Great-Bliss-Tantric-Sex-and-the-Path-to-Inner-Awakening

The Master Consecration
The Master Consecration (Ācārya Abhiṣeka) plants the seeds for you to teach the Tantric path
and perform rituals. The Hevajra Tantra describes the Master Consecration: “Embracing a
sixteen year old consort with the hands and uniting the bell and vajra is the Master
Consecration.” The guru leads you to transform yourself into the deity and your consort into the
consort of the deity. You then make love in the practice called Uniting the Bell and Vajra
Equally (Ghaṇṭa Vajra Samā Yoga). What is most important in the first consecration is
establishing in your mind the first of the Four Blisses of sexual yoga, Bliss (Ānanda), the bliss of
first contact with the genitals, and the first moment, Diverse (Vicitra), the awareness of many
pleasurable sensations. Kṛiṣṇācārya notes that from the first consecration, an “ordinary bliss”
arises from the union of the vajra and lotus. Your task is simply to be aware of the sexual bliss as
it rises and falls away for you through the first moments of contact with your consort’s genitals –
blissful, to be sure, but clearly not the everlasting Great Bliss of enlightenment.
You are given a sādhana for practice. To begin a sādhana you receive from the guru three ritual
acts that bestow the powers of the lineage: 1) the consecration (abhiṣeka) of the deity, 2) the oral
recitation (āgama) of the sādhana, in which the guru recites the entire sādhana aloud, and 3) the
oral instructions (upadeśa) for practice. A sādhana is often a life-long practice, and usually only
teachers learn more than one so they can meet the different needs of their students.
You are given instructions on deity yoga for the sādhana. Teachings on the philosophy of the
Middle Way support you in your daily conduct by teaching you to perceive all appearances as
empty of self-nature, liberating you swiftly from your attachments.
You are given the vows of the first consecration. Your main goal after the first consecration is to
maintain your identity at all times as the deity, transforming yourself through your practice of
deity yoga, releasing your coarse karmic obscurations and preparing you for the higher
consecrations. After several months of practice, you complete the required number of repetitions
of the deity’s mantra and keep your vows, and you are ready for the second consecration.
The Second Consecration: Secret Consecration
For the second consecration, called the Secret Consecration (Guhya Abhiṣeka), the Hevajra
Tantra instructs that the guru and your consort make love “until her sexual fluids flow” as the
student reverently watches. The student and consort are then blindfolded. From the fingers of the
guru, you and your consort are given the mixed sexual fluids (śukra and rakta) of the guru and
your consort - these are four drops into your mouths, one for each of the Four Blisses. The guru’s
thumb symbolizes the right channel (Rasanā) and the ring finger the left channel (Lalanā), the
two side channels of the subtle body - they come together in blissful union into the disciple.
These sexual fluids, which hold the pure manifest wisdom (called relative bodhicitta) of the guru
and the consort, transform you alchemically from the inside, entering and purifying your subtle
body.
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