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

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

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a profoundly awakened state of consciousness transforming their sexual<br />

pleasure into a celebration of their own divinity.<br />

To extend this atemporal period of mounting rapture, a number of<br />

pragmatic physical techniques are used by both partners that have only<br />

recently been rediscovered by Western sexologists. For instance, the female<br />

shakti is often trained to manually squeeze the base of her consort's penis to<br />

prevent his orgasm for as long as possible, allowing for a consciousnessaltering<br />

perpetuation of ecstasy. Current practitioners of the left-hand path<br />

utilize cock rings for the same purpose.<br />

<strong>The</strong> word "ecstasy" is currently used so casually to describe any kind<br />

of transitive pang of pleasure, that magicians who have yet to experience this<br />

state for themselves will only have a vague idea of the trance of joy lefthanded<br />

sexual rites aim to activate. However, when we refer to ecstasy, we<br />

are using the term in its authentic religious sense, not just as a synonym for<br />

any sensation that "feels good". As important as the hedonic impact on the<br />

body is to the left-hand path, it must not be forgotten that it is the effect on<br />

one's consciousness that is paramount. Once an adept becomes competent in<br />

the techniques of ritual sex, the time/space of the erotic exchange can unleash<br />

105<br />

kundalini, including the deliberate attainment of visions, out-of-body<br />

experiences, or simply serve as a springboard for manipulation of maya – the<br />

work of the sorcerer.<br />

Ultimately, the wedding of sexual polar opposites realized through<br />

the maithuna is intended to awaken the initiate to the direct perception of<br />

reality. But every magician's personal experience of the rite must be<br />

grounded in his or her own individual universe of meaning. Transcending all<br />

imaginable verbal constructs, the ecstatic apotheosis reached through<br />

sacralised sex can never be standardized, ultimately resisting all attempts at<br />

description. <strong>The</strong>refore, the beginning student of the left-hand path should not<br />

presume that he or she should be aiming for some sort of pre-packaged or<br />

pre-ordained outcome – dogmatic concepts of a "right" or -wrong" result are<br />

inconsistent with the radical individuation of the Vama Marga. Although the<br />

methods of the left-hand path sexual rite are age-old, each new experiment<br />

with them allows the couple celebrating the rite to experience the primal<br />

force of sexual creation as if for the first time.<br />

<strong>The</strong> Body <strong>Of</strong> Light<br />

<strong>The</strong> nature of erotic interactions possible during the maithuna varies<br />

widely, according to one's teacher, or the particular sect into which one is<br />

initiated. Tantric ritual coitus rarely leads to the fre<strong>net</strong>ic thrusting of ordinary<br />

sex. <strong>Of</strong>ten, the erect male simply remains positioned within the shakti,<br />

allowing the opposite energies of male and female to flow into each other,<br />

whilst the kundalini is made to rise through mental control. This contact is<br />

prolonged for a long period of time, at first ranging from a half-hour to an<br />

hour. Experienced practitioners eventually sustain this hierogamic<br />

coincidence of opposites for hours, building up a powerful electromag<strong>net</strong>ic<br />

field from the contact between the male (+) and the female (—) fusion.<br />

Some second-hand texts on Tantric sexuality, often simply<br />

misguided, others driven by a puritanical agenda to gloss over the pleasure<br />

factor essential to the left-hand path, have described the actual Vama Marga<br />

sexual rites in such a muted manner as to thoroughly confuse the beginner. If<br />

one were to base one's understanding of Tantra on some of the writings on<br />

the subject, you would come away with the odd idea that the left-hand path<br />

initiate performs the sexual rites only obligingly and begrudgingly, in the<br />

same mental attitude as one might submit to dental surgery. And heaven<br />

forbid that the left-hand path initiate might actually derive any physical<br />

pleasure from fucking!<br />

Such hypocritical texts do a disservice to the ecstatic fundamentals of<br />

the left-hand path, attempting to dissolve the necessary physiological

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