The Cult of Tara

MAGIC AND RITUAL IN TIBET
events are thus essentially indissoluble and unfabricated, there
is an "essence" which possesses that knowledge, which is pure,
undifferentiated through "cause" or "effect," wherein one cannot
distinguish a "subject" or "object": this is SVABHAVA, and the
fact that this dwells essentially in oneself, that one is never turned
away from it, is the meaning of ATMAKA and AHAM.
Now the meaning of the mantra has been explained in terms
of the three Gates of Deliverance; but it is also explained as the
"mantra of the three diamonds." OM is the Diamond of Body,
and "the essence which is the diamond of the knowledge of Emptiness"
indicates the Diamond of Mind—there is no difficulty with
this. But the reason for classifying "I am . . ." as the Diamond
of Speech is that the "self," having no concrete referent, is only
a verbal designation.
Furthermore in terms of the meanings of the mantra already
explained, it is clear that OM indicates the Mirror-like Knowledge,
"Emptiness" the Knowledge of Equality, "knowledge" the Intellectual
Knowledge, "diamond" the Knowledge of the Carrying
Out of Duty, and "essence" the Knowledge of the Purity of the
Dharma realm. The last two words indicate the "self" as inherently
the great Bearer of the Vajra, who is the essence of these
five knowledges.
Thus it is from the "realm of Emptiness" created by this mantra
that the ritual evocation of the deity takes place, and this divine
generation is the beginning of the ritual proper. To whatever use
this deity may be put thereafter, the ritual structure itself strives
to guarantee that his sacred power will be aimed at virtue.
CONTEMPLATIVE TRAINING: RITUAL SERVICE AND INITIATION
The ritual structuring of these basic attitudes of benevolence and
understanding gave the young monk the emotional and intellectual
framework that would be reinforced almost continuously through
his ritual career; and with these attitudes he proceeded to the actual
acquisition of power, for the remainder of his period of solitary
contemplation in the hermitage was spent in the ritual service of
the deities whom he would later evoke and employ in his monastic
and private rituals. Before he could direct the deity's power to any
end, he had to render his own person a fit vessel to contain it, a requirement
that involved not only the proper moral preparation and
purification of the prelimary practices but also the vivid visualization
of himself as the deity, the exchange of the deity's pride or ego
for his own, and the recitation of the deity's mantra as many as ten