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

creates a numinous space in which the very different energies of male and
female can communicate and see beyond the limits of gender, so does the
twofold voice of this book speak from a viewpoint that transcends male and
female.
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BOOK ONE:
The Sinister Current in the East
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I.
VAMA MARGA
Foundations Of The Left-Hand Path
The Fucking Buddha: A Left-Hand Path Parable
A left-hand path tale from India's Tantric lore illustrates perfectly the contrast
between world-denying religious practices and the ecstatic methods required
for liberation in this Kali Yuga. Encoded in this narrative are almost all of the
fundamental postulates of left-hand path initiation.
It concerns the adventures of one Vasistha, emulated as the austere
epitome of the yogi revered by orthodox Hindus. Vasistha, a wise Brahmin, is
utterly respectable, sober, and law-abiding, embodying the very essence of
adherence to convention and world-negation. For six thousand years, he has
lived the agonizing life of a self-torturing ascetic, a paragon of sexless,
desire-free virtue, meditating faithfully and in perfect accordance with Hindu
rules and regulations. And yet, despite all of his strict asceticism and sanctity,
the object of his devotion, the Great Goddess, has never deigned to appear to
him.
Exasperated at his failure, Vasistha loses his celebrated composure,
becoming so angry that he longs to curse the elusive Goddess who has
resisted his faithful and pious entreaty.
Vasistha's Brahmin father compels his son to resist this blasphemous
act and to try again, although he suggests that Vasistha has been barking up
the wrong tree, and does not even understand the Goddess properly. The Sage
perseveres, following his father's advice to meditate on the divine being as
the magical feminine substance, illuminating as ten thousand suns, from
which the universe is made; the breathtakingly beautiful and tender spirit that
filled the Bodhi tree under whose branches the Indian prince Gautama
Siddartha became the Buddha. (The Bodhi tree can be compared to that other
mythical Tree of Knowledge from which the serpent gave the forbidden fruit
of knowledge to Eve.)
This approach works better. The Great Goddess finally appears to the
sage in one of her many shakti forms of Sarasvati, only to provide him with
the disconcerting news that he has completely wasted the past six thousand
years meditating according to the Vedic laws of solemnity and bodily denial.
Instead, she tells the bewildered yogi, he must learn the Kaula teaching of
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illumination (the Kaula is one of the earliest known left-hand path sects).
Were he to stick to the traditional methods of asceticism and yoga, the
Goddess laughs, he would never become liberated enough to gain even a
momentary view of her divine feet; let alone her full divine presence.
"My worship is without austerity and pain!" the spellbinding Shakti
proclaims. Before vanishing, She bids Vasistha to journey to the Himalayas,
where he will be taught the true way to liberation for this age.
Devoutly following the command of the Goddess, Vasistha voyages