The Cult of Tara

WORSHIP 105
Light radiates, serves the aim of beings,
is gathered back, and transforms
into myself the noble Tara, color of the moon,
calm, smiling, sensuous, radiating five-colored light . . .
2) On the three places of my body OM AH HUM. By their light
3) the knowledge being—VAJRASAMAJAH!
JAH HUM BAM HOH 1—dissolves inseparably.
4) Again light radiates, inviting the five families.
I pray the initiation deities initiate me!
By this prayer the initiation deities say:
OM SARVA-TATHAGATA-ABHISEKATA-SAMAYA-SRiYE
HUM 1
"OM The glory of the vow of initiation of all the Tathagatas HUM !"
They initiate me, the water fills my body,
I am adorned on my crest by Amitabha, lord of the family.
This Process of Generation may take place at any locus: the
practitioner himself (as here), in front of him, or within an object.
The generations that take place in front are perhaps easiest to
understand, for the contemplative events unfold before one like
images on a movie screen; the closest analogy might be an abstract
cinema by Jordan Belson. 159
The constant unfolding and motion of
images, too, make of visualization what can only be described as an
aesthetic experience, a ballet of light and form charged with meaning
and power. The self-generation is rather more difficult to apprehend,
as there is not (or should not be) anyone there to watch it; the
yogin himself has disappeared in Emptiness, and the images simply
occur entirely delocalized. We are used to being at a particular
place, and we tend to situate ourselves somewhere in our head,
behind our eyes; when the yogin generates himself as the deity, he
is no longer there.
But whatever the locus, the visualization is the same. As the
practitioner recites the text above, there appears a dance of light,
a ballet of images unfolding and moving, which is patterned as
follows:
1) From the "realm of Emptiness" there appears a circle of protection
and a divine mansion, more or less elaborated according to the
ntual. In the midst thereof appears the syllable PAM which transforms
into a lotus; upon this is the syllable A which transforms into
a
flat moon disk, laid down upon the lotus to form a "throne."