Introduction to Tantra Sastra - Aghori

WORSHIP 87
forming of mental image of the Divinity. 1 There are also
ten saṃskāras of the mantra. 2 Dīpanī is seven japas of
the bīja, preceded and followed by oṃ. Where hrīṃ is
employed instead of Oṃ it is prāṇ a-yoga. Yoni-mudrā is
meditation on the Guru in the head and on the Iṣṭ a-
devatā in the heart, and then on the Yoni-rūpā Bhagavati
from the head to the mūlādhāra, and from the
mūlādhāra to the head, making japa of the yoni bīja
(eṃ) ten times. 3 The mantra itself is Devatā. The
worshipper awakens and vitalizes it by cit-śakti, putting
away all thought of the letter, piercing the six Cakras,
and contemplating the spotless One. 4 The śakti of the
mantra is the vācaka-śakti, or the means by which the
vācya-śakti or object of the mantra is attained. The
mantra lives by the energy of the former. The saguṇ ā-
śakti is awakened by sādhana and worshipped, and she
it is who opens the portals whereby the vācya-śakti is
reached. Thus the Mother in Her saguṇ ā form is the
presiding deity (adhiṣṭ hātrī-Devatā) of the Gāyatrīmantra.
As the nirguṇ a (formless) One, She is its vācyaśakti.
Both are in reality one and the same; but the
jīva, by the laws of his nature and its three guṇ as, must
first meditate on the gross (sthūla) form 5 before he can
realize the subtle (sūkṣma) form, which is his liberator.
The mantra of a Devata is the Devata. The rhythmical
vibrations of its sounds not merely regulate the
1 Lit., thinking of meaning of mantra or thinking of the mātṛ kā in the
mantra which constitute the Devatā from foot to head.
2 See Tantrasāra, p. 90.
3 See Purohita-darpaṇam.
4 Kubijikā-Tantra (chap. v).
5 These forms are not merely the creatures of the imagination of the
worshipper, as some “modernist” Hindus suppose, but, according to orthodox
notions, the forms in which the Deity, in fact, appears to the worshipper.