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Sweats of passion flow in streams down his temples, Their fragrance draws swarms of bees that swirl about driven by his fanning ears. Gods and angels and seraphs sing to Him. He is Shiva's son, Shiva who bears the Goddess Ganges on his head. In Him I take refuge.

He dwells in the thousand-petalled lotus, luminous cool like the full orb of the moon, his lotus-hands carry grace and, protection. He wears a robe of pure sweetscented flowers, ever-smiling and gracious-looking. He embodies all the gods. He is the Spirit, the soaring Bird on the crown of the head. Remember Him and worship Him in any fair form. He is the Guru.

He shines bright within the lotus-centre of the head like the soothing moon; like the brilliant sun he flashes; his arms extend to protect and to give. He is radiant like burning camphor. He wears a white robe and white garlands, he is anointed white. His consort gleams like lightning, as she clings to him athwart one-half of his body. He is the Guru, full of Grace. I worship him in adoration.

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He is the warp with which this world of moving and unmoving things is woven, he is the woof that runs through all. His grace releases even the animal-kind from all bonds. He dwells in the sounds, as of Om, that are uttered as mantra, he is the light of all the luminaries. He is vast as the skies, he is the Supreme, he is Shiva, he is the fu11ness of Light, to Him I surrender with a steadfast thought.

0 Goddess, protect us by your spontaneous Grace, forgive all our offences, against the supreme Light of all lights. It is he who assumes a multitude of forms; he dwells in the lotus heart of the universe, he makes the laws that up bear the status and dynamism of the cosmos, he alone is able to awaken all to knowledge. 0 Goddess, remove all evil forthwith and for ever, be constantly present in us.

May the divine Master, Guru Bhaskara, protect us from every evil and danger. May he manifest himself to reveal the essential mystery of his path of worship and to spread the true tradition of Knowledge.

OM ! I bow to the lotus feet of the most revered Guru!

The Supreme Shiva is an intense and cncentrated ""\

Delight, lllminously aware of his integral, infinite and supreme consciousness, with all the gathered rays of the

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supernal awareness. He has no other form than that of light. He is whole and undivided. But when he emits

the rays of his light he assumes the form of the Eternal Benign, replete with the manifoldness of his own Ananda. The Supreme God, the adorable Shiva, thus took a manifest forll) to create the universe. He then brought forth the eighteen Sciences and all the systems of philosophies; he assumed the forms of various personalities by his own Lila.

Thereupon questioned by his Divine Consort who is All-awareness, who is one and identical with him, he uttered five sacred scriptures with his five mouths, the scriptures which are the essence of the true spiritual :knowledge. He introduced, established and spread them through the great preceptors, divine or human, through those who are perfect or realised Beings, for the supreme good of the world. This is what is called Tantric Process.

Thus in the path of Tantra, widely extended as it is through the long tradition of its preceptors, the meditative concentration on the image, the repetition of the sacred formulas, Mantra-Japa, and other various methods mentioned in different scriptures are meant to provide easy ways suited to the sadhaks of the different natures. 'They make no difference to the fundamental Truth and principle which remains always the same. And this is

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called Sri Vidya which is the essential substance of all

the sacred Scriptures, the essence of the four great steps

of Tantra (Charya, Kriya, Jnana and Yoga) expounded

in all its precepts. This High Knowledge (Vidya) has been very secretly

taught by the different branches of Y ajurveda in their hymns and their Upanishadic versions. It has been mysteriously revealed by the various branches of Rigveda

in their hymns or their Upanishadic versions. It is mystically awakened through a certain subde duct in the body, evoked by reciting manifold metrical hymns of the Sarna Veda. This Vidya is commonly found in all the Vedas. It is the essence of all Vedic mantras, Brah-manas. and Upanishads. It is the Queen of the S-haktichakra,. a wave of supremely great light, a form or embodiment of supreme consciousness. This is a mystic truth inherited from a tradition of Gurus.

The tradition enjoins that to realise this Maha-Vidya a sadhaka should take an initiation and do the ceremonial worship as directed. And when initiated by a trUe adept he must first meditate on the Holy Feet, ri Mahapaduka, uttering the sacred words that mean "I adore the Sri Mahapaduka in the eight-petalled white lotus that looks upward, that has twelve extremities andA that is established within the womb of the thousand-petalled

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lotus, spread out like an umbrella and facing downward . The great Holy Feet is possessed of all sciences, embodies the Powers of all deities. It represents the three strides. of the holy preceptor in the three centres, the crown (Brahma-randhra), the heart and the lower abdomen, even as. it is richly decorated with resplendent ornaments.'

Then the sadhak must contemplate the Twin Deity, Shiva and Parvati, the aggregate of all the gods, and possessed of the Gnostic Light displayed in the burningof the three cities of demons. They wear red and white garlands- and garments, ointments and ornaments. They shower the desirable boon of divine protection with the- twin hands outstretched in mysterious gesture of lotus embrace; delightful face and eyes they have, themind enraptured in knowledge and bliss, their form is the very image of the supreme Guru, with his red and. white lotusfeet.

Next the sadhak must think himself flooded in his body with the outpourings of nectar from His Lotus-feet; the immortalising streamings from the wash of those Feet purge him of all evil and free him from all the impurities obstructing the fulfilment, viz., the inflow of the Force (Shakti-pata) that must result from the Shiva-Initiation, contemplation on the Supreme Shiva as Guru, uttering the Japa-mantra of the Holy Feet. It i&

.

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thus that the sadhak must adore the divine Master. Then he must contemplate, as force in his mantric vision,

the Light wave ranging from the lowest mystical circle to the opening in the crown; he must know and realise it as rising up from the bottom of the spine to the crown of the head. He should meditate on it and realise that it is Lhe tan-coloured point of lightning and the golden rising .sun; it is a flaming Force which is no other than the Original Consciousness, it acts like a kindled fire that burns the knots of sin. Then he should contemplate on himself and see that his tangles of evil and sin that impede the fruition of Initiation and the flow of shakti, have .all been burnt out by the gathered .rays reflected from the spontaneous Grace of the original consciousnessforce. All the bonds of evil and sin having thus been destroyed by its rays, he must remember in his inner heart the original Divine Knowledge with the following prayer:

"May the Goddess Kundalini, luminous as the newrisen sun, rise up from her abode, in her graceful movement to open the centres (lotuses) in succession on her" way upwards and kindle the spiritual light by the nectarous rays of the Abode of Shiva."

"The Kundalini Power rises up with all her "1immortal sweetness and through various processes that consolidate

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the vehicle, by worshipping Shiva, the seed of the three status; may She, Shiva's consort, bring the supreme good.

She is Shiva's Consort. May she bestow on us an immeasurable splendour. She has the glow of a mass of vermillion and the crescent moon as her crest ornament, her face agleam with the triple eyes of bliss, bent with_ the weight of the full breasts, She is the supreme charm of Love.

She is Shiva's Consort. She shines like a Bandhuka- flower, may She manifest in my heart. She graces all quarters of the sky with her wide eye-lotuses, her lotusfeet are swept by the crests on the crowns of Gods, as they humbly bow down to her; she is heavy with her rounded breasts. She bears a newly risen crescent. May she the Supreme GDddess of the three worlds create bliss in the inner instruments of my consciousness. May she pierce and open the six centres that are now closed and inhabited by ghouls and goblins; and may she open. them in an intimacy with the gods, Brahma and others,. through the action of the mystical letters [numbered four, six, ten, twelve, sixteen and two respectively, beginning with 'sa' to which 'ksha' and 'ha' are also added.]

"The sadhaka, whose body is graced in quality and movement should contemplate on Parvati. She will swiftly pierce the three knots from the lowermost centre

{Muladhara) upward, open the lotuses and awaken the dense intense bliss laden with consciousness, she will come forth from the fountain of nectar that flows from the nectared home of the vibrating heaven and shine like the impetuous lightning.

"May the embodied form of Parvati grant us the abode .and status of Shiva which is the crown of bliss and is constantly sought for by the highest scriptures, Shruti; that the crescent moon illuminates, that presides over all 'the worlds, that eliminates the sufferings of the devotees. May She constantly bestow on us all the blessed tbin:gs.

"Let me take refuge in the Consort of Shiva (his left .half), her anklets tinkle sweetly, and She is the' ogin of the Universe as also of all speech.

HW e take shelter with the Consort of Shiva (his left half) who is not divided from him. She is resplendent like a huge sapphire. Bended with the weight of her orbed .breasts, she looks harmoniously elegant with all the splendour of her brilliant ornaments on her body, sh is the sole origin of the Universe, constantly sought by the highest scriptures.

"The Yogi must dissolve all the five causes into the supreme Shiva, who is beyond Time and Space ete., into

..,

the Void that is nothing else but Consciousness, and is not dependent on anything. He must fix and finally setde

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himself into that Void Shiva with a calm and steady mind and merge all his .senses into it. Thus he attains easily the fruit of the Yoga, viz., the ever-existing Immutable."

In this manner he must meditate on the Kundalini as his utelary deity, remember the multitude of marshalled rays and complete the remaining process. Then he must control the movements of his senses and his consciousness in the self-existent and self-contained Void that is the cause of all, and should perform the worship in his outer body (in its physical force) or in the twin life-principle or the essential consciousness its.elf according to his stage of sadhana or his inner fitness. He must finally settle himself in the wideness of the Highest Consciousness, from where there is no beyond, and thus move freely and blissfully.

This is the highest truth of Tantra which can only be attained by the Grace of the Guru. This has been expounded by Y ogishananda Nath Nilakantha Sharma Joshi, the disciple of Sri Amba Nanda Nath, as commanded by the Mother, the incarnate Divine Force, for the delight of the sadhaks who are freed from all evil by a single ray from the glance cast by the Grace of Sri Aurobindo, the great seer.

Bliss for all !