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

the factor that grants the mantra its dynamism as a consciousness-changing
agent.
The Curse Of The Tantras
Like all Tantric concepts, including Vama Marga, the Sanskrit word Tantra
is a kind of mantra in itself, open to many interpretations. Tantra can be
most clearly defined as meaning "tool for providing expansion" or
alternately, "liberation through expansion". Tantra is often translated to
mean "web", "weave", or "woven together" which allows for some idea of
the interconnectedness of the Tantric methods, which can metaphorically be
thought of as a gigantic spider web of interrelated strands. The weaving
together of the sexual energies of male and female is also suggested.
Attempts to definitively categorize the complex weave of the
Tantric web into terms suitable for neat and tidy Western concepts of
rationality usually miss the point; Tantra simply defies distinct perimeters.
Many well-meaning scholars have attempted to assert that "This is Tantra.".
Others, just as firmly, have insisted "No, that is Tantra." And yet the
ultimate core of the subject in question remains evasive, something to be
experienced passionately as a living entity from within, rather than coldly
observed as an object from without.
The Tantras themselves are a corpus of once forbidden teachings
said to derive from the primordial secret conversations conducted between
Shiva, the creator and destroyer of the universe, and his beloved consort, the
manifold Goddess Shakti, – sometimes in the form of the beautiful Parvati,
often as the nightmarish Kali – while engaged in their ceaseless divine
coitus. Historically, some of the earliest surviving Tantras are Buddhist in
nature, dating from approximately 600 AD. It is almost impossible to
provide a reliable date for the majority of them, which appear to have been
adapted from earlier works. Tantric lore maintains that these conversations,
revealing the hidden techniques of magic, sexual sorcery and selftransformation,
were supposedly overheard by powerful yogi siddhas, or
magicians, who developed the system of Tantric initiation for human
consumption. These written Tantras only reveal a small portion of the gupta
vidya (secret doctrine), which can only be fully communicated privately
from teacher to student. As all sacred books of the past are considered to
have lost their value in the current age, the Tantras are considered to be the
only useful source of spiritual instruction for the Kali Yuga by Tantric
initiates.
The illuminated siddhas taught some of these interdicted techniques
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to a few select pupils of proven talent and discretion. Legend has it that the
Tantras were then passed down from initiate to initiate through incalculable
periods of time, an oral tradition transmitted slowly from one magician's
mouth to another's ear, which continues to be the truest form of initiation
among Eastern and Western left-hand path initiates to the present day. The
secrets of the Tantras were encoded in aesthetic form by initiated artists
working as painters, musicians, sculptors and dancers. The creative urge of
the artist, a drive that usually separates the creator from the mores and values
of society, is a symbol of the unorthodox energy required by the Tantric
magician. To create stirring art of any kind is to become a world-maker and a
god, and creativity of this kind has always been linked to the Black Arts, in
the West and in the East.
Eventually the Tantras were transcribed by hand on fragile palm
leaves, usually in "twilight language" or sandhya-bhasa, that only initiates
could comprehend. The lessons in these Tantric texts do not form a coherent
whole by any means; they are a dizzying intermixture of thousands of
different approaches and methods of initiation, ranging from profound
philosophical insights of the highest order to rather crude recipes for love
spells and curses that are similar to Western folk witchcraft. Indeed, many of