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

omnipresent Ether, which is symbolized in the sexual act. Thus, the forces
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that compose the universe are taken into the celebrant's bodies, a practice
Western magicians will see as comparable to the summoning of the four
elements traditional to Hermetic ceremonies. Tantricists of various sects have
accorded other esoteric symbology to the five elements, above and beyond
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their literal meaning and obvious taboo status. The eating of matsya, or fish,
prohibited to vegetarian Hindus, has been thought to represent the feminine
principle essential to the left-hand path. Alternately, the "fish" might be
interpreted as the transformative currents that "swim" through the left ida and
right pingala channels of the subtle body, and the element of prana, or air,
that also swims through the ether and the physical body.
The ritual ingestion of Mamsha, or strongly spiced meat, not only
breaks the Hindu taboo against flesh-eating. It also symbolizes the initiate's
recognition that left-hand path initiation occurs during his/her lifetime within
the flesh, rather than in a life-after-death state. The word for meat, mamsha,
is also decoded according to twilight language as meaning ma (tongue) and
amsha (speech), representing the proper pronunciation of mantra so
important to left-handed rites.
Mudra (parched grain, or dried beans) has been interpreted as a
coded reference to the withholding of bodily energy and essence manifested
in some male Tantrika's retention, or reimbibation, of semen for metaphysical
purposes. As a symbol of vegetable life, mudra can be thought of as the
element earth. The female partner in left-hand sexual rites is often known as
the mudra, a designation connected to the yogic ritual hand gestures also
known as mudra, or "that which gives delight".
Madya is more than wine; it is the liquid symbol of altered
consciousness and the spiritual intoxication of the visionary, a divine
drunkenness. As an elemental symbol, wine is related to fire. The drinking of
wine in the Panchamakara ritual celebrates the application of joy to initiatory
ends, breaking with the sober-minded orthodoxy of the established priestly
class of Brahmins. John Woodroffe, the pioneering Western scholar of
Tantra, mentions in his Shakti and Shakta that the Tantric texts state that the
difference separating the left-hand and the right-hand paths can best be
compared to the contrast between wine and milk. Significantly, wine and
intoxication are considered to be of a feminine shakti nature in Hindu lore,
and many Hindu goddesses are understood to be incarnated in the material
world as the elemental spirits of intoxicating, maya substances.
Drunkenness, universally prohibited by ascetic, pleasure-denying
creeds around the world, can be found as a symbol for many other divine
beings representative of the left-hand path values of disorder, creative chaos,
and Eros. For instance, in the relatively puritanical ancient Egyptian society,
the sexually insurgent storm and war god Set and his Priesthood were
strongly associated with drunkenness; an especially powerful desert wine was
known as the Gift of Set. Set's striking similarity with Shiva in his fearsome,
atavistic guise as the previously described Rudra the Howler is not without
relevance. In the later Middle East, Sufi heretics within Islam of a left-hand
path bent continued this tradition, composing poetry comparing their visions
to the tempestuous intoxication stirred by wine and beautiful women or boys.
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However, it must be remembered that this ritual drunkenness – like
all of the sensory pleasures of the left-hand path – is entered into only when
the adept has already trained his or her mind to transcend normal waking
consciousness. In the milder left-hand path sects, only a token amount of
alcohol is consumed during the rite, merely enough to break the taboo and
symbolize the esoteric principle inherent in the wine. In others, especially the
extreme Aghori school, copious quantities are quaffed from skull cups to