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

has lent this initiatory tradition a socially transgressive character it has never
wholly lost, which make the heretical female and contrary aspects of the
sinister current even less palatable to the orthodox.
Shiva and Shakti, the central divine figures of Tantricism are
atavistic survivals of deities that predate the Aryan invasion of the Indus
Valley. As such, despite the reverence accorded them, there is still a certain
dishonorable aspect to them in the eyes of the average Hindu, especially as
they are understood in left-handed Tantra. Shiva is a later development of the
fearsome Rudra the Howler, a turbulent figure presiding over such
undesirable phenomena as storms, disease, and thieves. Even today, Shiva is
understood as a patron of all who have stepped outside of society's
boundaries – from the holy man to the outlaw. In some archaic texts, Shiva is
referred to as Vama, which could possibly be yet another meaning of Vama
Marga – the path of Shiva. His connection to a prevalent phallic cult
censured by the Brahmanic conquerors of India as a loathsome heresy,
survives in Rudra's remanifestation as Shiva. In Shaivism, the cult of Shiva,
the lingam is the symbol of the phallus, revered as the principle of formless,
bodiless consciousness. The Aryan scriptures, known as the Vedas, explicitly
condemn phallic worship.
Similarly, Shakti's cult of the yoni, honoring the vulva as the
embodiment of the kinetic secret power thats charge animates all things can
be traced to the pre-Aryan sexual veneration of local goddesses in the
Neolithic age. The imposed religion foisted on the Indus Valley by Aryan
invaders was centered almost entirely on abstract celestial male divinities.
The introduction through force of this male pantheon forced the adherents of
Shakti underground for many centuries, until their revival, first in Hinduism,
and then in dynamic Tantric form, emerged. As opposed to the masculine,
solar sky gods revered by the Vedic faith, the most important divinities for
the original Indian civilization were chthonic goddesses, the multi-formed
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predecessors of shakti.
Coming and Going – Sex Within Death
One rejected, unwanted substance that plays a part in traditional Eastern lefthand
path practice is the dead body, which is accorded a special status in
Indian culture. Just as much as the left-hand path is concerned with the
human body at its most vital and creative, during peaks of erotic ecstasy, it
also teaches an intimate knowledge of the body at its lowest ebb, in the decay
of death. The antipodal contrast of Sex and Death are just one of the many
juxtapositions of opposites that constitute the Tantric web, along with its
most obvious antithesis, the sexual energies of Woman and Man.
In India, the task of disposing of the dead is given only to the very
lowest caste. For all other castes, even touching the dead, especially corpses
of a caste lower than one's self, is considered a spiritual defilement of the
first order. Those undesirables who are given the dirty work of handling
human remains are also expected to dispose of the excrement of the castes
above them.
Therefore, the left-hand path adept, the gleeful transgressor of all
accepted boundaries, often makes the "unclean" burning grounds the place
in which magical rituals and meditation are accomplished. It is not
uncommon for left-hand path initiates to perform their spiritual work within
enclosures constructed from human skulls. Such scavenger animals as
jackals, vultures and ravens, those eaters of the dead that haunt the
crematory grounds, are frequently associated with the left-hand path, playing
a role of magical mascot similar to the bestial "familiars" known to
European witchery.
The Vama Marga sexual rite is commonly held at night in the
presence of charred, partially cremated corpses, near the exterminating heat
of the open funeral pyres. As an exercise in transcending duality, the male