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

or the secret sect." Not surprisingly, Krishnamacharya was of the Brahmin
caste, the sexually ascetic and world-rejecting higher caste in Indian society
for whom the left-hand path is an abomination. Because of the Tantric
association with sex magic, the popular press in India continues to report
Tantric activity with the same bias, inaccuracy and misgivings one finds in
Western journalistic accounts of Satanism.
To meaningfully recreate the constitutive elements of the left-hand
path tradition within the unique reality of your own initiation requires a
wakeful, dynamic approach. A static, dutiful playing by the rules is poison
to the sinister current initiate. The left-hand path is unique among
metaphysical traditions in that it deliberately repudiates all and any sacred
cows that lumber into view. Whether left-hand path initiates are located in
Bombay, Manchester, Sydney, or Cincinnati, a mutual discipline is to keep a
sharp eye out for one's own sacred cows, slaughtering them ruthlessly as a
means to personal power.
The Vama Marga – A Path Of Many Roads
The phrases Tantra and left-hand path have been used so indiscriminately in
recent years – especially since their relative popularization in the wake of the
so-called sexual revolution of the 1960s – that they've practically become allpurpose
descriptions for any kind of metaphysically inclined fucking. So
prevalent are these simplifications that we can't begin to define Tantra and
the left-hand path within any kind of authentic context without first briefly
weaving our way through some of the most enduring of these Western
popular trivializations. We've even seen enterprising call girls with an eye on
the mystic market advertise themselves as Tantric Escorts, adepts in Tantric
Massage, and experts at Tantric Lap Dancing. Pleasurable as these diversions
might be, it would be ridiculous to consider them Tantric except in name. As
we shall see, the sacred whore has actually played a long and distinguished
role in left-handed Tantric tradition but this recent mercenary development
has only served to confuse an already misunderstood subject.
The Tantric phrase "left-hand path" has likewise been adopted by
two quite contradictory Western spiritual subcultures spawned at roughly the
same time during the 1960s search for alternative religion. Its use can be
found most abundantly within the populist New Age movement, which
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includes among its many sects a goodly number of Neo-Tantric teachers and
groups who describe themselves as left-hand path simply due to their use of
sexual rites. However, although a tentative link exists between actual lefthand
practice and the Neo-Tantrics, it is often an extremely superficial one,
typically ignoring most of the essential principles of the left-hand path
outlined at the beginning of this chapter, while emphasizing the Vama
Marga's more acceptable – and marketable – elements.
At the opposite pole, the less numerous groups comprising the
modern Neo-Satanic movement and its offshoots also commonly describe
themselves as left-hand path. Contrary to popular opinion, practically none of
these Satanic societies include even the rudiments of left-hand path sexual
initiation among their almost entirely cerebral and really rather prim practices
– thus excluding the single most important feature of any definition of the
left-hand path.
We will return to the New Age "left-hand path" and the Satanic "lefthand
path" in a subsequent chapter, in which we will examine the curious
importation of the Vama Marga to Western culture. For now, it's sufficient to
mention their existence as contemporary phenomena that have contributed to
the perplexity preventing an understanding of the left-hand path in the West.
Leaving these aside for now, let us unravel the puzzle of the phrase Vama
Marga, the left-hand path, as it was originally understood.
The vast ocean of loosely defined doctrines that fall under the
umbrella of Hinduism – a cluster of creeds that lack the unifying hierarchy