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Archive for July 2013

  1. On Queering deity: Ardhanarishvara and other conundrums of gender

    “Her body is dance preparing for the creation of differentiation,
    his is the dance of destruction that destroys everything.
    I bow to Śivā, mother of the universe.
    I bow to Śiva, father of the universe.
    Her ear ornaments are radiant precious stones giving light,
    his adornments are hissing snakes.
    He is embracing her, and she is embracing him.
    I bow to Śivā and I bow to Śiva.
    Ardhanarinatesvara stotra (Ellen Campbell, 2002, p105)

    If they see
    breasts and long hair coming
    they call it woman,
    if beard and whiskers
    they call it man:
    But, look, the self that hovers
    in between
    is neither man nor woman
    O Ramanatha.
    Dasimayya(10th century Virasiva poet)

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  2. Heart Practice: Tantra as ethical practice – I

    “Using the plow of truth,
    sowing the seeds of love,
    plucking the weeds of falsehood,
    pouring the waters of patience;
    they look directly into themselves
    and build fences of virtue.
    If they remain rooted in their good ways,
    The Bliss of Siva will grow.”
    Appar (seventh-century Tamil poet-saint, from Pandian, 2009, p21)

    “Ethical encounters are jubilant, joyous encounters of both affectivity and liberty.”
    Patricia MacCormack, Posthuman Ethics

    A great deal has been written about tantra as a transgressive practice and the perceived necessity of moving beyond normative values in order to discover “freedom”. However, the idea of tantra as an ethical practice seems to me to be relatively unthought. For this post then, I want to make some preliminary reflections on the possible ethical dimensions of contemporary tantra practice. Continue reading »

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  3. Reading the Saundarya Lahari – V

    “When she, the supreme power, [becoming] by her own free will embodied as all that exists, perceives her own throbbing radiance, the chakra is then being produced.
    The Heart of the Yogini Tantra

    “I worship that goddess who is supreme Siva, whose form is the indestructable a-letter, manifesting the tides of the waves of the kulas.”
    Nityasodasikarnava 1:10

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  4. East meets West: New Thought, Thelema, and The Holy Order of Krishna

    We are once again being taken to task for some of our writers quoting often the slogan of verse I8.63 of the Bhagavad Gita “Yatha ischasi tathha kuru” – of which we accepted Crowley’s “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law” as the best English paraphrase; and if there is so much public opposition to the very mention of Crowley’s name we have to bow thereto, and do so. But that is not to deny that Crowley had been trained in India of men who were great Yogis such as Karunananda, Sabapati Svami’s disciple. In deference to occidental opinion we shall paraphrase the Gita dictum by the English in “Fulfill thy Will”.
    The Kalpaka, Volume 26, 1931, issues 4-5

    Much has been written about the westward transmission of Indian esoteric themes in the early twentieth century – via movements such as the Theosophical Society, esoteric groups such as the OTO, and charismatic teachers such as Pierre Bernard, but instances of transmissions in the other direction – of Indian esotericists engaging with western occultism, seem to be rarer. Continue reading »

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