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

criteria the mere mention of which makes so many moderns nervous, such as
race, sex, and so forth. Indeed, as we have seen, the left-hand path routinely
breaks Indian caste, racial, and social prejudices, elevating persons of low
caste and social standing to a divine standing. This initiatory discrimination
of the sinister current is based on far more subtle factors. Primarily, the
essential spiritual nature of a given individual is focused on. However, the
sinister current is based on a recognition of the possibility for radical
transformation; the states of pashu, vira, and divya, are not considered static.
The beast can theoretically become divine through application of will and
self-imposed discipline, yoked to sexual initiation and awakening of the
Feminine Daemonic of shakti power.
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The Sexual Initiatrix
We have only covered some of the most basic criteria of initiatory gradation
followed in the Indian left-hand path; the Tantras are immensely complicated
and often contradictory in their suggestions. In the traditional Eastern system,
it must be remembered, the pashu, vira, and divya are presumed to be of the
male gender. Until relatively recent times, even the goddess-exalting lefthand
path of India provided little in the way of instruction for the female
adept.
Women, in the traditional left-hand path, are revered as the physical
essence and incarnation of shakti. Women of the left-hand path in India have
consequently aimed at training themselves to be a bhairavi, a fit vehicle for
shakti and the guru of male students. It could be said that women in the lefthand
path primarily serve a priestly function, as they are the physical medium
through which the divine force manifests. Nevertheless, there are even more
criteria applied to the woman chosen as the sexual initiatrix than for the male
initiate who undergoes the initiation. Indeed, the traditional selection of the
female sexual perceptor sometimes seems as complicated as the process of
selecting a Tibetan Dalai Lama.
Although left-hand path sex magicians are not obliged to obediently
follow the traditional methods and criteria of selecting an appropriate partner
for erotic initiation, many useful principles may be gleaned from the ancient
teachings. Searching the corpus of traditional Tantric literature for practical
guidance is no easy task, since much of it is veiled in deliberate obscurity.
Furthermore, many of the most meaningful methods are not to be found in
any written account, since the essentials were always communicated privately
from one initiate to the other.
One school of Tantric erotomagical teachings assumes that the
vira's sexual consort will be a woman especially empowered to transmit the
shakti energy, usually an initiated yogini ("she to whom one is yoked")
descended from a recognized lineage. Such women are considered to exude
a specific bioelectrical current during the sexual rite, and as mentioned
earlier, even their sexual fluid or amrita was considered to be a magically
potent elixir. The yogini is trained to guide the psychic and physical
transformation of her male partners, while not giving way to the waves of
sexual pleasure that ordinary women might succumb to during the rite. Such
women are especially capable of reacting to sexual pleasure in a manner
conducive to reaching advanced altered states of consciousness during
coitus. The previously described mastery of vaginal control, or sahajoli, was
considered to be a given in the left-hand path yogini.
The body of the female initiatrix, transmitting shakti during
sexual union, is itself the conveyer of initiation unto her male partner,
which in turn, eventually allows the male to initiate others into the sinister
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current. Conversely, some shaktis are initiated via sex with an already
initiated male. This idea of a physical transference of initiation and spiritual
power is often a stumbling block to Western aspirants, who find it difficult