Om. Sri.
What is Sri Vidya? I shall try to answer thisquestion the only way it can be answered, in a very roundabout way.For, defining is confining. We need to rise beyond the realm of ourdefinitions. It is like the new trend in the computer science knownas the fuzzy logic. If you can appreciate fuzzy logic or the theoryof chaos, then you would somewhat understand what it means to risebeyond mere apparent definitions and becoming all-conclusive, wherethe order is not quite as easily visible, quite as simply discernableas it is in the well-defined axioms or axiomatic logic based on S isP, S is not P. It is not so in Sri Vidya, the science of Sri, God'sscience of the universe.
The concept of Sri forms the entire Hindu-buddhistcivilization, directly or indirectly, quite often in small segmentsand powers. However, even in this area of ancient civilizations, withthe exception of, say, one in half a billion people, no one reallyunderstands what Sri Vidya is because learning Sri Vidya is not likemastering any of the sciences, it is mastering one's own self. It isGod's science of the universe, God's science of self-knowledge, thatvery self-knowledge where God within us also knowsHerself.
One of the countries where the word Sri is verypopular is the Bali Island of Indonesia. The ancient Indian Rishis,sages, founders of sciences, they through whom many sciences wererevealed, crossed the seas, and established what is now an ancientcivilization. In Bali you would often hear of Bhu Devi or Sri Devi.Bhu Devi means the deity which is the earth. And then Sri Devi, themother deity of prosperity, no, not prosperity, no, growth, no; ah--I'll play the modern anthropologist: fertility, now you've got itright! But you haven't. You see, to understand the ancient Easternsciences, one would have to learn to forget some of the populardefinitions given in high circles of learned people in modernsystems. Until you can step out of that, you cannot move from thereductionist sciences and schools towards the holistic sciences andschools. It's a question of redefining yourself. And by redefiningyourself you will redefine that which your self knows, wishes toknow, will know and the seed of that knowledge as well as thesubstratum of that which we wish to know, or do know, since all thesemodes of knowing occur within the self. This is one of the very basicprinciples of Sri Vidya.
Talking of the Sri Devi, in every rice field inBali there is a small shrine to Sri Devi by whose presence the ricegrows. Well, obviously it's a fertility cult, so say the experts fromthe Western civilization which is all-knowing, and knows all aboutwhat people think and feel everywhere and how they work out things ina most unscientific way with all these superstitious beliefs such asthat some goddess makes the rice grow. Now, for each village thereare priests who perform the appropriate rites. There's a chief priestfor the whole of Bali Island, who, by his own method of internalcoordination, sets up the entire agricultural policy: when the peopleof different areas should plant, when they should irrigate thefields, when they should reap the crop. In comes the World Bank andthe International Monetary Fund and all the great scientists of theworld who want to pull these backward people out of theirunscientific, superstitious views and institute studies ofagricultural patterns and how the agriculture may be improved. Asthey have done in many, many societies, destroying the entireestablished fabric and ensuring almost the extinction of a vastdiversity of living things through their 'scientific' methods. A fewexceptional people are wise and it occurred to them to do a computermodel of what would be the best way to really coordinate the plantingand the irrigation and the reaping of crops in the right time in alldifferent areas and topographies of the island. It turned out thatthe models thus prepared coincided with exactly what the chiefpriests of Sri Devi have been doing in guiding the entire country inmatters of agriculture for the last ten or twenty centuries. Leavewell alone; the scientists concluded. For details see StephanLansing's book, Priests and Programmers: Technologies of Power in theEngineered Landscape of Bali (Princeton University Press,1991).
It is heartening to see that for a change someonetook the trouble of trying to comprehend the ways of those who haveunderstood some sciences intrinsically, who know to plan theagriculture of an entire country by intuitive methods. Not guesswork, please. Intuition is not guess work. We also need to correctthe trend both in the East and West, of equating intuition with guesswork. Sri Vidya is the science of intuitive mastery of exactsciences.
The way we write Mr., Mrs., Ms., Miss, in theWestern countries, the common term used in the communication in Indiais, for a man, Sriman; for a woman, Srimati; for Ms., Su-Shu and soforth. The Queen of Thailand, Sirikit is actually the sanskrit workSrikirti, the glory of Sri. So all the 850,000,000 Indians carry thetitle Sri, Sriman, Srimati, Su-Sri: one endowed with Sri. A titleoriginally in ancient times reserved for those who were initiatedinto Sri Vidya, they in whom God's glory of the universe has made ahome, those who are endowed with knowledge, empowered with the energyand the intuition of mother Sri. The basic text of Sri Vidya says:one who knows mother Sri can never be orphaned. In the rituals andceremonies in the Indian tradition, when one sips the holy water theysay, Mayi Shrih Shrayatam: may Sri dwell in me. The word for refugeis Ashraya: to be one as Sri. "May many come taking refuge in me, mayI seek refuge in none"--is the prayer of those who wish to have thiscapacity to give refuge. This capacity is Sri. You might translateSri Vidya as the science of capacities, the science ofpotentialities.
One of the first principles in Sri Vidya is thatyour individual self cannot be separated from the universalprinciples. In studying universal principles of any science, you mustfirst be studying yourself. And the application of those principlesmust first be directed towards yourself so that you cannot studyphysics or chemistry without first studying yourself. This would makeno sense to an average student of physics and chemistry, but, whatabout biochemistry? You see there a relationship between what youconsider to be your individual self, mere body, and the constituentsof the world. At least you see the connection between what ishappening in you and what is happening in the test tube. Withoutunderstanding that link there can be neither biochemistry norpharmacology. Sri-Vidya is thus a science of connections. Theconnections are realized not through writing research papers on them.But through processes of concentration, contemplation, meditation oneachieves an assimilation of the universe and oneself.
We said above that Sri Vidya is God's science ofthe universe. Here I reiterate what has often been taught in lectureson Sri Vidya. God's energy, capacity, potentiality is three-fold;iccha, jñana, kriya. These are the three shaktis:iccha-shakti, jñana shakti, kriya-shakti, respectively theenergy called will, knowledge, and action. In that which you know tobe self; in that which you know the self that is God; in that whichyou know to be the universe that is God, that is in God. In God thatis the universe, God that is in the universe, God that is in you, Godthat is you. These sentences must not be taken in a sequence, for ifyou depend on sequence of thoughts, then you will never reach thatknowledge which in the yoga sutras is called a-krama, knowledgewithout sequence, simultaneous; flash of lightning, of truth; asknowledge in which these principles are not studied in a logicalsequence, through an intellectual process but all of them flash asone.--(See Yoga-sutras III. 54)
When this, God's science of creation, maintenanceand dissolution, through his power called will, knowledge and action,is absorbed, assimilated, is fully realized by the yogi he is thenthe master of Sri Vidya. Even these words are sequential, for thelanguage fails here. Sri Vidya is the science of energy fields of themetaphysical universe. The energy fields that are non-sentient andthe energy fields that are sentient; the energy fields that knowthemselves to be, the sentient ones, and the energy fields that donot know themselves to be or whose degree of knowing is somewhatreduced. When these energy fields are seen as parts of a singleassimilated whole, then you begin to understand Sri Vidya, and thatthe microcosm and the macrocosm; the pinda and brahmanda; the shapeand form on one hand and linga, that is your subtle body, youroperative self, and the egg of God, the ovum that is the universe:all these are inseparable.
The Newsweek, one of the bibles of the modernworld, on May 4, 1992, starts an article titled "God's Handwriting,"with these words: "There is no dearth of creation myths, from EasterIsland's bird-god that laid the world egg to the Old Testament's sixdays of Genesis." Actually, this concept of the universe as an egg isvery basic to the Indian tradition of cosmology. Often the form ofthe linga, the sign of the presence of light that is worshipped inthe temples of India, is somewhat oval; it represents the
1. For a deeper understanding of the Yoga-Sutras,it is recommended to study: 1) The Commentary by HariharanandaAranya, S.U.N.Y. Press. 2) The Commentary by Usharbudh Arya,Himalayan Publishers, and 3) instruction cassettes available fromRishikesh Foundation, P.O. Box 279, Clarence, NY 14031.
universe expanding within an oval space. If youtake away the physical body of a human being, what remains is theoval of light.
Sri Vidya begins where quantum physics ends. Thecontemporary philosophers of science have reached a cul de sac, anddo not seem to know where to go from there because they are presentedwith enigmas, the gigantic, vast and majestic koans, the mysteries ofthe universe in a jyotir-bindu, a pinpoint of light that isinfinitesimal. Infinitesimal because the space has not yet beencreated, therefore it has no location because locations are in space.So the question of where this pinpoint of light was or is, is like aquestion of what happens to a soul after death, where does it go?Well, where does it go? Where is there to go? You talk of the soul asif it were something confined to spaces and times, so you speak ofafter death and before birth and the soul going away someplace asthough it has a passport to galaxies or something. It's an n/aquestion: not applicable.
Yet because we are so conditioned to going inspace, we cannot imagine a condition wherein space has not yet beencreated. So with regard to where the pinpoint of light is or was,that some say, explodes into a big bang, this question of where doesnot arise, because if the universe has not yet been created, no spacehas been created. Now, here, please, I'm not trying to establishpoints of compromise between modern science and the ancienttraditions. I'm speaking purely and simply in ancientterminologies.
Jyotir-bindu, the pinpoint of light, explodes,expands; for this very pinpoint of light is also the nada-bindu, thepinpoint of sound.
Another word for the pinpoint of light istejo-bindu. Among the Upanishads there are four upanishads whosenames have the word bindu in them. Elsewhere, I have given theetymology of the word bindu: that which one must burst through; thatwhich must explode; that which must burst; and that, I repeat, whichone must burst through. That is the meaning of the word point, whichis cognate to or is derived from the word bindu. The word bindu isderived from the verb root bhid or bhind, to burst, to break through.It means to explode like the explosion of an atom so that we mayburst through the atomic particle and come to the next dimension ofenergy.
I was saying that there are four Upanishads thathave the word bindu in their titles. Brahma-bindu Upanishad, orUpanishad of Brahman as bindu or bindu of Brahman; Brahman as thepoint. The great transcendental being as the point. Then theTejo-bindu Upanishad, the point of light Upanishad. Then theNada-bindu Upanishad, the point of sound Upanishad. Then theDhyana-bindu Upanishad, Upanishad of the meditation that is thepoint. Get the point?
Now once again, you are not to take these phrases,the point of light, the point of sound, light as point, sound aspoint, meditation as point, or the point of meditation, brahman aspoint or the point of brahman, in sequence. Until you can abolishsequences, you will see no relationship, and without that abolitionof sequences, you will not understand the central point, that binduaround which the Sri Yantra is built.
So, that jyotir-bindu, the pinpoint of light, thatpoint that is the light, is also nada-bindu, the pinpoint of sound.Hence, the big bang from the pinpoint of light. In the tradition weare taught that nada and jyoti, the sound and light, are one. Thelight produces the sound, sound produces the light. And in my littlebook of Blessings I have said: may you see the light that soundproduces as it travels through space; may you hear the sound thatlight creates as it travels through space. So we may see theexplosion of light, and of sound, explosion of what later comes to beknown as matter in space, is one and the same. Now, the ancienttantric system says that it is actually the space itself that isidentical with the sound, that is identical with light, and theseripples and wrinkles that occur in space become the winds of theuniverse.
I have here another article from the magazinecalled Asia Week, which is Asia's equivalent of Newsweek and Timepublished from Singapore and Hong Kong. Dated May 8, 1992. I wish Ihad the original articles from scientific journals to refer to, butthis will do quite nicely. The title of the article is "Ripples inthe Wind." It says on Page 26: "Every culture has its creation myths.Unless you can see it through a telescope, it's a myth. But youcannot see that pinpoint of light which the present theorists aresaying exploded into the universe and if you cannot see, it must be amyth, too." Now, where do you draw the line between reality and myth?Anyway, the article goes on: "Every culture has its creation myths.The ancient Tibetans believed that in the beginning there was a vastemptiness without cause and without end. From it arose faint ripplesof wind that after aeons grew stronger and eventually formed theworld. Modern science has its own creation myth, which it calls theBig Bang Theory. Like the Tibetan legend, it holds that the universewas a vast emptiness. Then, about 15 billion years ago, a cataclysmicexplosion sent matter shooting in all directions, eventually creatingthe planets and stars. Of course, most scientists would be appalledto hear the Big Bang described as a myth. To them, it's a legitimatetheory, but dressed by observation, calculation and the wholepenopula of scientific thought.
"Now they are excited by the discovery of"ripples" of matter. They say it confirms the theory and helpsexplain the foundation of stars and galaxies. These huge ripples asdescribed by a scientist as 'wispy clouds of matter' were apparentlyset in motion by the big bang and have been moving outwards eversince. The scientists are justifiably proud that their sophisticatedand expensive instruments have allowed them to record echoes of theseripples across billions of light years of space, and their conclusion-- doesn't seem much different from that of the ancient Tibetans."Hooray for the editor. I couldn't have said it better.
Now, so far, so good. But not quite so good. Thequestion is not only concerning the origin of the universe and itsexpansion, but also the question of consciousness. Now where doesconsciousness come from? Can we produce consciousness in someresearch lab? And once again, until we can take the holistic,assimilationistic point of view, we will not be able to answer thisquestion. The Tantra, which is an expansion of Sri Vidya, believesthat the original energy dwelling in the first pinpoint of light, isa conscious one. Sri Vidya and all Tantra believes it to be thatforce which is consciousness. It is not that somewhere in the processof expansion, when all the chemicals have formed that these chemicalsthen interact and thereby produce something called consciousness. Infact, the process of creation is the process of reduction ofconsciousness. It is not an evolutionary process, it is adevolutionary process. And since the process of creation is theprocess of devolution, the process of reduction of force, therefore,it has the inbuilt entropy, the well-known principle in modernscience. Everything moving toward the principle called antaka, theprinciple of dissolution.
One of the questions in the modern philosophy ofscience is whether this universe is going to keep on expanding? Whatis going to happen with it? Where is it expanding into? In thiscontext the concept of emptiness is one of the most importantphilosophical principles. It is the same principle, shunya, which theBuddhists call the ultimate reality. It is the same from which theIndian civilization derived the concept of zero, for which the commonword used nowadays in Indian schools is still shunya. And I shall notbelabor the point that I have made elsewhere that this shunya is notsimply a void. It is that void which voids all voids. Shunya is theultimate reality, is that void that voids all voids.
So, just as the question as to where this pinpointof light was is meaningless, because the word where means in whatpoint of space and the space hadn't yet been created. The sameapplies to the question: into what is the universe expanding, whereis it going. They are also meaningless, because where the universe isnot, there is no such where, nor there. As for it to be somethingcalled "there," there would have to be some relationships of timesand places and points. Even in elementary philosophy, such a questiondoesn't arise. It is by expanding that the universe creates space,not that it expands into some empty space. The ancient Indianphilosophy of physics, called Vaisheshika, speaks of akuñchanaand prasarana, contraction and expansion as interlinked principles.The Sanskrit texts discussing the attraction of gravity and the basicprinciples involved in it, also discussed this question of attractionand contraction, the centripetal and centrifugal forces as well. Theyalso arrived at the conclusion at that time that the minutest atomicparticle would have to be simply a point in space, bindu, the pointin the centre...
We are discussing here bindu, the point in thecentre of the Sri Yantra, the point from which the expansion occurs,and into which the circle contracts again. From my meagreunderstanding of the principles of tantra, I would like to venture aproposal to the modern philosophers of science, that they stop beingunidirectional. The idea should be abandoned that expansion isoccurring into some empty space the presence of which, somethingcalled space, outside the universe has not been established. We needto understand that the winds in space (vayu) that were spoken of bythe ancient sages, need to be looked at much more closely. Onceagain, light and sound are one, sound and light exists beforecreation and after the final entropy (dissolution) is invalid, forthe space is the first creation and the last one to dissolve. Untilspace is created, the question of where does not arise. The space isa location for light, and sound. The ancient texts say akasha-deshahshabdah, the location of sound is space. One of the words for spaceis akasha, that which is lit all over, that which is filled withlight, although the space travellers tell us that it is all dark.Simply because it is dark to our eyes does not mean that it is notfilled with light. If we are all owls, that is not God'sfault.
One of the first principles again is thatexpansion and contraction in space are an identical process, just ascreativity and entropy are interwoven. The boundaries betweenevolution and devolution cannot be determined. They are two sides ofthe same coin. So, this is silly notion to ask: if the universe keepsexpanding, then what? Are the atoms and subatomic particles going tomove so wide apart that they are simply going to evaporate? No. Theancient philosophers of Tantra spoke of light expanding, becomingspace; space being filled with light; everything around us being onewith this light, akasha; for there is no part of space which is notlight, which is not energy. In other words, akasha, space, is a formof energy, the very first form of energy. If we understand that, onlythen we can understand what the present day theory is trying to say:that the processes that are taking place in the formation of thisuniverse are as though ripples in space. They are ripples in the vastenergy field, called the field of light, that is akasha.
I quote again from the article titled "God'sHandwriting" in Newsweek of May 4, 1992. It says, "But for the trulyweird, imagine the Big Bang. An explosion of space, not in space, akernel of cosmos inflating so widely that faster than an eyeblink ablob smaller than a proton grew as big as today's entire visibleuniverse. This infant world, developing ripples of energy in thefabric of its space, the ripples stretching as the universe expandedand creating the sparkling necklaces of stars and the pinwheels ofgalaxies that bedeck the night sky."
To quote one of the scientists in Berkley"Announced that they had discovered primordial wrinkles floating atthe very edge of space and beginning of time. No more than wispytendrils, they are between 2.9 billion trillion and 59 billiontrillion miles across. The most gigantic and the most ancientstructures ever seen." That is why Carl Sagan has said that the Hinducosmology comes closest to the modern Western cosmology. The onlydifference is that the modern cosmology still separates fields ofconsciousness from the expanding fields of the universe. And that iswhy it has no bearing on the principles by which we may live, bywhich we may order our individual lives, by which we may worship. AndI use the word worship with great precision. Worship is the attitudewhich you may worship nature and the environment as sacred. Theconsciousness that is in me is not in me. I am that field calledconsciousness and so also what you refer to as nature is a field ofthat consciousness.
This expansion and contraction are not oppositeprinciples. They are not to be studied or even thought of insequence. Evolution is devolution. Creation is dissolution.Creativity is entropy. The beginning is the end in any loop. And theuniverse is nothing if not a loop. There is nothing in the universethat is not a loop, a chakra, where one does not return to itsorigins.
To put if differently, whenever in nature onefollows a direction of any kind, one must also simultaneously followin the opposite direction to reach the distant goal as well as toreach the origins. To reach the origin is to reach the most distantend. The ultimate end is the very origin. The origin is the ultimateend. Creation thereby becomes a process that leads to dissolution,and dissolution becomes the process which thereby leads to creation.Thus a student of Sri Vidya, a novice or one proficient in it, ceasesto see negations of anything; he sees positions as negations,negations as positions. Not as opposite principles, but as a singlecomposite principle. Wherever he formerly saw opposite principles, hemust now see complementary composite principles. Therefore in adebate as to whether X is the correct answer or its opposite, theminus-X or non-X is the correct answer, the answer is in thecomposite of the X and the non-X. I do not know if the mathematicshas been developed to follow through on this. I would say perhapsyes. The close association of the 0 and 1 in the binary system may bean example of this principles. For, it is the zero that gives valueto a digit, that often ascertains its value. It is in relation to azero that we often evaluate a digit.
Again, seeing the two opposites in one and thesame, the ancient texts say that from this great expansive self thatis the infinitesimally minute pinpoint of light, from this vastexpansive self, (tasmad va etasmad atmanah), which is the minutest,infinitesimal pinpoint of light, there arises akasha, the energy thatis space, the light that is space. It is also the location of allsound. Now on this basis, the ancient philosophers of Vaisheshikafigured out that because of this principle, when something fallselsewhere, we hear its sound as a ripple, as a wave, over here in ourears. In that energy, akasha occurs vayu the wind. From that vayu,comes the fire, the light again, the visible lights of the world, thefires that burn in the universe, such as in the interiors of thesuns, as well in the gems. Both are considered as a single principle.Including the lights in between also, the lightnings and the fires weburn with kindling. Then comes the state of flow, the waters; andwhen the flow reaps its opposite principle of inertia, then comesprithivi, the solid. Then further biological diversity occurs. Theprocess of dissolution, of course, is the reverse. The inner solidsbegin to flow, the flows become fires, the fires become winds,ripples in space, the space returns to that vast expansive consciousself which is the infinitesimally minute pinpoint of light, thetejo-bindu, the nada-bindu.
To comprehend this, one must go through theprocess of dhyana-bindu. The point that is meditation; the point ofconcentration on the principle of consciousness. So once again, thediscussion as to whether the universe is expanding and will keep onexpanding and into what it will keep on expanding, is invalid. Thequestion itself is untenable. Any argument, only based on that willultimately be found to be untenable because while the universe isexpanding, it is contracting. The akuñchana and prasarana thatI spoke of earlier from the Vaisheshika philosophers, are takingplace simultaneously. While it is expanding, it is returning intothat pinpoint of light. It is not that one process is the reverse ofthe other, but the two, what appears to us to be two, is a single,composite process.
Thus, Sri Vidya begins where the currentunderstanding of quantum physics ends. It is the science of sciences,the mega-science. Wherever there is a study of points, lines,configurations, graphs, charts, it is part of Sri Vidya. Wherever westudy forms as fields of energy, it is Sri Vidya. But it isexperienced only with the assimilation of these principles into ourconsciousness; not in intellectual process, but in our very being, inour very essence; so that our essence is not seen apart from the everexpanding and contracting universe. Therefore, Sri Vidya cannot belearned as a series of drawings alone, the drawing of a yantra. Ithas to be learned as concentration on the points within.
If you take diagrams of the chakras within ourpersonality, and superimpose them one upon the other, it becomes theinternal Sri Yantra. It is not by drawing on paper that one willlearn Sri Yantra. It is by doing the drawings within. That is why itis such a long process. The mastery of the points and the expansionsand contractions can take a hundred lifetimes.
One one hand, Sri Vidya is a science of internalenergy fields, where all the fields become one composite field. Thisentire field is drawn into a single pinpoint of concentration, thepoint becoming the centre--not the centre of something--but of itselfwithin itself, as well as the point from which the expansion occurs.It is at these points within the centres of the chakras that theforces in the universe that have been ejected from the original pointof light, meet and merge in us. By entering into those points withour entire mind and bursting through them like an atomic explosion dowe thereby become one with the expansion in the universe. That iscalled cosmic consciousness, the awareness of virat, the vision thatKrishna gave to Arjuna, the vision that Yama granted toNachiketas.
So, the entire science, for example, of the marmasin ayurveda is part of Sri Vidya. Marmas are the points in the bodywhere a little pressure can cause an illness or death. Or a healing.Similar are the points of acupuncture. They are all parts of SriVidya.
In the Tantras it is said that one cannot learnmusic without the study of dance. One cannot learn dance withoutsculpture. One cannot learn sculpture without architecture. Onecannot learn architecture without music. One cannot learn musicwithout architecture. One cannot learn architecture withoutsculpture. One cannot learn sculpture without dance. One cannot learndance without music. For architecture is forms; it is solid music;music in solids; music cubed. Music can be seen as graphs; arisingand falling of lines and energies. Make them into three dimensionalsolids, it becomes architecture. The body of architecture is dance.The relationship of dance and architecture is in sculpture. That iswhy some of the most profound works of architecture in India weresculpted out of mountains. One can still visit these two-story,three-story monasteries simply sculpted out of the mountains withouta single piece of masonry in which the pillars constitute intricatedancing figures as part of that sculpture.
This composite vision of art is part of Sri Vidya.And then one needs to see the entire universe as architecture and Godas the architect. See the entire universe as music and dance, as wesee in the dance of Shiva. All that is part of Sri Vidya, it is agreat, grand vision. No, not vision. Not imagination. But, the imageof reality.
Here I do not want to lead you into what again maybe dismissed as superstition. Tell me, how is it that, in all thecultures, the benefits of so many herbs have been so accuratelyestablished? By what trials, approved by what FDA, did the thousandsof herbs of the Indian pharmacopoeia become defined as suitable orunsuitable for certain diseases and certain healing processes? Iassure you that that, too, is part of Sri Vidya. In fact, some of theherbs have been identified as suitable for certain healing only bytheir shape, their line drawing, pointing to the similarity of acertain organ. Now that does not mean that if a leaf looks like ahand then it is good for healing the hands. One has to go muchdeeper, one has to observe and experiment.
The shapes of mountains, and their peaks, theapexes of the pyramids, the spires of the churches, the shikharas ofthe temples of India, all of these are line drawings of music, thelines along which the energy of expansion and contraction flows inthe universe.
Even the ordinary chessboard is a yantra, part ofSri Yantra. It is a simplified bhu-pura, the earth-city, the earth asa city in which all the patterns are taking place, divided into 64subsquares. So also in the tradition of yoga we speak of 64 yoginis,which are principles of establishing relationships between squaresand cubes. Establishing relationships between arithmetical squaresand cubes on one hand and geometric squares and cubes on the otherthrough the process of seed mathematics is a part of understandingthe mathematics of the universe as architecture. The sanskrit wordused also in the current, modern Indian education system for algebrais bija ganita, seed mathematics in which signs play a role like thatof bija-mantras.
So, into how many areas can we enter, altogether,simultaneously, and see the relationships? How is it that without theaid of the computer in the ancient times one could figure out thenumber of rice grains? One of the origins of the chessboard, is thata king offered to the priest/mathematician as much rice as he wanted.The priest said: "Oh, one grain of rice on one square of thechessboard, then double that one on the second square, then doublethat on the third square, and so on." The king could not fulfill thedemand because the figure reaches more than the amount of rice thatcan cover the whole earth. Or even more than all the number of atomsin the universe. The game of chess has more possible moves than allthe atoms in the whole universe. How were these calculations made? Ona square board, divided into 64, what is the relation between thefour corners of the square and the figure 64?
When you begin to see these relationships, thenyou immediately begin to drop the relationships, becauserelationships are between two. Until the number two is dropped, theunity will not be established. Without that unity, the merger ofconsciousness into the pinpoint of light will not occur. Until onesees it all into that single pinpoint of light you will notunderstand that the universe actually is not even expansion of thepinpoint of light, but rather replication, the same point occurringagain and again and again. The same one point. And the point, havingoccurred so many times, having replicated itself, identical to thevery original pinpoint, becomes a light, becomes a ray, becomes aline, becomes a ripple, becomes a figure.
In drawing the Sri Yantra within the human bodyalso we go through the same process that we understand in the drawingof Sri Yantra on a wooden, copper, silver or golden squared board.The downward expansion, the upward expansion. Contraction of forcesinto a point. Expansion of forces from the point.
The 61-point exercise known to the practicingmeditators, for instance, simply delineates the periphery of thebhu-pura, of the city that is the earth, the earth that is the city,which is the body, in this particular case. And when you will see therelationships among those 61 points, how many lines can one draw fromone point to the other 60 points? How can one connect those 61points? Then the sadhaka is amazed at what fields of energy aredancing within us. When one uses any of those 61 points as an entrypoint into the linga, the subtle body, one finds that the awarenesswill have to pass through certain central points, and from thereexpand, to permeate the whole body. Here is a theory of personalitybased on experiential epistemology that is yoga.
In preparing the personality to be seen by oneselfas a Sri Yantra, so that one may see the universe as a Sri Yantra, sothat one can understand these line drawings, one goes through theprocess of bhuta-shuddhi, purification of the constituents ofpersonality. And when total purification is completed the personalitybecomes a Sri Yantra.
In drawing the internal Sri Yantra, one may take achakra and may be taught to draw its bhu-pura first, the boundary,the ramparts of this citadel, of this particular city. Then he findsthe entry point; then find where the energy flows meet, and then swimalong those flows of energies coming to the central point. Or one maystart from the point and expand outwards to the ramparts, to thebhu-pura. Or one may see the two processes as a singular process in asingle instant. That is why the phrase that the article I just readto you from Newsweek touched me: "faster than an eyeblink." It said,"A kernel of cosmos inflating so widely that, faster than aneyeblink, a blob smaller than a proton grew as big as today's entirevisible universe." I have in my lectures on meditations from theTantras spoken on unmesha and nimesha. Now remember that the eyeblinkis a measure of time in all the Indo-aryan or Indo-European systems.Augenblick is a measure of time in German, augenblickje in Dutch. Thetime it takes for the eye to blink. In the blink of an eye. In theshortest possible moment. The idea is derived from the unmesha andthe nimesha. Unmesha, out-blinking the eye. Nimesha, in-blinking theeye. This opening and closing of eyelids.
yasonmesha-nimeshabhyam jagatahpralayodayau;
tam shakti-chakra-vidhava-prabhavam shankaramstumah
We adore Him,
The creator of Harmony and Peace,
The Origin of the diverse glories of the whirls(chakras) of energy,
The One by whose outblinking andinblinking
the creation and dissolution of the universeoccur.
I. 1 in Spanda-nirnaya of Kshemaraja
2. A record cassette of the process ofbhuta-shuddhi by Dr. Rajmani Tigunait is available at the HimalayanInstitute.
This is from one of the texts of Kashmir Shivaphilosophy that developed from the seventh century to the seventeenthcentury A.D. and reigned supreme during that time. These texts, allsay that unmesha is nimesha; nimesha is unmesha. Out-blinking isin-blinking; in-blinking is out-blinking. Opening the chakra meansclosing the chakra. Drawing the chakra-world to its most centralpoint is the goal of such concentration. It is practiced so that whatothers call expansion is understood to be expending, debilitating ofenergies in pursuit of sensual desires. The sense thoughts and senseemotions must cease and the principle of the conservation of energybe followed, for the energy to be drawn to that central point fromwhich it ripples out as spanda, as a spontaneous vibration at alltimes.
Just as in the practice of internal concentrationsin Sri Vidya, so also in learning to draw the Sri Yantra there aretwo processes among others. Drawing from the bhu-pura, from theramparts, inwards. From the ramparts inward to the central point, tothe palace of the great Mother. The opposite way, from the innerpoint outwards.
One of the branches of Sri Vidya issurya-vijñana, the solar science. The solar scienceestablishes a connection between the rays of the mind and the raysthat solidify to become forms. As a child I read an article onsurya-vijñana, on the solar science, in the yoga issue of thewell-known Hindi magazine known as Kalyana. The article was by thethen most famous scholar of Tantra, Gopinath Kaviraj. After fiftyyears I found the book again in my library and I was surprised howmuch of it I remembered. Because the article triggered something inme as a child and ever since then I kept longing to meet a master whowould show me the solar rays of the mind.
If it were simply a matter of sitting down anddrawing a diagram, well, anybody can draw diagrams. I can draw astraight line, more or less! I'm still learning to draw the line,learning to understand a little of the triangles; how the trianglesmerge into the points and how the points expand into triangles. Thelines of energy that go from one of the 61 points to all the other 60and how they interlink: I have quite yet to envision fully. My ownperception is that one cannot learn these sciences without 24-hourconcentration. Take, for example, the demonstrations ofsurya-vijñana, the solar science. The writer of that articlespoke of his guru who said that everything in the universe is rays ofenergy. The mind also is a ray of energy or, rays of energy emanatefrom the mind, and one connects these rays of energy to produce anyform. The Tantras say, sarvam sarvatmakam: Everything is everything.Gold is lead, lead is oxygen, oxygen is hydrogen, hydrogen isuranium. For, essentially, in their energy essence, they are all one;it is only a matter of manipulating the energies. The ancientalchemists of the West or the masters of al kimia believed it to beso. "Al," which is the definitive article in arabic, "kimia" fromwhich the English word chemistry is derived. Masters of al-kimia inthe arabic civilization and the masters of rasayana in India allspoke of the fire within everything. They stated that if we can learnto manipulate the fire within everything we can change anything intoanything.
So, the master of solar science could, within theview of his disciples, produce first a shimmer in the air. Theshimmer becomes delineated, the lines become form and there is alotus flower. It was demonstrated thus. Or look at it differently. Wehave spoken of light and sound as one. My master Swami Rama speaks ofthe experiments they made in the caves: spreading sandalwood powderon a square board and producing sound vibrations in its presence byreciting a seed-mantra in an appropriate notation of sound and music.They thereby simply produced a Sri Yantra design in the sandalwoodpowder. Now, who among us has such concentration of mind to producethe like result. We don't even understand what we mean by rays of themind, let alone transmit them, and then have them connect with therays which solidify as forms.
Many cities in India have been built around SriYantra. There is a book titled Hindu Temple by the famous scholar,late Stella Kramrisch. It's a classic. A reading of this book wouldexplain how some of the great architectural wonders are built aroundpartial application of the Sri Yantra principle. So are the pyramids.When a yantra takes a three-dimensional form, that form is thencalled a meru. The meru is the central mountain of the universe.Since the entry into the interior cave of personality for meditationwas one and the same principle as of finding a cave in a mountain formeditation, the projection of this two-fold principle of entry intothe cave then became architecture. When you enter a temple or acathedral, you are entering the cave in the mountain, the cave of theheart, the cave of the skull. Hence sometimes we refer to the skullas a dome.
There are at least three cities in India namedafter Sri. The capital of Kashmir, Sri Nagar. Another Sri Nagar is inthe Garhwal Mountains, which we pass when we go to the great shrinesfor pilgrimage. And, one of the old cities where New Delhi--thecapital of India--is situated has an area even now known as Siri.Alas, time passed and people stop being part of the energy field;they cease to identify with the energy field of the city. Thelocations of the Sri Yantras are lost. All kinds of dissentions amongthe people occur because the field is destroyed; or it is warped bytheir dissentions.
One of the dimensions of Sri Vidya is to honor theShakti principle in living human beings, especially the recognitionof this mother Shakti principle in women. For women to see themselvesas shakti, as sacred energy, and for men to see women as embodiment,incarnation of shakti. Shakti, the sacred energy of consciousnesshaving become flesh. What it means is brahmacharya, the practice ofcelibacy. Not practice of celibacy as a psychologically-damagingsuppression but an assimilation of upward and inward energy. One whois initiated into Sri Vidya at one time or another will slowly,naturally become celibate because the habit of expending the energyof svadhishthana chakra will be changed into expanding, that iscontracting. Closing the outward gates and opening the inward floodgates. In fact, one of the symptoms of the opening of the secondcentre of consciousness is natural celibacy. Synonymous with openingof the sixth centre. The two are almost identical. So long as thereremains in man a desire for woman, in woman a desire for man, asprinciples exterior to them, no celibacy can occur. It can only be asuppression and not a solitude of serenity.
In certain Shakti temples in India once a month onthe full moon the worship of Sri in the form of a living lady isperformed. She sits on a seat of honor and receives the worship. Thereader would say, "What? I worship a human being, a lady?" It is notthe worship of a human being. I change the direction here a little.Sometimes when I pay my respects to my master or address him the wordthat has popped out of my mouth involuntarily has been 'mataji,' arespectful way of addressing one's mother. The first time it occurredI said, "Oh, excuse me, Swamiji," apologizing for my mistake. But hesaid, "Oh, no, quite correct." Because one may worship the motherprinciple even in a male body. People who have difficulty in seeingthe Mother Principle in women will have further difficulty inunderstanding this form of the worship of God.
It cannot be understood intellectually. Either itoccurs as an assimilated internal principle or it doesn't occur atall. I have observed that when such worship of the live Sri isperformed, the person in whom the Sri at that time is invoked andresides, changes. A deification occurs. If Christ can be present in apiece of bread, why can't shakti be present in a living woman? And behonored and worshipped.
One might object: I do not want to deify a humanbeing. But who am I to deify a human being? Deifying means 'makinginto a deva, making into divine.' It is not the worshipper who makeshim divine. It is not the worshipper who causes the consubstantiationor transubstiation in the host to occur. It is the Grace that doesit. The person becomes deified by an internal presence. From thatmoment the person has no personal name, no personal form. The worshipis not offered to the person of that name, shape and form but to thedivine principle that becomes manifest. I have seen that changeoccur. You can see the stance; you can see the entire body undergo atransformation; you can see the eyes and you know then that you arenot in the presence of a person. That some internal universal beautynamed Mother Lalita has come and taken abode to receive theworshippers' offering. We call Her Tripura-sundari. Tri means three.Pura means polis. Sundari beauty. The three Miss Universe! The Beautyof the three universes. She comes and dwells there. It is the same asthe primary force of consciousness, as the lightning of all beings.Sometimes this lightning becomes Shiva, or it becomes Shakti, andemanates from you. You embrace your emanation and you say you havemarried. This divine marriage into which a Christian monk enters, isthe same marriage which is the marriage of Shiva and Shakti, which isthe marriage of Krishna and Radha, which is the marriage of Rama andSeeta, which is the marriage of you and your lightning.
In this interplay of the potent and the potency,the potent and the potency become one. Hence the very first verse ofSaundarya-lahari celebrates the potent one joined by thepotency.
In this internal marriage of the potent and thepotency, the entire dance of the universe takes place. The earth inthe first chakra, the waters in the second, the fires in the third,the winds in the fourth, the space, akasha, in the fifth one; themind in the sixth. The Lord and the Lady in eternal embrace in theseventh. All presided over by the great Sri or Lalita, the Principleof eternal beauty. Not the beauty of forms but that principle, whichdwelling within shapes and forms, beautifies them from within, givingthem balances, harmonies and proportions. These emanating andreabsorbing forms constantly interact in the Sri Yantra form of 43triangles. Four upward triangles, five downward triangles and konas,angles, take shape. I have spoken of the process of five-folddevolution, space to winds, to fires, to flows, to forms. These havetheir correspondences in the five chakras. The Verse 14 of theSaundarya-lahari says that the earth principle dwelling in the firstcentre has 56 rays emanating; the flow principle in the second centrehas 52 rays; the ripples of winds principle dwelling in the heartcentre has 54 rays; the throat centre containing the akasha, theprinciple of sound and space and their unity, has 72 rays; and thedwelling place of the mind, the ajña chakra, has 64 raysemanating from it. "Above all of these rays are thy two brilliantfeet, Oh Mother"--says the verse.
So the question arises: where do I go from here?You contemplate these principles. You create time for thecontemplation of the principles. Learn to change your vision of therelationships in the universe. Vision, and sentiment, concerning therelationship between men and women.
An average Nobel prize-winning philosopher ofscience even would be hard-put to see these connections. He would saythat it is a hodgepodge of linguistic confusions. Now what is therelationship between sub-atomic particles and expanding of theuniverse with the worship of a woman in a temple, good God! He islikely to dismiss the entire thinking process. I wish there could bea conference between Western scientists and Eastern scientists. Wecould provide at least theories to answer some of the problems inmodern philosophy of science. We could show how the consciousnessdwelling in a pinpoint of light within my heart centre is the same asthe pinpoint of the light of consciousness which exploded in a bigbang and became the mahanada, the megasound.
Stated above, there are two ways of looking at theSri Yantra or at any of the chakras within ourselves. Entering fromthe ramparts of the earth city, the fortress built on the earth city,and then going to occupy the central squares of the chessboard. Orexpanding from there outwards. The one and the other are not twoprocesses but one. That the expansion of the universe and itscontraction and dissolution into the central point of light is oneand the same. So that ultimately the two major systems of drawing theSri Yantra also must be assimilated. When they are assimilated, thatis called the samayachara. Where the guru's mind and the disciple'smind become inseparable, the individual mind and the universal mindcannot be delineated as separate, and the entire mind of the universebecomes your mind--is called samayachara. I wish that we couldelaborate on these in a dialogue with the present-day philosophers ofscience.
Now again, to the question as to "Where do I gofrom Here?" Take time for contemplation. Memorizing the whole ofSaundarya-lahari and reading a very poetic translation of it is notgoing to do it. There is a very beautiful poetic translation of it byW. Norman Brown, a very senior American sanskrit scholar who left hisbody some years ago. But that will show you nothing. Contemplate.Deepen the practice. Try to bring your meditation to a point. Yourdetermination to know should be just that, but no effort on your partis going to open the portals of the bhu-pura, of the ramparts of theearth city. That will happen only by grace, only by grace,"whomsoever he shall choose, shall find"--says the Upanishad. Youkeep knocking, yes, but there must be an element of self surrenderand a decision in you that you want to prepare yourself as much aspossible. When your mind is ready, there is no reason whatsoever thata master of Sri Vidya will not introduce you to what you can grasp,learn, master. If you have been given one verse of Saundarya-laharito practice, then practice it.
Keep looking for the central point within, that isthe point from which the universe is created, to which the universeis returning. It is the point within your centre to which theuniverse is returning through its expansion. It is this very pointwhose expansion is the entire Sri Yantra, the yantras of all yourchakras superimposed upon one another, a single stem passing throughthem, becoming the thousand-petaled sheltering tree in your skull.Even those thousand petals must be dropped. There remains only avertical line and that vertical line contracts and becomes a pointagain. This constant evolution-devolution, expansion-contraction, themerger in the unity of centripetal and centrifugal, this expandingand expending goes on constantly as a single process. Understand it.Observe it within. Integrate it and remain true to your practice.Whatever you are prepared for will definitely come to you.
3. To prepare for a study of Sri Vidya it isrecommended to study the following cassette courses of UsharbudhArya:
1) Kundalini and Chakras,
2) Gayatri and Chakras,
3) Meditation from Tantras
available from Rishikesh Foundation, P.O. Box 279,Clarence, NY 14031.
And, then, the videotapes of Swami Rama'sdiscourses on Saundarya-lahari.
Swami Veda Bharati was trained from childhood inmeditation and yoga philosophy and has taught yoga to thousands ofpeople from an early age. He is an expert in raja yoga which is thesource of all branches of yoga. A faculty member of the HimalayanInstitute, he has written many books and articles on yoga andmeditation. In addition to his writing and meditation, Swami VedaBharati has lectured and taught meditation throughout theworld.
Now you can have 5,000 years of wisdom,knowledge and inspiration in your own home. Swami Veda Bharati'staped lectures allow you to study, meditate and review various facetsof yoga science at your own pace and level.
In 1982, Dr. Arya took the vows of swamihood, andis now known as Swami Veda Bharati. He lives in Rishikesh,India.
You may write for a free copy of a catalog ofhis taped audio lectures to:
West-Art Publishers, 10545 Main Street,Clarence, NY 14031.
Telephone (716) 759-6078, fax (716)759-7925.
May we recommend some books?
Livingwith the Himalayan Masters, by SwamiRama
Primerfor Those Who Would Govern, by HermannOberth
SevenYears in Tibet, by HeinrichHarrer
ArnoBreker: The Divine Beauty in Art, by B.John Zavrel
Mantraand Meditation, by Dr. UsharbudhArya
Alexanderthe Great, by Robin Lane Fox