I. VAMA MARGA Foundations Of The Left-Hand Path - staticfly.net

understood as spiritual types. For each of these dispositions, Tantricism
maintains that there is a suitable mode of initiation. The first, and by far the
most common type of human, are those said to be Pashubhava, those of the
"herd-like disposition". The pashu, or herd-beast, is directed toward
traditional worship of the gods, sacrifice, devotion and exclusively
intellectual learning – the way of the mass mind, in submission to deity as an
external phenomenon to be obeyed. For the pashu, sexual initiation and
intoxication are regarded as poisons – the stark encounter with shakti's naked
energy would destroy the pashu's circuits. The pashu, bound entirely to
uncontrolled animal instinct, is said to be ruled by the inert universal quality
known as tamas. With very few exceptions, all who approach a left-hand path
teacher for instruction are deemed to be operating at a pashu level. That is to
say that they react to the manifestations of the apparent universe with the
same lack of control as an animal might, completely at the mercy of the
natural world. The pashu reacts, rather than acts.
After considerable training, the pashu-beast's inertia may eventually
be transformed into the Virabhava, or "heroic disposition". The Vira can
choose to follow the right- or left-hand path according to aptitude. Most will
follow the way of the Daksina Marga, considered to be the safest method of
Tantric initiation. A few will be considered heroic enough for the sinister
current, whose extreme methods are thought to be much more perilous. The
Vira who welcomes these dangers is poetically said to be "riding the tiger" in
some of the Tantric texts. The Vira has created the active quality rajas in
himself.
Only the Vira, or Hero, who has broken from the herd, is considered
strong enough to transcend taboo violation, religious and social
condemnation, and experience sexual ecstasy as spiritual awakening – a
phenomenon compared to "walking on the edge of a sword". The vira of the
left-hand path is considered to be a spiritual warrior, possessed of
extraordinary courage and virility (the English word is derived from the
Sanskrit Vira). The hero must have a "strong physique", according to
Gautamiya Tantra. It is one of the many paradoxes of the Tantric world-view
that even though the left-hand path vira ultimately aims to awaken the
sinister feminine current within him, he must be considered virile – an
expression of Shiva – before doing so. This seeming contradiction is based
on the idea that before a man can bear the tremendous power of the feminine
shakti, he must build up his strength far beyond that realized by the
uninitiated male. This attests to the active character of the feminine principle
as understood in the Tantras.
The heroic warrior conquers six internal attributes referred to as "the
enemies". Once these inner enemies are subdued and brought under the
adept's willed control – among them fear, jealousy, anger, and longing – the
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ordinary prohibitions of pashu society no longer apply. The next stage of
left-hand path initiation is open to him, including the rite of the five M's and
other sexual initiations, including the orgiastic unions we will consider later.
One of the tenets of the traditional Tantric teaching, which must
seem quaint to modern Westerners, is that only the vira of the left-hand path
is permitted to perform ritual sex with women to whom he is not legally
married. Also, as we have mentioned in our description of the actual secret
rite, the degree of nakedness revealed by the female initiatrix during the rite
is contingent on the siddha's degree of initiation – only the most advanced
practitioner is allowed to witness the complete nudity of his ritual
companion, as the full force of unclad shakti power is esoterically believed
to be too overpowering for the less spiritually evolved. On a perhaps more
utilitarian level, one traditional Indian adept of the Vama Marga suggested
to us that the real reason for this is that only the more yogically trained
initiate will have learned the bodily control needed to restrain himself under