentalism,” Ethnomusicology, Vol. 52, No. 3, Fall 2008, pp. 378-400

Ori Z. Soltes, “Mysticism in Judaism, Christianity and Islam: Searching for Oneness” (2008) Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, ML

academic paper - Vajrayana: the mystical, the magical and the forbidden

Vajrayana: The Mystical, the Magical, and the Forbidden

“But now, I will speak of those among the twice-born laymen, virtuous in the Dharma, who, through their persistent employment of mantras and tantras, will be engaged in the functions of the state.

There will be in the whole world at a calamitous time, the best of the twice-born, and his name will be pronounced with a Va.

Wealthy and completely familiar with the Vedas, let him wander all of this earth—girdled by three oceans—for the purpose of polemical eloquence.

He will love to fight with those non-Buddhist partisans [tirthika].

Yet he always keeps the bodhisattva visualized before him, and recites the six-letter mantra, restrained in speech.

Thus, he will be a prince bearing the song of Mañjusri because of his motivation for the welfare of beings.

Indeed, celebrated for his accumulated performance of rituals, his intellect is superb.

There will be Jaya and the famous Sujaya, and also Subhamata. They will be from a well-placed family, along with the righteous, ennobled, excellent Madhava. There will be Madhu and Sumadhu as well.

There will be Siddha and thus *Madadahana (Destroyer of Pride).

There will be Raghava the Sudra, and those born among the Sakas.

They will all in this life recite mantras of the prince Mañjusri, with their speech restrained.

They will all be esoteric meditators, learned and intelligent.

They will be present among councilors of state [mantrin] for they will be completely based in the activities of government.”

—Mañjusrimulakalpa, LI.955a–963b. Translation R.M. Davidson

Europeans decided in the last century that Theravada Buddhism was the pure form of Buddhism and puritan practitioners and scholars alike perpetuate this myth today. Yet Vajrayana Buddhism despite the hype and the fanfare is just another path of Buddhism, in fact it is the esoteric path, the mystical path of a tradition that does not easily concede to having a mystical path. My interest in investigating tantric Buddhism arose out of my exploration in world religions of the esoteric, the magical, and the forbidden. Vajrayana contains all of these elements and I will explore more in detail each of these components focusing on the discourse of the tantras, and showing how Vajrayana has evolved into the religion it is today. Mysticism is a complex and multifaceted topic, an active topic of investigation in religious studies in the last century. I am intrigued by the topic of mysticism and I explore the topic in relation to Vajrayana practices. I will show that Vajrayana can indeed be called a mystical path. I am particularly interested in the aspects of magic, pleasure and mystical transcendence that I explore throughout this essay. This paper is an attempt to describe the mystical and the surprising elements of a path to Enlightment, a path that claims is the quickest path to Buddhahood.

The mystical

The practice of Tantra that we are exploring, with the choreographed performance of mudras and recitation of mantras under the careful guidance of the guru, is in fact a path to attaining a mystical experience. “Mysticism is a modern comparative category that has been used in a wide variety of ways to locate, describe and evaluate individuals’ experience of communion, union and identity with the sacred” states Kripal, and he clarifies: “in the words of the French philosopher George Bataille, it is death and sensual rapture that speak most effectively and accurately of the human experience of becoming one with the greater whole.” (p 327). And so Krippel proposes that “it is to death and eroticism that we must turn in order to investigate mysticism”, and in that aspect Vajrayana is indeed exemplifying these aspects of the mystical experience that the path proposes to elicit.

Vajrayana was of course not developed to fit the modern definition of mysticism. Vajrayana was developed in India as a distinct path around the middle of the first millennium and the Vajrayana tradition developed from the Mahayana tradition originally, between the 3^rd and 7^th century. Nagajurna and Asanga played a major role in its development (“the Vajrayana tradition is unanimous in calling Nagajurna and Asanga its founders”  Della Santina p.236) and “the overwhelming majority of esoteric Buddhist literature was written in the space of about four hundred years, from the mid-seventh to the mid-eleventh centuries. This is true of the siddha documents as well, for they appear on the scene only a few decades after the mature synthesis is clearly evident. Buddhist siddha presence was already attested in both Buddhist and non-Buddhist literature by 720–730 c.e., and in the third quarter of the eighth century extraordinary evidence emerges for authority being granted to the most radical of the new forms of literature—the yogini tantras.” (Davidson, p118)

As is the Mahayana tradition, Vajrayana is divided into two paths, the practice of the perfections (Paramitayana) and the practice of the Vajrayana (Mantrayana). Both traditions share the same starting point (the experience of suffering) and the same goal (Buddhahood). The difference is in the methodology: Vajrayana promises a short path, and also warns against severe danger and that one should only enter the path with an impure heart, without kindness, love and compassion (madness, suicides, demon attacks, karmic consequences etc.). “It is likely that these canonical tantras were quite as much studied in the great Indian Buddhist monasteries as were the sutras, and thus the Tibetans took as granted what was then already an Indian Buddhist assumption, that there were in general two approaches toward Buddhahood, the slower but surer way as taught in the Mahayana sutras, i.e. the way of the Bodhisattva, and the risky way as taught in the tantras, which could result in Buddhahood in this very life, but which employed methods which only those of strong faculties should dare to use.” (Snellgrove, p 118)

Vajrayana evolved from the Mahayana traditions and texts. So the preliminaries in terms of the practice are share by both traditions. These are (1) the taking of refuge, (2) contemplation of suffering, (3) the law of karma, (4) death and impermanence, (5) the opportune and fortunate nature of the human situation, (6) cultivation of love and compassion, (7) production of the enlightenment thought, and (8) cultivation of one-pointedness, or concentration, and penetrative insight. The main difference comes in the way of taking refuge. Whereas in the Mahayana tradition there are the three objects of refuge – the Enlightened One, his teaching, and the Noble Assembly of the irreversible Bodhisattvas or Bodhisattvas who have attained the seventh stage of the Bodhisattva path and are therefore not liable to relapse, in the Vajrayana there is also the fourth refuge – the preceptor (the guru or lama). In certain traditions within the Vajrayana fold, there may be as many as six objects of refuge, the two additional ones being the tutelary deities and the dakinis. The tutelary deities are the special esoteric forms of the Buddha who are any one of the major tantric deities – Hevajra, Chakrasamvara, Heruka – meditation upon whom is a complete path to enlightenment. The dakinis are female deities who are symbolic or representative of insubstantiality. “In the Vajrayana pantheon, the dakinis occupy a position in some ways analogous to that of the Noble Assembly, being the special tantric or Vajrayana forms of the Sangha. Although in certain traditions and contexts we do have references to these six objects of refuge, it is far more common to find the four objects of refuge, that is, the preceptor and the Triple Gem.” (Della Santina, p 281 - 283)

In many ways, as mentioned previously, the Mahayana and the Vajrayana are the two components of the same tradition, differing only in their methodologies. There is a clear differentiation in the way the taking of the refuge is practiced. In the Vajrayana tradition the fourth object of refuge is the guru, or lama. The guru functions as a means of concentrating and harnessing the power of the Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha in such a way as to make that power effective and immediately applicable to the disciple’s own needs. The guru is the object of adoration and attention in the physical world and is due the outmost respect.

“In the story of Marpa, one of the more famous Tibetans who journeyed to India in order to receive the Vajrayana teaching from Naropa. Marpa made three journeys to India and studied at length with Naropa. It is said that on one occasion, when the manifestation of a tutelary deity appeared before him, Marpa made the mistake of bowing to the appearance of the deity rather than to his preceptor, Naropa. The karmic consequences of this lapse were that Marpa later lost his sons to accidents and had no descendants to whom he could pass on the teachings he had received.”

In Tantric Buddhism it is common practice to manipulate these subtle forms of energy in and around the body to produce repeatable results that are also controlled; more a form of magical practice than a form of mystical exploration. Mystics can be thought of as translators of the superhuman realm and they are selected to provide guidance and they are the ones that are in fact selecting and choosing to be the mediators between those two planes of existence. In that sense the guru serves the role of the mystic a priori.

The taking refuge involves visualization of the four objects of refuge either separately or together. Using the visualization of the object of refuge then the disciple will recite a refuge formula 100,000 times. Before serious practice can be entertained there are three more important preliminary practices (ngon-dro, or going-before). The second preliminary is the ‘confession’ to the Buddha Vajrasattva that will attribute four powers for purification and restoration: the power of the shrine, the power of transcendence, the power of habitual anecdote, and the power of restoration. The third preliminary is the guru yoga and is aimed at establishing a close bond between the guru and the disciple. The term yoga means ‘yoking togeher’, connecting, or indentifying. This association leads to the formation of the lineage. The fourth preliminary is the offering of the mandala, a sacred symbolic or magic circle. The mandala is a symbolic representation of the sacred cosmology.

The magical

The point of the practice of Tantra is not the attainment of siddhi magical powers and yet this is part of the promise of the path, involving the traditions concerning the Tantric Adepts known as the Siddhas (perfected ones). It is the nature of the practice of tantra practice to fix one’s attention to the breath, or to an object of adoration, like a Bodhisattva or a deity. It is common to perform mudras or other bodily postures to support the mind’s focus, or the creative visualization of the deities. The promise is to attain enlightment when one only purifies themselves. In an example regarding the path of enlightment of a yaksini condemned to be tortured in a cemetery and then suffering, two dakinis who took pity on her “encouraged the yaksini to seek the attainments of the Tantric divinities through five practices which they asked the [84 Mahasiddhas that were in the astral planes] to impart to her: master Khagardha’s abbreviated rites of Lord Acala; Kanapira’s rites of the Mother of Wisdom; Dombipa’s rites which combine the tantric divinities Cakrasamvara and Hevarja; Caloka’s rites of Amtayus, the Buddha of longevity; and Naropa’s instructions on the hundred-syllable mantra of purification and repentance.[…] the two dakinis [promised] that all those who have gone before have realized the attainments. If you have not is because you failed to purify you own continuum of being.” (Kapstein, p 64-66) And so the path of the siddhas promises attainment if the adept, even being a yaksini in this case, follows the guidance of the guru, the two dakinis imparting the wisdom of the siddhas in this case.  It is also a part of the path to be engulfed in secrets, as the adept must adhere to the appropriate Tantric vows and enjoy the result through the power of secrets.

Central in the practice is the mandala, literally meaning circle. The mandala is the ordered arrangement in which the deities are placed around a center. It is defined as 'that which grasps the essence'. The mandala of a particular Buddha may be a small circle containing his symbol, or the assembly of all the deities of his Family. It can also be a ritual diagram of other shapes. There are five Buddhas (Ashobkhya, Vairocana, Ratnasaqibbava, Amitacha  and Amoghasiddhi) that are heading five Buddha families. Mandalas of the five Buddha families are used to support the meditation practices in the Buddhist conceptual framework for understanding, interconnecting, and orienting the five different energies attributed to the psychological types into an integrated whole. In Buddhist meditation, each of the five Buddhas in the mandala can be considered as a manifestation of a particular aspect of enlightenment in its purest and most natural form. Also, the Five Elements (space, fire, water, earth, and wind/air) and five dominant colours (white, red, blue, yellow, and green) are associated with the five presiding Buddhas or Bodhisattvas, respectively (Guyasamäja Tantra). This is associated with the transformation of energies of awareness into their enlightened aspects during spiritual practice. The mandala can be thought of as the magic circle that delineates what is inside what is outside, the magical and the ordinary, the mundane and the super mundane.

Buddhist mantras are “spells”; that is, they are carefully structured verbal utterances that are recited in conjunction with ritual practices to produce a desired magical effect. A mantra is a short formula that generally has three purposes. It is an aid to concentration (focusing on one’s own breath, an image of the Buddha, a blue flower, or an idea as an object on which to concentrate one’s mind, so one can use the sound of a mantra). It is an aid to memory. When one recites the mantra, Om mani padme hum, for example, one remembers not only the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara but also skillful means and wisdom, and the necessity of uniting them. Third, a mantra has the power to enhance one’s spiritual development, in that the repeated use of mantras by meditation masters over many centuries has charged these mantras with a particular potency. The word mantra is composed of two parts: man comes from the term manas, which means ‘mind,’ and tra from tranam, ‘to protect.’ Mantra therefore means ‘something that protects the mind.’ In general, it also means the esoteric or secret vehicle. (Della Santina p233)

A particular aspect of Vajrayana are the wrathful deities, which are in fact benevolent deities and yet are fierce in their appearance and resemble demons in their visual depictions. In the Vajrayana path, more than any other path of Buddhism, the veneration of the deities is an integral part of the practice. And whereas we would expect that the peaceful deities would be the focus, in fact it is the extraordinary power of tantric fierce deities that seem to be coveted. Veneration of the fierce, the wrathful deities comes through “symbols and rites of transformation that elevate the dark angel from the unconscious, potentially demonic state into a healthy conscious relationship”. (Preece, p 185) Tantra proposes to transform rather than suppress these dark forces of the psyche. “The Tantric Wrathful Deity, when understood and related to skillfully, has the necessary qualities to be a catalyst of transformation.” (p186) One such Fierce or Wrathful Deity is Yamantaka. He embodies the power to transform the destructive, aggressive aspects of the Shadow. His domain is the underworld; he lives in charnel grounds and is lord of all the fearsome protectors. Archetypically he is the personification of the dark angel. He has the power to destroy ignorance and ego-grasping as the power of evil and the various emotions that arise from it. As the manifestation of the wisdom of the Dharmakaya he embodies the power of wisdom to overcome the Shadow’s demonic side not by repression but by absorbing its forces and transmuting them into power. His nature is the wisdom of the indestructible bliss and emptiness – one of the meanings of the Sanskrit word Vajra. Two verses of a Tibetan text named The Wheel of the Sharp Weapons in praise of Yamantaka show the attack on ego-grasping as the source of all evils in this world:

Frantically running through life’s tangled jungle,

We are chased by sharp weapons of wrong we have done

Returning upon us; we are out of control.

This sly deadly villain – the selfishness in us,

Deceiving ourselves and all others as well.

Capture him, capture him, fierce Yamantaka,

Summon the enemy, bring him forth now.

Trample him, trample him dance on the head

Of this treacherous concept of selfish concern.

Tear out the heart of this self-centered butcher

Who slaughters our chance to gain final release

(p 190) These verses show the attachment to the selfishness that causes so much trouble, and Yamantaka attacks our ignorance and stupidity with all his fierce qualities.

Vajrayana is also sometimes referred to as Mantrayana due to the numerous practices involving the recitation of mantras, most for 108 times and some for 100,000 times as is the case for the initiation mantras. Some mantras that are addressed to Heruka show the interaction and the qualities attributed. In exploring how to generate the body mandala through a fierce deity some lines stand out:

                Om to you with a fearsome face and bared fangs HUM HUM PHAT

This line reveals Heruka’s pre-eminent qualities of abandonment and realization. His four bared fangs indicate that he has completely abandoned the four maras, and his wrathful four faces indicate that he has profound realizations of the four doors to liberation. In this mantra the practitioner then is requesting that Heruka bestows the attainment of these abandonments and realizations.

                Om to you who holds an axe, an uplifted noose, a spear and a Khatanga HUM HUM PHAT

This line reveals Heruka’s deeds of benefiting others through wrathful actions. Our of compassion he benefits countless living beings with wrathful aspects, such as twelve armed Heruka holding an axe, an uplifting noose, a spear, a Khatanga. In this mantra the practitioner then is requesting that Heruka bestows the attainment of Buddhahood.

                Om to you who wear the tiger skin garment HUM HUM PHAT

This line reveals that if the human beings of this world sincerely rely upon Heruka with strong faith, Heruka will bestow powerful blessings upon them to pacify anger and conflicts. To indicate this he wears the tiger skin to impart the power of the beast he has conquered. In this mantra the practitioner then is requesting that Heruka bestows his blessings to pacify anger and achieve outer and inner peace.

Om to you Vajrayogini who remain as the Vajra seat with controlling eyes unconquered by others. HUM HUM PHAT

This line now addresses Vajrayogini who appears as the wrathful fierce deity to subdue the pride of worldly Gods such as Brahma and Idra. (Gyatso, p 135)

This brief excerpt gives an insight to the level and the mode of interaction with the wrathful deities as one is reciting the mantras. These are all aspects of the practice that closely resembles a magic ritual as well. It seems though that the aspects of the wrathful deities are addressing the parts of the human nature that are equally wrathful and so balance is restored.

The forbidden

In the spirit of balancing the light and the dark, to transform and transcend the darkness, Vajrayana indeed encompasses some aspects that would justify its reputation as a disputable path including some elements of the macabre and the erotic that would raise the eyebrows of the most open minded observers. I am in the third part of the essay address these notions that make Vajrayana so interesting because instead of turning away from those aspects of the human psyche that are disturbing, the philosophy and alleged practices embrace them. This does in fact though raise the question of whether Vajrayana is so divergent a path to Buddhism that even in a tradition that evolves, and where change is the expected way of the evolution the sangha, Vajrayana is in fact so far outside the field of normative Buddhism that it can hardly be considered a path of continuity in the dharma.

Tantric Buddhist discourse was a process for forming religious identity in a Tantric Buddhist tradition during the early medieval period. This tradition, which gave rise to the Buddhist Yogini tantras, developed in dependence upon a non-Buddhist tradition. The Mahavairocanaabhisambodhi Tantra, an early and important Tantric Buddhist text likely composed during the mid-seventh century in India, contains aspects that would certainly be considered controversial and heretic. I am including an example of the description of cannibalism, the heart eating practices. “The Indian master Subhakarasimha and his Chinese disciple Yixing addressed this lacuna in their massive Chinese Mahavairocana-abhisambodhi Sutra Commentary, which they composed in the early eighth century in Chang-an. In this work they relate a fascinating myth concerning the revelation of the dakini mantra, which occurs as follows:

Next is the dakini-mantra. There are those in the world who are well-versed in this technique, and are practitioners of Isvara’s esoteric lore (vidya), who are able to know when a person’s life is about to end. They know of this six months in advance, and then knowing it they immediately apply the spell to extract a person’s heart and eat it. It turns out that within the human body there is a concretion, which is thus called human concretion. It is like the concretion found in cattle. One who is able to eat it attains the greatest powers (siddhi), [such as] circling the world in one day, obtaining anything that one desires, and being able to control people in various ways. If they have an enemy, they can use this spell to punish him, causing extreme sickness and suffering. However, this method cannot kill people. Should they follow this self-devised method, they know when a person is to die six months in advance. Knowing this, they use this spell to extract his heart. Although they take his heart, there is [another] procedure, [whereby] they must replace his heart with something else. [Thereby] this person’s life does not [prematurely] end. When he reaches his time of natural death, then [the heart simulacrum] malfunctions. Their chief was the yaksa Mahevara, who worldly people say is the ultimate [god]. He upbraided them, saying: “Since you alone always devour people, now I will eat you!” Then he swallowed them, but did not allow them to die. Once they had submitted, he released them, completely forbidding them to [eat] flesh. They spoke to the Buddha saying, “We presently eat flesh to survive. How can we sustain ourselves now?” The Buddha said, “I will permit you to eat the hearts of dead people.”

(Gray, p47). In this extreme example of a magical ritual for cannibalism, probably the attempt to integrate Saivist practices to Vajrayana rituals, shows how the mantras are used, how the magical powers of the siddhis are claimed and how incredibly different this practices are from the ones in the Pali canon. This is why over the centuries practitioners started differentiating between white and red Tantra, or “right-handed” and “left-handed”. In that sense the tainted view of Vajrayana from the European scholars can be justified. Certainly in the development of the path some of the early Saivist influences were extreme. These texts are still conserved today in Tibet where predominantly Tantric Buddhism is practiced, yet the actual rituals are probably forgotten, and are certainly not practiced.

Some other macabre rituals are still surprising. In exploring death, McDaniel (2000) explored the tantric ritual of feeding skulls to honor the Goddess Kali, in West Bengal. Skulls are thought to bring protective energy (sakri) and support the sadhu in his efforts. Often painted red, sometimes using menstrual blood, and they are relics that mediate to the supernatural realm (alaurika) and call for the Goddess Kali. The sadhu takes his power (sakti) from the skulls to strengthen him in his quest. Skulls awaken the Goddess and bring her presence to the ritual practices. The skulls are selected carefully, with preference to people who died young or with violence. “The dead object becomes the vessel for a living presence through ritual. The souls from the skulls are like the Tantric consort or uttara sadhika, in that they assist in ritual practice” (p 77).

 “Right handed” philosophical views have emerged from the “left handed” preexisting Tantric practices, some of a sexual nature. At the root of the practice of Tantra is the Mandala, often centered on a yantra, as in sri yantra, a way to control one’s conceptual reality through a “mesocosmic” device. It is the nature of this grid or template, together with the chosen medium of this process of divine embodiment that differentiates one form of Tantra from another. “The template [can be] the body of a naked maiden, and the medium her sexual or menstruating discharge” (White, p 11). It is in that sense that Tantra venerates the female body. In later traditions the maiden was replaced by the deity and the medium could be the sound or the subtle energetic body of the practitioner. Today the mandala, containing hidden the sri yantra, is the object of focus often displayed in erotic tantric art.

Sexual discourse becomes dominant in the fourth category of Supreme Yoga Tantras (anuttarayoga-tantra). These are the tantras where the four main consecrations consist of ritualized performance of the sexual act of union, and as for the place of their promulgation, it is usually announced in the opening verse: “Thus have I heard: at one time the Lord reposed in the vaginas of the Payra-maidens — the heart of the Body, Speech and Mind of all Buddhas.” It is important to note that in order to reconcile these tantras with the pure path some concessions were necessary. For example in this fourth category the Lord Buddha is seldom named specifically as Sakyamuni, but the connection exists in so far as he embodies all Buddhas, in this case “through his hypostasis as the Buddha Imperturbable (Aksobhya), with whom such great tantric Lords as Heruka, Hevajra and Candamaharosana are identified. But while it need not be disputed that Sakyamuni had taught strict celibacy, certainly in his first turning of the Wheel, it could be argued that his own activities as a Bodhisattva, not least of all his life in the harem and his marriage, prepared him for the act of renunciation leading to final enlightenment. Commentators on Supreme Yoga Tantras have devised a modified version of the account of his enlightenment, as described in the Yoga Tantra “Symposium of Truth“ and elsewhere, introducing a feminine partner on the scene in the form of “the daughter of the gods Tilottama,” thus justifying in his name the use of sexual yoga.” (Snellgrove, p121) The innovation in the Yogacara is that whereas before the practice was reserved to the Bikhus and arahats, it was now open to laymen practitioners. This too is stated clearly in the Hevajra Tantra:

Those things by which evil men are bound, others turn into means and gain thereby release from the bonds of existence. By passion the world is bound, by passion too it is released, but by heretical Buddhists this practice of reversals is not known.

The same doctrine had already been asserted in Asanga’s Mahayanasutralarnkara (“Adornment of Mahayana Sutras”) and so dates as far back as the 5^th century.

“Already by the fifth century when Asanga was writing, these techniques of sexual yoga were being used in reputable Buddhist circles, and that Asanga himself accepted such a practice as valid.” The natural power of the breath, inhaling and exhaling, was certainly accepted as an essential force to be controlled in Buddhist as well as Hindu yoga. Why therefore not the natural power of the sexual force? There need be nothing surprising about this at all. Sexual relationship had long since been ritualized (see the Br had-dr any aka Upanisad, VI.4) as a form of yoga and within the terms of Mahayana theories, there need be no objection to it by Buddhist yoginis (p 126)”. Of course sexual intercourse was unsuitable for celibate monks but Asanga was not writing only monks. As I remarked earlier the path of Vajrayana included laypeople. In Asanga’s Mahayanasutralamkara the following passage refers specifically to copulation (maithuna) in a list of “reversals,” and the deliberate retention of semen. Since it may be misleading to quote one verse out of context, Snellgrove gives the translation of the whole set of verses from the Guhyasamdja Tantra dealing with the subject of reversal (pardvrtti). “Once it is established that sexual yoga was already regarded by Asaga as an acceptable yogic practice, it becomes far easier to understand how tantric treatises, despite their apparent contradiction of previous Buddhist teachings, were so readily canonized in the following centuries.

The self-control of the Early Disciples surpasses that of a worldly person, but this disposition of an Early Disciple is surpassed by the Lone Buddhas. [38]

However this does not approach even fractionally the self-control of a Bodhisattva. It does not approach even fractionally the self-control of the Tathagatas. [39]

The self-control of the Buddhas is said to be immeasurable and inconceivable with regard to the person involved, the place, the manner and the occasion. [40]

Supreme self-control is achieved in the reversal of the five sense-organs with regard to the universal operation of all of them, associated with the manifestation of twelve hundred good qualities. [41]

Supreme self-control is achieved in the reversal of mental activity with the consequent self-control with regard to knowledge which is free of discriminating thought and thus totally immaculate. [42]

Supreme self-control is achieved in the reversal of appearances and their (imagined) significance in a (Buddha-)realm that is thus purified for the blissful vision just as desired. [43]

Supreme self-control is achieved in the reversal of discriminating thought resulting in the nonobstruction at all times of all knowledge and acts. [44]

Supreme self-control is obtained in the reversal of substrata resulting in that imperturbable state of the Buddhas, nirvana without any substratum. [45]

Supreme self-control is obtained in the reversal of sexual intercourse in the blissful Buddha-poise and the untrammeled vision of one’s spouse. [46]

Supreme self-control is obtained in the reversal of spatial perceptions resulting in the supernatural production of thought-forms and in material manifestation in phenomenal spheres (gati). [47]

(In the matter of self-control in the reversal of spatial perceptions the results are two: the supernatural production of thought-forms whereby one becomes of the very essence of space (gaganagarbha) and material manifestations in phenomenal spheres because one moves as one pleases and because of one's control over space.) Thus with regard to this immeasurable and supreme (power of) reversal this self-control is said to be immeasurable in the immaculate state of the Buddhas since (great) acts are performed spontaneously (lit. without mental reflection). [48]

There need be little doubt over the meaning of these verses. The return to the phenomenal world (verse 47) after experiencing the “blissful Buddha-poise” (verse 46) corresponds with the arrangement of the tantric states of Symbols and Joys" (Snellgrove, p127-128)

Tantra is a living example of what Kripal suggests we turn to in order to better understand mysticism: death and eroticism. Tantric philosophy and practice embody both the macabre and the erotic in a bid to transcend the limits of this reality and in an accelerated path guide the practitioner to the subtle realms of the mystical. As Kripal argued that  “much like the sexual body in contemporary gender theory, even the mystical body displays the intricacies of human culture and the marks of human language” and that “we hear of many essences and many minds, but seldom do we hear of actual skin, of genitals and sexual fluids, of fingers and toes, or of faces and smiles and groans” I took the bid to explore a place where in fact the mandala of the body is used, the medium of the transient nature of humanity is explored and worshiped and transcendence and magic meet in the service of the sannyasi. The ultimate goal of both those who “know” and who “do” will be to enlighten and in the process to liberate all other creatures from suffering existence. The path is that of the mystical, the magical Tantra. And so Tantra, in that sense, meets the scholarly definitions of the vehicle to produce the mystical experience.

Whereas it is possible that in its inception the path of Vajrayana was a syncretist amalgam of Saivism and Buddhism, Vajrayana today is the only path in Buddhism that can be considered to make a serious bid for the mystical side of spiritual development. I am not sure whether this is what Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha had in mind when he was creating the path to Buddhahood all these centuries ago. Then again I am not sure that Theravada, or any other Hinayana or Mahayana path for that matter, were what he had in mind either. As the centuries passed Buddhism, that by design is not a static path, has evolved so far from where its origins were that today no one can be sure of what was the path that was started. In fact if we believe the Pali Canon, the life of the Sangha was shortened to 500 years because of the inclusion of women which would mean that we could not even talk of Buddhism today as the pure path as given to the people by the Sakyamuni. That path according to the canon has ended some two millennia ago. Today we can look at Vajrayana Buddhism as it stands and recognize that this path has evolved over centuries to its present form. It is certainly a pure form of Buddhism in the sense that the tantric rituals, whatever their Saivistic influence in the beginning were converted to orthodox Buddhist use. “The Tibetans, who were the full inheritors of whole Indian Buddhist tradition in the various forms in which it existed in India up to the thirteenth century, followed their Indian masters in treating the tantras, to which they were introduced, as authoritative Buddhist works, canonically valid as Buddha Word, just as much as were the Mahayana sutras” (Snellgrove, p118). Today Vajrayana, or Tibetan Buddhism a it is often referred to, is the religion of mostly the people of Tibet, and has gained worldwide attention since the Dalai Lama took his people out of his country to protect them against the Chinese oppression. In fact interestingly enough because some 100,000 Buddhists from Tibet took refuge in India, today Vajrayana is the most serious Buddhist movement in the land of its origins.

Conclusion

In this essay I explored Vajrayana Buddhism, its history and development, its distinguishing features, its peculiarities and its unique and sometimes disturbing aspects in an effort to understand whether it deserves the reputation of being an impure form of Buddhism. I have argued that it is a path whose traditions are rooted in Buddhism, whose ultimate goal is Buddhahood, who despite its divergence maintains most aspects of the Dharma and the Sangha. So in that sense I believe that Vajrayana deserves to be called a path of Buddhism, as much in fact as any path that is today practiced. I also explored the mystical aspects of the path, the ones that link to death of the psyche and union with the divine. I investigated three aspects of the secret in relation to the erotic and the macabre using Vajrayana and yoga as my canvas. What I attempted show is that the tantric controversial practices are aimed at eliciting the elusive mystical experience to their practitioners and that considering Vajrayana as a mystical path is justified as it in fact contains so many aspects of the trans mundane, in the sacred union with the outer world. This path is an accelerated path to Buddhahood and its secrets and dangers may in fact constitute its appeal.

References

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