I. VAMA MARGA Foundations Of The Left-Hand Path - staticfly.net
I. VAMA MARGA Foundations Of The Left-Hand Path - staticfly.net
I. VAMA MARGA Foundations Of The Left-Hand Path - staticfly.net
Create successful ePaper yourself
Turn your PDF publications into a flip-book with our unique Google optimized e-Paper software.
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