Basic Introduction to Sri Vidya – Guruji Amritananda – Devipuram
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BASIC INTRODUCTION WHAT IS SRI VIDYA GURUJI AMRITANANDA - DEVIPURAM Sri Vidya means sacred learning. It is a large body of rituals held secret for ages, restricted only to priests because of the immense powers the learning unfolds with practice. The idea was that destructive powers should be not be made available to minds lacking discipline and compassion. The world with all its infinite variety of creations presumably has one or many creator/s, even if it is some powers. We call it the God/Goddess, as a generic name. Those who worship God as male are Saivas. Moslems, Christians, some Hindus are Saivas. Some worship God as female; they are shaktas. Some worship God as both; they are Kaulas. Kula means total, in all form; male, female and their union also. There are two traditions of great gurus: Dattatreya and Dakshinamurty. Guru Dattatreya was given to Atri, a sage and his wife Anasuya, and indicates that one can be a householder and still do sadhana. He was openly ritualistic and a great tantric. He taught the worship of Shakti to people from all classes through pancha makaras, namely, madya= wine, matsya=fish, mamsa=meat, mudra=woman willing to receive puja, and maithuna=intercourse. These ingredients could mean literally what they say (open, external meaning), or something different than what is apparent (secret, internal). His system is called Kaula, meaning total; internal as well as external worship. Guru Datta taught his system to Parashurama, an avatar of Vishnu who encoded it tightly into his famous Kalpasutra. It is difficult even for pandits knowing Sanskrit well to follow the book because of the secret encoding. In recent times, many translations have been available in print decoding the texts into user friendly forms. Guru Dakshinamurty was an incarnation of Siva himself. He mostly practices meditation, and taught his disciples to visualise the Sri Chakra and do inner worship in silence. The rituals he taught use Sri Chakra, the greatest of yantras containing the cosmic powers of Shakti. The instructions were given mostly for teacher class brahmins who were taught vedas and followed strict disciplines including celibacy except when children were desired. He propagated chakra puja with secret meanings for madya= goddess intoxicated state, matsya=enjoying free flowing movements like a fish in the ocean of
Basic Introduction to Sri Vidya – Guruji Amritananda – Devipuram
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god, mamsa= tongue rolled back to touch nasal septum in khecari, mudra=eating fried cereals like bhajias, maithuna = taking awareness up the spine to top of head to experience joy of uniting Sakti (female principle) with Siva, the male principle. The highest bliss is to forget who you are and to flow into a world-less timeless awareness, or to merge the seer into the seen. This state is often experienced at the cessation of tensions in union of lovers. We follow both traditions. We recommend meditative techniques to calm going, peace loving people (mostly who eat light satvic foods) and ritual techniques to action-oriented people (mostly who eat heavy sleep inducing junk/nonveg foods). We have a natural leaning to peaceful and at the same time exciting rituals. We do not insisting change of food habits, or to become ascetics, or to practice celibacy. We do require that sadhaks listen attentively to Guru, practice with devotion, and to be aware of Godd/ess even when enjoying sensual pleasures. WHAT IS SRI YANTRA Sri Yantra is a map of powers creating the world we live in, and the powers controlling of our own life in it. Let us begin with a journey into our own life. We experience three states; awake, dreaming and asleep. THE OUTER MOST SQUARE 16, 8 PETAL ENCLOSURES, AND THE CIRCLE WITHIN In the waking state we experience the world around us with our senses, and act on it with our motor organs. There appear to be some common feelings about what we know and what we do. We can agree that the world of my experience is the same that you also experience. For example, we decide to meet at a time and a place, and we do meet. So, there is this common world out there, and your world is pretty much the same as mine. These knowledges, or actions are called open yoginis. Yogini is one who connects you to another, rather like a cell phone! She brings you experience of the other. They are common to all. For example, we are afraid; fear is a yogini called chamunda. We are using technical names, please do not be confused with common usage of the names below. We experience richness and confusion created by abundance; the yogini is Mahalakshmi. We are attracted to some beautiful person, Brahmi = kama = lust is a yogini. Similarly, Maheswari = krodha = anger, Kaumari = lobha = greed, Vaishnavi = moha = clinging attachment, Varahi = mada = pride-vanity, Mahendri = matsarya = jealousy. These are all yoginis, eight in all. All the passions we
Basic Introduction to Sri Vidya – Guruji Amritananda – Devipuram
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experience are called matrika yoginis. As long as they keep connecting us to outside world, they will not let us live in peace, they control us, and disturb our poise. We learn during sadhana processes of how to control these passions and make them serve us. These processes are called Mudras. They bring us peace and pleasure by keeping our passions in check. These are 10 in number. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Samkshobhini = agitate; Vidravini = fluidise; Akarshini = attract; Mohini = delude; Unmadini = madden; angkusa = controlling critical points (like a small goad controlling a big elephant ); 7. Khecari = Fly up and away from danger; 8. Bija = Placing seed of evolution: 9. Yoni = into causal chain: 10. trikhanda = dissolving three parts into one, the most important being, merging seer and seen into seeing or space, time and matter. When we learn how to apply Mudras to Matrikas, we attain divine powers, called Siddhis. 1. Anima = Becoming small like a particle(elongating distance and changing perspective) 2. Laghima = Losing weight (levitation/anti gravity; super fluids go up walls of containers); and its opposite: Garima = becoming heavy / increasing gravity; 3. Mahima = becoming large; 4. Isitva = Fulfilling any desire; 5. Vasitva = Control; 6. Prakamya = Huge desire; 7. Bhukti = Enjoy; 8. Ichcha = Will, desire to achieve goal; 9. Prapti = Fulfil goal; 10. Sarva Kama = All desires fulfilled.
Basic Introduction to Sri Vidya – Guruji Amritananda – Devipuram
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Most of these attainments imply the ability to control space, time and matter, the trinity, whose Sanskrit names are Vishnu(space), Kaala(time) and Brahma(matter) respectively. When we merge all three into one, then we get all these siddhis. The outer square enclosure of Sri Chakra houses all these waking state powers namely, 1. 10 Siddhis 2. 8 Matrikas 3. 10 Mudras Inside of this there is a lotus of 16 petals describing powers attracting our dreams without censorship of ego. Our dreams are ours, they are not common to others. The causative factors are called Gupta yoginis, the secret passions. And deeper inside, there is a lotus of 8 petals describing powers active in our deep sleep. Even we are not aware of their workings. They are ananga = bodyless, even more secret yoginis. We live in one of these three chakras as an individual separated from the world, nature, the mother. When we leave these three chakras, we die to this world of individual experience, and enter a world of astral entities. They are all inside the circle we call the death of ego. We cross it to take birth as a nature spirit. What is the difference between sleep and death? When we awaken from sleep we wake up into the same body; when we wake up from death, we wake up into a different body, we change our whole address. Everything about us - our body, our environment, our language, our knowledge, our shape, our relationships, and our age, changes. We have to learn afresh who we are, who our parents are, who our brothers, sisters, friends, enemies. All these relationships are temporary. The only relationship that survives death is the sense of Iness. In I–am–so and so, the feeling I-am is common; but the so-and-so gets re-defined every time in every life. A thousand years may pass unnoticed; but the same feeling of I is known to all, self obvious, sort of. That pure common awareness is the God/dess. It is just a witness. It looks like a male when in a male body, and like a female in a female body. It has no gender by itself; looks like the container. Therefore it is compared to water, which takes on the shape of the container.
