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

duality, the contrary complement to a dexterous twin? Are the right and lefthand
paths truly just different streams of the same spiritual river? Several
Tantric historians have suggested that Vama Cara and Vama Marg
originally conveyed something far more descriptive of its techniques than
leftwardness, a meaning that may actually predate the leftward interpretation
altogether.
Shakti And The Feminine Daemonic
Perhaps even more essential to the left-hand path than its sinister direction is
the fact that the word vama carries an alternate meaning of "woman". The
Vama Marga is actually "the Path of Woman". In fact, the Vama Marga
seems to have been known as the path of woman long before it was
interpreted as the way of the left, the opposite of the right-hand path. This
definition gets at the heart of this approach to initiation, focused as it is on
the Feminine Daemonic of Shakti in all of her forms. Some Tantric scholars
have surmised that the sexually oriented left-hand path was actually the first
Tantric school, while the right-hand path only developed as a much later
watered-down non-sexual version of the older system of initiation.
Some of the earliest Tantric texts, or Tantras, do not speak of a
right-hand path at all, but describe all of Tantra as the way of woman, Vama
Cara. Therefore, many Tantric teachers continue to refer to the entire
Tantric tradition as the left-hand path. This idea has been advanced, among
other Tantric historians, by N.N. Bhattacharyya in his 1982 History Of The
Tantric Religion. Supporting this theory of the primacy of the sexual lefthand
path to the chaste right-hand path is the fact that the word "Kaula" was
originally used to describe the entire Tantric school – Kaula is also the name
of one of the very oldest left-hand path sexual clans, originating in Northern
India.
As we have already stated, crucial to all Tantric doctrine and
practice – but especially to the Vama Marga – is the recognition of Shakti,
the eidolon of cosmic femininity as the central initiatory power; indeed, the
very word means "power." Shakti is not conceived of as a remote goddess
inhabiting some distant sphere or an abstract philosophical archetype.
Rather, she is understood to be a divine force that incarnates in living
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women. For left-hand path adepts, the female body is the temple of the
divine force quickening the visible universe. Her vulva, or yoni, is regarded
as the altar in which Shakti's electrifying energy is most vigorous.
However, this feminine principle is by no means limited to
biological females alone. Tantrics regard the level of personal force and
power demonstrated within an individual of either sex to be a consequence
of the quantity of shakti they possess. Furthermore, an important aspect of
Tantricism for male Tantric adepts is the endeavor to arouse the spiritual
female within them.
To a certain extent, the entire physical universe of transient matter
is the manifestation of Shakti. Consequently, the left-hand path adept does
not disdain the physical world, as is so common in standard spiritual practice
– the physical world is viewed as the very route to illumination, most
directly through sexual veneration of shakti in the form of a human female.
Based on this premise, left-hand path sexual Tantra teaches that the actual
manipulation of carnal ecstasy in the physical body is the principal tool of
initiation.
Male initiates of the left-hand path so emulate Shakti that they seek
to literally awaken her within their own bodies and psyches. The left-hand
path adept understands that women are gifted with a mysterious innate talent
for magic, for divination and other black arts. The bridge between the
Scandinavian tradition of the volva, the female seer and the serpentine
female oracles of ancient Greece reveals the archaic understanding that
magical power is intrinsically feminine in nature. Consequently, males of the