Unit III.  Manifestation

CONTENTS

1.   Second Bindu
2.  A-Ka-Tha Triangle
3.  Bindus in the A-Ka-Tha Triangle
4.  Manifestation
5.  Implications for Practice

Materials needed:  Journal, materials for ritual-making

Books needed:  

The Sacred Power
The Cloud of Unknowing (optional)

Exercises:

Cloud of Unknowing
The Sacred Power
Gunas
Cycle of Dependent Origination
Pratyahara

Practices:

Samadhi
Hamsah


Second Bindu

We have seen, in the sixth chakra, that the second bindu is the entryway into the causal realm.  We can think of it as a choice point or intersection on the pathway.  If we continue the journey, we know that we shall be changed; and that it will be impossible to retrace our steps back into the old ways of living.  It is the threshold of enlightenment or liberation.

But it has another perhaps more important role to play.  Remember that, in the legend, Kundalini as Shakti wishes to ascend to the Supreme Bindu to become reunited with her lover Shiva.   Also recall that Shakti has all the power of movement and change.  Shiva is inert and cannot move without Shakti’s energy.  His energy is only potential or “resting.”  He is like the negative pole of a battery that grounds the power.  He is simply Being as existence.  Likewise, without the stability of Shiva’s inertia,  Shakti would be directionless and charge off into every direction unable to control her wild life energies.  So the two kinds of energy complement each other and can bring life into balance and harmony.  This is why the second bindu is considered part of the causal realm.  It is somewhat like a launching platform from which Shakti can operate and return periodically to recharge her batteries.  And it is the platform from which we begin the next stage of our journey.

In meditation, this is the point at which we enter samadhi.

Practice: Samadhi

Sit for meditation.  When you are comfortable and stable in your posture, take several deep breaths and on each exhalation, relax all your muscles that are not actively maintaining your position.  Breathe into the lower abdomen or hara, then relax.  Continue until the tensions you may have been holding disappear.

With your eyes closed direct your gaze up toward the ceiling, or sky if you are outdoors, through the third eye.  Note your intention to release ego controls, then direct your attention toward maintaining the gaze until you slip into samadhi.  When you return, journal your experience.  What do you remember?  How do you feel?  What happened to your mind?

Exercise: Cloud of Unknowing

This is an optional book because it is oriented toward Christianity specifically, and it may have some unpleasant associations for any of you who have lapsed from Christian practice because of the emphasis on judgment and sin.  However, those sections can be passed over lightly, and you will find the rest of the book to be very valuable in terms of how to approach God.  If you wish to continue, the book is called The Cloud of Unknowing, and it is translated by Ira Progoff ( 1981).  Other copies may also be available by other editors or translators.  This would be the time to begin reading it.  Pages that refer to the choice or decision to enter the causal realm are: 60, 76, 121, 141, 214, 155 and 175 in the Progoff edition.  

Exercise: The Sacred Power

Read chapters 1, 2, 4 and 5 in The Sacred Power by Swami Kripananda.  This will refresh your memory about Kundalini and fill in the gaps in what I have been discussing.  The first chapter is an excellent summary of other disciplines that parallel the material being presented here.  The second is about Shiva and Shakti as parents of the universe.  The fourth is about awakening and the fifth is about the power of consciousness.

A-Ka-Tha Triangle

AKaTha Triangle This triangle is being placed at this point in the sequence of events because it is a visual symbol for manifestation.  According to Yoga, the gunas are responsible for physical manifestation in all its forms.  The A-Ka-Tha triangle expresses the relationships between the gunas in creation as we know it on a daily basis.

You will recall that there are three gunas: sattva, rajas and tamas.  Sattva is purity and clarity.  It represents the balance of rajas and tamas.  Rajas is the fiery action of movement and change while tamas is inertia and the tendency to resist change.  The peaceful serenity of a saint is an example of sattvic dominance.  Emotions like passion and aggression are a good example of rajasic activity.  Deep sleep and death would be extreme examples of tamas along with ignorance.   You can think of other examples in your own life.

Everything in the universe is composed of some combination of the gunas – out of balance.  This is because when the gunas are in complete balance, everything disappears.  Perhaps you have an intuition where this is going.

Many different teachings tell us that all of empirical reality is the result of vibhuti, the fruits of action and desire.  This makes sense when you consider that any action or desire disrupts the equilibrium of the gunas.  For instance, a simple hunger pang would be enough to make you get up out of your chair and seek some refreshment.  Desires usually lead to some kind of action.  And, if they are not taken care of, we experience some kind of discomfort or even pain.  Here is the link between desire and suffering we hear so much about.  Roberts (1985) explains how the affective system or sense of subjective energy is at the  root of our separation from the Divine One.  We will come back to that later.

These ideas are at the root of most of the spiritual practices that deal with the bodymind.  The objective is to become more sattvic.  So we restrict our diets to vegetables, fruits and grains since meat is very rajasic.  We exercise to keep our muscle tone balanced (but this is not meant to be violent exercise or aerobics).  Or we do hatha yoga to coordinate the body and mind.  We meditate to quieten the mind.  Such disciplines are called tapas because they are designed to harmonize and balance our systems.  Tapas means a purificatory action.  When the bodymind is regulated in this way, we experience the sattivc condition which is peaceful and non-reactive in the face of stress coming from the external world.  

The American culture, in particular, is extremely rajasic and conducive to stress with its frenetic traffic and focus on moneymaking and achievement of power.  These activities are taking a terrible toll on our health and psychological well-being.  So even those who are not motivated by the spiritual journey might well benefit from some of these yogic practices.

Exercise: Gunas

On some day when you are not planning to go out, program yourself to observe the machinations of the gunas in your life.  Post a sheet of paper somewhere central in your home, and make a note every time you notice an example of one of the gunas.  Also note which guna it is.  At the end of the day, run a summary to see which one or ones tend to dominate your life.  Don’t forget to recognize the sattvic ones that may easily go unnoticed.

You might want to repeat this on a day when you have meditated or done some hatha yoga or tai chi in the morning.  Or try it on an occasion when you restrict your diet to a vegetarian regime or a fast.  Journal the results of this too.

Then you may want to make a longer term plan to balance the gunas in your life.  There are some excellent books to use as references when you are serious about this.  My favorites are: Total Wellness by Joseph Pizzorno (1996), Prescripton for Natural Cures by Balch &Stengler (2004) and Optimal Wellness by Ralph Golan (1995). Andrew Weil is an authority on vegetarian diets.

Bindus in the A-Ka-Tha Triangle

Here we have another kind of bindu.  You will recall that a bindu is like a seed in that it holds the potential for manifestation.  The bindus in the A-Ka-Tha triangle represent the forms, aspects, powers and creative activity of consciousness.  They appear in the corners of the A-Ka-Tha triangle as small circles.  And, like the gunas, they come in threes.

The actions of the bindus express the creative action of consciousness; and, as such, are the three processes of creation.  The Bindu in the bottom angle of the triangle represents the creator (either Brahma or Vama), and it is the starting place.  As we follow the lines of the triangle around in a counterclockwise direction, the northeast angle is Nada representing the creative activity (either Vishnu or Jyeshtha) and the northwest angle is Bija representing creation itself (either Shiva or Rudra).  The deities mentioned are those traditionally associated with the functions and compose the Hindu trinity.

Forms of the Power of Consciousness

Bear in mind that although some of these forms appear to be masculine in nature or have a masculine name, that they are all forms of Shakti because this entire story is about the power of consciousness, and power is Shakti’s forté.  You have probably already noticed a tendency toward three-ness.  That is because in manifestation we need to have the two poles of electromagnetism to generate the power, and then we have the result – like two parents and a child.
                                                                                              Bindu Patterns                                    
Tribindu.  The first  triad consists of Bindu, Bija and Nada.  It is sometimes called the Tribindu process and it represents the forms of consciousness.  Bindu is the potential, Bija is the power of consciousness, and Nada is the combination or the actual working force.

Aspects.  The aspects represented by the bindus are (beginning at the lower angle) Iccha which is volition or will and feeling,  Jnana which is knowledge and knowing, and Kriya which is action and doing.  With a bit of imagination, you can see that a creative act might begin with some feeling
and the will to do something followed by knowledge of how to do it and, finally, to the action itself.

Powers.  So, next, we have the powers that emanated from the aspects, and these are represented by the lines of the triangle and the Sanskrit letters.  [There are 53 letters in the Sanskrit alphabet.]  These are projected or sprout from the bindus [think of giving birth].  The first is creation, letters A - Ah, the second is preservation, letters Ka - Ta, and the last is dissolution, letters Tha - Sa.  At this point we can see the circle of life and death, or creation and decay, which is ever-renewing.  Each process leads inexorably to the next.

The three letters that do not appear in the lines are Ham which represents the outgoing breath of the Supreme Being who projects the entire universe out of Its beingness.  Ksa and Lla together constitute Visarga, or Shakti, which is the incoming breath of the Supreme  whereupon everything disappears.  The mythology tells us that Vishnu is the deity who breathes the universe into and out of existence.  However, Brahma is the one usually credited with the creation aspect.  In any case, you could move around the triangle counterclockwise and visualize the entire process occuring over and over to give you a slightly different perspective on time and the eons.  Because these gunas are in a state of disequilibrium, we have all the forms of manifestation in the physical world.

The mantra Hamsah is a combination of Ham (the outgoing breath) and Sah (the incoming breath).  Sah is a combination of Ksa and Lla, i.e., Visarga.  You will recall that the petals on the Candra-mandala are repetitions of Ham and Sah.  So, to get a feel for the aspirations of creativity, we can use this mantra.

Now, you may be wondering how all of this relates to the gunas themselves.  I have to say that the literature is not in consensus about it.  Woodroffe (1973) says that the function of sattva-guna is to reveal consciousness, so the greater its power the closer we are to Pure Consciousness.  Hence the practices are designed to favor it.  Then, the function of tamas-guna is to suppress or veil consciousness which helps explain the relative inactivity of “lower” forms of physical reality.  The function of the rajas-guna is to make active, i.e, “it works on tamas to suppress sattva or on sattva to suppress tamas” (p. 52).  If you turn over this information in your mind, perhaps you can come up with an association that satisfies you.  We will return to this issue in the unit on Kamakala which holds the archetypes for the A-Ka-Tha triangle.

Practice: Hamsah

This can be done any time during the day that you become aware of your breathing.  However, it might be well to begin during a meditation session to help sustain attention while the habit is getting established.

Sit for meditation.  When comfortable, bring your attention to the breath and notice how the incoming breath sounds like Sah.  Feel it on and in your nostrils as it enters.  Draw it from your belly in a three-stage yogic breath.  Then allow it to exhale as if in a sigh.  This is the Ham or outbreath.  Do this deliberately at first, then gradually allow the process to relax and set up its own rhythm.  However, keep your attention on it and just watch it.  If you want to, close your eyes and imagine the entire universe coming and going on the wings of this process.

To take this a step further, begin the process then bring up an issue that has been bothering you.  Breathe it in and out for a few breaths to see if you can ascertain how you created it.  Usually problems with negativity are caused by holding on to something that can be released on the breath.  Close the practice by breathing in light and breathing out all the negativity that may be attached to the issue.  Tong len (or Appendix B) is a relative of this process.

Manifestation

We have said that all creation is a manifestation of the Devi, i.e., Shakti, who is the power of consciousness.  In Sanskrit, man-  means “to think.”  So let us have a look at the mind a minute.  There is a relationship between mind and consciousness.  I used to argue that mind  had to be the higher power since some one had to be conscious.  But both the Yogic and the Buddhist traditions insist that consciousness is the higher power.  Furthermore, mind is said to be an obstacle to higher consciousness.  Another distinction is made between mind and intelligence.  Intelligence is often used interchangeably with consciousness.  This would seem to imply that consciousness itself is intelligent, or knowledgeable.

A further distinction is made between mind as manas or intellect and mind as buddhi, the discriminating faculty.  It is mind as manas that is the offending obstacle to higher consciousness.  Sometimes it is referred to as the reflexive mind.  This means that part of our thinking apparatus that can look at itself working, i.e., mind-watching.  Piaget called this “formal operations,” a level of mental development achieved in adolescence and not by all people incidently.  Object-consciousness which becomes self-consciousness is another form of manas that gets into the act.  We are able to think of ourselves as separate individuals and as the object of someone else’s attention.  Eastern traditions tell us that all of that is illusionary, merely mental creations that have no concrete reality.  If you have experienced samadhi, you know on an experiential level that this is true.

Then there is citta variously defined as “mind stuff,” “memory” or the “unconscious.”  It is the screen that reflects the cosmic Self.  The word comes from the same base as Cit which means consciousness.  Cit also means “to think” or to “be aware.”  It is Consciousness as a self-aware force of existence, the divine counterpart of lower mind.  Cit combined with Shakti power is the Consciousness-force, the Divine’s power of formative activity.  Shakti comes from a word that means “to be able.”  So where is all this going?

We are talking about how Consciousness creates the manifested world and/or universe.  Obviously, we cannot know the mind of the Creator.  But if we look around us at the incredible diversity and beauty of the universe and the planet, imagining some kind of highly evolved intelligence behind the job is certainly a sensible deduction.  So is consciousness.  If the Creator were not conscious, we would have chaos.  But we do not.  The sun “rises” every day.  Night follows day, the seasons follow each other with regularity.

I am bringing this up because my meditations are increasingly unconscious.  I have to admit that because I am not aware of what occurs during that interval.  It is very much like deep sleep; and, in fact, Harrigan (2002) indicates that that is so.  So what is the role of the unconscious in all this?  Why would we strive to achieve it?  And, once achieved, is it a permanent condition?  Is it related to death?  These are some of the questions that arise as we go deeper into samadhi.

Well, I have a theory.  My experience tells me that whenever I am conscious, there is some kind of interaction with the environment.  It is as if I put out the radar of my intention to interact, and it reflects from the objects in front of me and is picked up by my senses and turned into perceptions by my brain.  When I am conscious of internal events such as my own thoughts or my body’s signals, the same process is operating.  It is only the focus of attention that changes.  It is as if the mind acts as a lens that can focus attention, or it can relax and act as a receiver rather like a satelite dish.  Since we are  awake and paying attention most of our days, we experience a continuous flow of consciousness.  However, Patanjali pointed out that what we experience is actually a series of minute flashes of awareness which have gradation and can be brought under conscious control.

The opposite side of this, unconsciousness, seems, by contrast, to be a withdrawal of attention or detachment.  The mind is turned off and signals are not processed.  So what is experienced is no consciousness.  I am told that awareness survives this detachment, but so far I have not experienced it except that it returns when I come out of meditation.  Roberts (1985) says that when we reach the endpoint there is consciousness of a higher order which is comforting.  Others talk about experiences of Bright Light, Dark Light and frequencies.

So the question arises: is the void empty, or is it full of vibrations?  Physicists are coming to the conclusion that the latter is the case, so perhaps there is much left to learn.  Is this the experience of Purusa aka Shiva in his state of bliss?  Only when our consciousness reaches the pinnacle of spiritual development will we know the answer.  And, at that point, the world and all of creation may have disappeared because the power of consciousness has merged with the Divine One.

Note: Saying that the world disappears does not mean that it literally is gone, but that our perception of it is not functioning at that time. It is just not in focus because our intention is to be conscious of something else in a different vibratory domain.  However, to the ego and the intellectual mind, for all practical purposes, it is gone.  You could say that we have moved the operation to a higher level of mind such as intuition or to mere consciousness without mind at all.

Implications for Practice

If we are going to follow this pattern on the return journey (and it is not the only path) we need to balance the gunas.  The three acts of initiation in Yoga give us some ideas about how this might be done.  The first act is mantra initiation.  The guru gives you a mantra that you must practice daily, and you must promise obedience which means to be willing to try out whatever the guru suggests that you test.  The second act is celibacy.  One gains control over the sexual urges and, by extension,  over all desires.  The third act is renunciation which means to let go of all attachments.  This means to family and friends as well as to material things and events, emotions and mental activities, etc.   Everything.   There are specific practices to be used in all of these arenas, and they are usually given by the spiritual teacher who can ascertain where the main obstacles lie.  

Some of these obstacles are more difficult than others.  Buddhists identify three main “poisons:” passion, aggression and ignorance.  These have been introduced in previous guidebooks, so I will not go into detail here except to remind you that they mimic the three main movements human beings can make: toward, against and away from.  Notice the connections to rajas in particular.  Ignorance in the sense of ignoring would be an example of  tamas.

Buddhists also offer us the Cycle of Dependent Origination as a way of conceptualizing the creation/dissolution cycle.  I will briefly outline it below.  Notice that the point in the cycle that is easiest to interrupt is “grasping” or “clinging” which refers to desire.

Cycle of Dependent Origination

In the well-known Wheel of Life thanka, this cycle appears around the edge of the picture.  Passion, aggression and ignorance are represented by animals biting each other in the center while the main divisions represent the realms of human existence.  If you have not seen this thanka, perhaps you can find a copy of it on the internet.  Try http://www.buddhanet.net/wheel2.htm and or google “Wheel of Life.”

These are the Cycles of Dependent Origination

  1.  Ignorance - a blind woman ( the series begins at the top of the wheel and continues                            clockwise around the rim)
  2.  Samskaras - mental or karmic formations - a potter
  3.  Consciousness arises - monkey (mind is often likened to a monkey)
  4.  Name and form (mind and body ) - two men in a boat
  5.  Six senses and their objects (includes mind as the 6th  sense) - house with 6 windows
  6.  Contact of the senses with their objects - pair of lovers
  7.  Sensation or feeling - arrow piercing eye of man
  8.  Desire for the object or thirst - drinker served by a woman
  9.  Grasping, attachment or clinging - man gathering fruit
10.  Existence  or becoming - sexual intercourse
11.  Birth - woman giving birth
12.  Old age and death - man carrying corpse on his back
 
Ignorance, in the sense of not knowing, follows again.  Because of spiritual blindness, we create an illusionary world and set our will upon gaining gratification of our desires.  These are fed by the imagination as we saw in the second chakra.  However, we can learn how to control our desires and gradually reduce them through spiritual practices and renunciation.  Then, at some point, we are able to break this cycle and become free of its compulsions.

Exercise: Cycle of Dependent Origination

    1.  Do some  research on the internet and find more information on the Wheel of Life.  
    2.  See if you can make a chart that shows the relationships between the Wheel of Life and the            issues of each chakra.  And/or see if there are relationships with the Lines of Creation in the            causal plane.
    3.  Journal what you have learned and evaluate where you are in the process of renunciation.
    4.  Make a plan to continue your practice so as to maximize balance of the gunas in your life.

Withdrawal

Another way of approaching the gunas is to refine your daily activities so that they take you up to a higher level. This means withdrawing your energy from projects, events, thoughts, plans, etc. that are not productive on the spiritual path.  We could use the three bindus as a guide:

1.  Take work and play activities into the kriya realm, so they become conscious Doing and Action that are tied to your spiritual plan.  Delete any activities that are not relevant to your plan.  This may mean letting go of relationships that are not mutually supportive of the journey.  It may also mean a job change.  Be prepared for major upheavals.  However, the rejuvenation and restoration process will be your best ally.

2.  Elevate information into the knowing and wisdom of the jnana realm.  This might mean subtracting yourself from the violence of the media and the electronic age.  Information is only “stuff.”  It has no intrinsic value.  Stick to what matters and spend your time and energies with that.  Use information selectively to serve your spiritual aims.

3.  Refine emotions into the finer feelings and spiritual will of the iccha realm.  This can be done with the breath moving emotional energy up to the 4th chakra (see “Transmuting Emotions” exercise in Book IV, Unit 4).  At the same time, track them down to their sources and cut them off there.  Swami Radha’s (1978) book, Kundalini: Yoga for the West, has sections in it that are specifically designed to help with this.

Control Wayward Processes

You may have done this already, but there are always stray issues that have managed to escape notice.  So it would not hurt to re-examine your sensual life and your emotions.  By this time, emotional outbursts should be rare and not last long because you are no longer attached to outcomes, but can remain in the witness position and simply observe what others are doing as well as your own reactions to events in life.  If you drop something or step on the cat’s tail while trying to get dinner, what happens?  If you run out of gas enroute to a doctor’s appointment, how do you respond?  If someone pushes in front of you in line, what do you do?  What do you feel?  If the checkout clerk is impatient to get to the next customer, does that get to you?  These little things can serve as barometers to your psychic well-being.  Usually, there is a mental attitude or expectation that is at the base of the issue.  If you can find and erase that, the emotional charges will evaporate.

Exercise: Pratyahara

Pratyahara refers to the spiritual discipline that helps you withdraw your senses from the surrounding environment and all objects of desire.  This is an initial step in beginning to control the mind.  In the eight rungs of Yoga, it follows pranayama and precedes concentration.  It may include rituals of worship, mudras (gestures that seal devotional attitudes), kriyas (a particular kind of breathing) and mantra chanting.

The Ashtanga Yoga Primer by Baba Hari Dass (1981) should be in your library if you have been working along with all the guidebooks.  In it are descriptions of some of the mudras and kriyas you might employ.

Another practice is called Yonimudra or “Closing the House” and it involves closing all the sensory organs.  This one can be found in Kundalini: Yoga for the West  by Swami Radha (1978) on pages 284-5.  You might want to do the preparation for Mahamudra also.  If you do, please be careful and remember your hatha yoga training when it comes to the shoulder stand and the other postures.  It is always wrong to push your body beyond a gentle, mild stretching.  If you cannot do a posture, use your best approximation but do not strain.

Chastity.  Chastity refers to not only control over sexual desire but to all desires that cannot be channeled in spiritual practices.  A genuine renunciation of sexual activity will surprise you with the amount of pressure it relieves from trying to please or attract a sexual partner.  It also frees up a great deal of energy for other pursuits.  Chastity also means purity, cleansing of the mind as well as the body and energy.  

Giving up sexual intercourse can be a touchy issue  particularly for married or committed couples because it is a primary way of expressing love for each other and intimacy in the relationship.  If you fall into that category, you might want to discuss the issue with your partner.  It may be that the two of you could experiment with abstinence for a specified period to see what results.  If you are just sleeping around, it goes without saying that that self-indulgence should be stopped entirely.  Since the sexual drive is often the most demanding of all the desires, it is a real test of your commitment to get it under control.  A total and permanent commitment is the best way because that avoids the wavering that can occur with experimentation with abstinence.  Give it up completely and all at once.  And don’t look back.

Sleep.  You may not have thought of sleep as a spiritual practice, but deep sleep is a time that the restoration and rejuvenation process can occur.  So is samadhi in meditation.  You may find, at this point, that you need more sleep or that you get fatigued more easily than usual.  Or you may discover that you are more sensitive to loud noises or bright lights or any other extreme sensory imput.  This is because your senses are becoming more acute with the refinement of perception that is occurring.  

So. Honor your needs for rest and retirement from raucous activities.  Leave the cocktail party or the football game.  Turn off the TV.  Avoid loud, violent music.  Try Bach and Mozart or a Gregorian chant.   Try to arrange your schedule so you can get nine hours of sleep a night.  Take naps in the afternoon.  Make the preschool children, if you have them, take afternoon naps or at least spend an hour sitting on their beds with toys so you can nap. Eventually they will nap too out of sheer boredom and then will be less fractious during the rest of the day.  If you find you cannot sleep this much, meditate more.  

All of this is going to require that you give up some other activities in order to make time for them.  That is all right.  It is time to begin renouncing the world and all its temptations, demands and stresses.  You may have to do some real soul searching to see what you can part with, but you are going to be surprised how it changes your life.  Eventually it leads to peace and non-reactivity and enables you to remain in the witness self.

A Teacher.  Finally, if you have problems with any of this or with the practices, stop them and find a teacher.  This is true expecially if you begin to have signs of trouble with Kundalini rising.  Since I am not there, I cannot help you with such problems, and they may occur if your progress is too rapid, and/or you fail to do the preliminary groundwork.  Most ashrams and monasteries have teachers who are available to serious seekers though you usually have to demonstrate your commitment to them before they will take you on.  Most spiritual centers now have websites, so you can probably access the one you need by searching the tradition that calls to you.  Go there and do a workshop or a retreat to see if it meets your needs.  Talk to the people there and ask questions.  Any legitimate teacher will expect you to question everything including his or her credentials.

Worship.  Worship and religious ritual is valuable because it helps you develop devotion.  And devotion helps you get out of your own self-referencing, self-centered frame of reference.  Worship also creates humility which trains the ego to take a subordinate position to the Higher Self who is aiming for enlightenment.  It also encourages a fine sense of longing love for the Divine One who must respond to truly sincere devotion.  It is not necessary to join a church or established religious group.  You can create your own rituals or use those that already exist.  You can get a small group of like-minded friends together for meditation, prayers, and chanting.  There are numerous ways you can express your love and yearning for the Divine.

Just a final note on worship and the far eastern deities.  The so-called deities are not meant to be worshiped in themselves.  They each represent some aspect or quality of the Divine One upon which you may wish to focus attention or to develop in yourself.  Also, because the mind has difficulty maintainng concentration on a non-tangible object, these deities help mental focus and serve to remind us of what we are trying to make happen in our lives.  For example, the Dakinis are symbolic of fearlessness and have ferocious countenances, lots of arms and a collection of scary tools such as a skull from which they drink blood.  This is to convey the idea that they will scare off anything that might hurt you.  The fact that they are called “Knowledge-holders” suggests that direct knowledge or prajna is one of our best defenses against obstacles on the path.

These are only a few of the ideas for practice that come to mind.  You can surely create your own that match your personal needs and inclinations.  And when you do, do not judge them, please.




In this unit we have examined the A-Ka-Tha triangle to see what guidance it can give us for the return process.  As the last step in creation, it would be the first to address in the dissolution process.  Because in order to go beyond this level it is necessary to balance the gunas, we must do a personal inventory to see what else needs to be done to free us from the bonds of maya.

Unit IV.  Kamakala Triangle  addresses the next level up toward higher consciousness which is that of the archetypes and tattvas.  Here we shall look at the influences of states of consciousness upon what is created as well as how to withdraw into the essences or tattvas of reality.


References

Balch, J. F.  &  Stengler, M. (2004).  Prescription for natural cures: A self-care guide for treating health problems with natural remedies, including diet and nutrition, nutritional supplements, bodywork, and  more.  Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Dass, Baba H.  (1981).  Ashtanga Yoga primer: The classic eight-limbed Yoga as taught by Baba Hari Dass.  Santa Cruz, CA: Sri Rama Publishing.

Golan, R.  (1995).  Optimal wellness.  New York: Ballantine Books.

Harrigan, Joan S.  (2002).  Kundalini Vidya: The science of spiritual transformation.  Knoxville, TN: Patanjali Kundalini Yoga Care.

Kripananda, Sw.  (1995).  The sacred power: A seeker’s guide to Kundalini. South Fallsburg, NY: SYDA Foundation.

Pizzorno, J.  (1996).  Total wellness: Improve your health by understanding the body’s healing systems.  Rocklin, CA: Prima Publishing.

Radha, Sw Sivananda. (1978).  Kundalini: Yoga for the west.  Kootenay Bay, B.C.: Timeless Books.

Roberts, Bernadette. (1985).  The experience of no-self: A contemplative journey. Boston: Shambhala.

Woodroffe, Sir J.  (1973).  The serpent power: Being the Sat-Cakra-Nirupana and   Paduka-Pancaka.  Madras: Ganesh & Co.

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