Rohit Arya on Error and Danger with Unfamilar Gods

 “It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of a living God”

I originally wrote this as a response to a strange picture of Kali I saw on posted in somebody’s news-stream. The actual picture seems to have been a personal possession, something I was unaware of as it had come into the public domain called Facebook. I have therefore blurred out all distinguishing and unique features retaining only the outline for the purposes of the spiritual points I am making.

 This picture of Kali is beautiful. It is also chilling in that everything that could possibly go wrong, be wrong and is wrong is depicted therein! This picture is a salutary lesson in the perils of engaging with a foreign belief system with only fervours and a specific perspective to colour what you think you are dealing with. The actual energy, here a living deity for six millennia, has its own agenda, its own authenticity and integrity and the unwary enthusiast will soon realize the terrible truth of the warning by Carl Gustav Jung quoted at the beginning. I understand, and even approve, that we are entering into a new phase of human societies where all cultures are the inheritance of all beings. That is good. We are the country that articulated, five thousand years ago, this glorious sentiment –

“Ayam nijo paro veti ganana laghucetasam

Udaracharitanam tu vasudhaiva kutumbakam”

{Only base minds reckon whether one be kin or stranger

Men of noble conduct take the whole world for their home.}

It is one thing to draw from the best of cultures worldwide. It is quite another to engage with a power like Kali, depict it in such manners and hope to get away unscathed!

 

I am not one of those Hindus who are constantly looking to be offended. I quite believe the person who made this picture and the person who displayed this as their Facebook backdrop are sincere and even devout. Kali is very attractive and as an emblem of female power she is irresistible. But a living goddess is a very different thing from a revived one. It is one matter to depict Epona, Bellona, Brigit, Isis, Ishtar and so on. The traditions are being revived and the energy forms and coalesces in mostly benign manners though I would not always be sure of that. But when an ancient archetype, a veritable Force in the Universe, is to be dealt with, one needs caution. There are protocols to approach such powers, and rules to follow in their depiction. In the esoteric and occult realm alas, as in the everyday world, ignorance of the law is no excuse. I am a Yogi and I have been a Tantric in many lives too. I do not seek to convince anybody about this or what I will now say. I merely state my experience. The gods, the devas and devis, are living energies, possible to be actually experienced and interacted with, and they do not take kindly to trifling with them. This picture, alas, will fall into that category.

 

The creation of a divine form to meditate upon and worship, called correctly a Murthi’ and incorrectly an idol, is a specific science in the Yoga system. Texts called the Agama Shastras lay out the parameters very clearly. What material the picture or murthi is to be constructed of, the colours, the number of limbs, the ritual implements they carry, their postures, everything is delineated to an incredible degree. God is formless; every Indian child knows that. The form is a specific degree or band of qualities of the divine that you wish to internalize and transform yourself with. The meditation upon the murthi is to facilitate the creation and dissolution of such qualities as symbolically represented by that divine form. Once you attain your purpose, you can give up that particular worship. These are not matters widely known, but they are the core of the Yogic outlook. Kali is a very speedy and turbulent process of spiritual evolution. She is an archetype of course, and the essence of all archetypes is that they always remain beyond your comprehension, no matter the deepening of wisdom and catalytic transformation of life they provide. The belief that devotion and good intentions will protect you is an optimistic one. The gods are as above the human as the human is above the ant. Accidents will happen; it is for humans to be careful.

The depiction of Kali has certain invariant parameters. This picture violates all the rules, which are actually safety procedures for the worshipper. How does one begin to enumerate the goof-ups? Why is she shown wearing what seems to be a red carpet gown? The essence of Kali is nudity!!! You can cover it up with skulls and garlands and limbs but Kali is nude, symbolizing the complete freedom from all conditionings and artificially created persona. Kali is the Authentic Self, the Face you had before you were born. That she should be nude is axiomatic. {It has caused a lot of problems in India too, when the disapproval of the Semitic faiths at such blood-curdling authenticity could not be shrugged away by a politically powerless Hindus society.}  But she is nude. Always. Then the colour of the skin is all wrong. Kali means “black as night”, she represents the primal power, the chthonic and even more ancient archetypes and that is always the Dark. This looks like a vampire heroine from chick lit.

 

Since she is the Dark, that blood moon behind her is completely wrong. Kali is beyond all categories, including time. Shiva, auspicious consciousness regulates Time, hence he is depicted with a crescent moon. Shiva is usually represented in most pictures of Kali. It is not compulsory but it is a good idea. Kali standing on Shiva is the yin-yang, Purusha-Prakriti, uncontrollable power can be channelled for the benefit of the world only when it is grounded in Consciousness. There is an upright fire triangle behind her – that is a symbol of Shiva. The downward pointing triangle represents Kali – it represents the shape of the yoni. To have a Shiva symbol, {technically called a Yantra, an energy form that symbolically depicts all the attributes of the devata or god,} without depicting Shiva as a figure, to not have the Kali yantra depicted, these are blunders of a magnitude that would cause hysterical laughter in a yogi for their blood would freeze at the risks being taken. When you have a yantra in your work, no matter your knowledge or intention, it activates and the consequences are all your own. Kali is also the wife of Shiva, and she is feminine enough to resent an affront to her husband. Trust me on this.

You cannot meddle with archetypes. The Nazis took the Swastika, painted it in Tantric colours of creation, red white and black, flipped the swastika horizontally and tilted it in a crowning act of idiocy. Every Yogi in India at the time said their doom was sealed. The initial success of the Third Reich may have made the Yogis look foolish but they understood that this was a process of destruction and in the end Germany was literally reduced to rubble. Jung was of the opinion that the occult meddling and perpetual ritual showboating of the Nazis had awakened Wotan{Odin} and they had no idea what was emerging. That was when he made his famous statement about falling into the hands of a living god. He said this in 1936 – when Hitler was riding high, but Jung knew that an unfettered and incomprehensible archetype that was Odin would work out its authenticity to the bitter end and that was Gotterdammerung. If a North God who had lain dormant for a thousand years could spread such havoc imagine what a Primal power like Kali will do in an individual’s life. Kali worship is recommended only for those who are fed up with life and wish to attain liberation. For she will burn your karma to make that possible and the best method is to mess your life up!

 

The flames depicted in this picture are one of the few things the artist has got right. Kali loves to haunt cremation grounds. But think of the symbology, what it implies… is that what you want currently in your life? Blood streams out of her mouth, that would imply she is Chinnamasta shown here. Again this business of drinking blood is spiritually symbolic. I will not reveal what it means, that knowledge is to be given only to those doing a specific practice. To have blood trickling down like this on the face… words fail! Normally Kali uses her left hand when wielding the sword, it is the instinctive severance of ego and limitations. The right hand implies rational control. Two swords are depicted here both of them Khadag Jawala – the flame swords. Now two swords are never used in one murthi, the energy can cut away or protect in certain specific qualities or situations. Two swords complete negate the idea of the sword itself. Then she is shown holding a chakra, the solar disc in her left hand. Ouch! The chakra is a light weapon, logical mind, right side and never ever associated with Kali. The trident is actually a Durga weapon, there is a Durga-Kali amalgam called Chamunda. So which enrgy is supposed to flow thru the picture into you and transform you? Durga, Kali, Chamunda? Such confused communication, such muddled worship is worse than any attempt at all and should be avoided.

 

Kali is also normally shown with a protruding tongue, signifying Vak Tapasya, austerity of speech and victory over rasa – the desire for flavours, taste, stimulation, which are the core drivers for desire in general. That is completely missing here. The empty bowl looking like an athletic trophy is redundant and the blood spilling out of the bowl is a blunder. Again I will not get into the symbolism of it, but that is not the hand in which the bowl should be held and the blood should not be spilled like this. The artist has no clue what sort of calamitous circumstances may be activated by such a rendering. The girdle of severed arms is correct but rendered useless by the gown. The arms depict the end of Grasping, of covetousness, of accumulation and collection, again not the best scenario if you wish to live in the world. But the hugest mistake is that there is no depiction of Abhaya mudra or Varadhana mudra. 

 

 

The Abhaya mudra is the granting of fearlessless, depicted by an upraised right arm, palm facing the viewer. The Varadhana mudra is the granting of boons, lower right arm, palm facing viewer, fingers pointed downward. Without these two symbolic imperatives a Kali depiction is a singular failure, indeed it is doubtful if it is anything but a badly tortured archetype! One requires tremendous hardihood to make such blunders, or tremendous ignorance even if it is innocent. The whole point of engaging with a murthi is that it has to be done under the guidance of an experienced guru. An ancient power like Kali is ever vigilant, the slightest attention is enough to activate it. The transforming energy will seek to flow into the life, but the parameters depicted in the picture or murthi will dictate the quality and nature of the energy flow. In this case there is no granting of fearlessness or boons but two swords, a trident, blood promiscuously spilling all over the place, a Kali swathed in clothes, and even a galaxy like chakra!! What will manifest, what can possibly manifest, through such a tortured mistaken filter should make life very, very interesting indeed. Jung never tired of advising Westerners not to get involved with Eastern methods they imperfectly understood , for the psychic danger of engaging   with such an alien power was too great. It is still good advice. It remains unheeded.

Rohit Arya is an Author, Yogi and Polymath. He has written the first book on Vaastu to be published in the West, {translated into five languages} the first book on tarot to be published in India, co-authored a book on fire sacrifice, and is the creator of The Sacred India Tarot {82 card deck and book}. He has also written A Gathering of Gods. He is the Editor of The Leadership Review, a corporate trainer, as well as an arts critic and cultural commentator. Rohit is also a Lineage Master in the Eight Spiritual Breaths system of Yoga

Rohit Arya on The Secret of Arunachalam

Before I had actually been to the Sacred Hill of Arunachalam, I had been told it is akin to a magnet. Once it gets hold of your mind it never really leaves. Now I can testify to the truth of this. In one of my blog posts this month of December 2011 I had written about Samyama, how it awakened and what I have learnt about Arunachalam as a consequence. Yet I find that Samyama has deepened as a result of the contact with the Agni Lingam that is the Hill. I have had many new insights about Arunachalam, all of which may seem strange, and none of which I can prove per se. I do not wish to do so; I merely state herein what I have come to realize about Arunachalam. It may of use to other spiritual seekers, but I feel it is important to get all of this down on record. {Samyama is a peculiar ability of Yoga in that knowledge of a subject is vouchsafed to you when you put your attention upon the subject; sometime when your mind touches the subject or you view something, the knowledge about that surfaces in the mind. My blog post on Samyama has details} I am also avoiding all the usual mythology about the hill which is easily accessible. These are my insights from Samyama.

Arunachalam has been described in the Puranas as the oldest hill on earth. This is true. The one overwhelming experience about the Hill is that it is alive and immeasurably old. The earth is four and a half billion years old. The rocks in South India are unique in that they exist on perhaps the only place on the planet which was not under water at some time or other. Many of them are easily 450 million years old. The Arunachalam area however is dated at 2.6 billion years! Arunachalam is a giant crystal so as to speak and one of the properties of that substance, as yogis know, is that it can be infused with consciousness to a quite amazing degree. Mythologically the Hill was described to be originally made of diamond. In this case the Hill ‘awakened’ into a rudimentary consciousness, and since it was both stable and still it began to evolve at a clip that in yogic terms was quite rapid, though we are talking millions of years here. Not being an organic body sometimes has advantages for consciousness, as the traps and pitfalls of desire and karma acted upon are bypassed. Arunachalam in that sense is the first enlightened energy, not exactly being, on the planet. 

 

Today that energy has coalesced into a being or divine form called Dakshinamurthi, the South facing Silent Teacher form of Shiva. It is instructive that South Indian Yogis have always found this form of Shiva easy to access: it hardly known in other parts of the country.   Arunachalam is a fully realized Master of Masters, with all the active chakras, and none of the human limitations. Just to make matters even more complex as human and divine Yogis were magnetically drawn to this most ancient and powerful Shiva Lingam they left their impress upon it. The Lingam means a sign, a signifier, in this case of Pure Auspicious Consciousness.{Later tantric byways made the lingam a synonym for the male organ but that is irrelevant here} The heart of the crystal mountain is the fire within the earth’s crust hence it’s obvious form as the Fire Tattva. The many yogis who left their impress here also realized the Masculine and Feminine concordance of the Divine, hence the hill is also an Ardhanarishwara lingam, half male half female, the West side supposedly the female side. The Akandashram cave on Arunachalam is also backed by a giant Ardhnarishwara yantra. But the Fire of the Hill is the light of illumination, the inner guru that is present in all, and is the infallible source of wisdom. The Fire is beyond comprehension, category or conclusions.

 

If Kailasha where Shiva resides, Aruanchalam is his ‘heart’ so as to speak. It is older than Kailasha that much is sure, but as I said earlier Kailasha seems to have emerged onto this reality from another dimension to speed up evolution in all planes, not just the visible one. I don’t know if this makes sense or not but I know exactly what the difference is between them, these two sacred Giris or mountains. Kailasha is the knowledge base, the potential, the possibilities, the catalyst, the future of consciousness as it evolves. Arunachalam is the Witness, the Fire, Kaala Agni Rudra, the First and the Last, the base of Being. Like I said, words fail. Many places claim to be the Omphalos, the Navel of the World and they are right for there is something of value at each of those sacred spots. But Arunachala,, Aruna – Achala , The Red-Unmoving, The Red-Unshakable, this is the ancient heart of the world. 

 

There are approximately 1920 Siddha shrines, mostly invisible, all over the Hill and its periphery. Siddhas are beings who are greater than the gods, evolved to a stage that is beyond belief and they have left their energy signatures or ‘booster packets’ all over the place. Those who have the Adhikara, the karmic right, having earned it with sadhana, can access the energy. Entire spiritual lineages or paramparas can be reconstructed from Arunachalam. There are also many paramparas which have not yet begun, waiting for those with the Adhikara to discover them and put them to use in teaching – if they want to deal with the karma! While crisscrossing the hill there were several times when I felt the energy change distinctly. Since to be near the Hill is to get a perpetual blast of inrushing energy I did not think much of it but now, in Samyama, the realization dawns that they were places of karmic linkage with me, teachers and paramparas in alignment with me. 

 

My parampara for this round is the Eight Spiritual Breaths but Samyama is teaching me that sometimes you have more than one option in your set of skills. Masters may choose to transmit a parampara which can then be taught to somebody else with greater Adhikara than the person first receiving the transmission. Weird but then Yogis have always been a law unto themselves!! The parampara can thus be revitalized. In my meditation I had received a Sanskrit saying “Shariram Parampara Vahanam” – the Body is the vehicle of transmission of Parampara. I now realize that a Parampara can also use you as a bus service till it gets to the person who has the Rnanubandhana and Adhikara to develop it or revive it! You may also receive input that you don’t use in this lifetime. Since the input is not to your mind but to your pranamaya kosha you will carry it easily across multiple lives till the need comes to utilize and access it. I think I was being given such input but I was too dense to see it at the time. 

 

The Siddha shrines are all covered in the Girivallam, the sacred circuit round the hill. This is matter of great good fortune. To do puja for four hours is usually not possible but since the circuit takes four hours for most people, that is four hours of puja to an Agni Lingam right there. It is an immense achievement. As to the number 1920, why not a round 2000, all I have to say is that to evolve into being a Siddha is not easy even in a time frame of 2.6 billion years. Just 80 more to achieve the magic number of 2000, which will be an immense tipping point for humanity but as we are currently constituted it is not going to be easy or soon. The Hill always has a Master in residence, sometimes more, usually not embodied. But a Siddha is another level of reality or rather Unreality and not easy to come by. Even Arunachalam finds that particular miracle to be a slow possibility. 

 

Dakshinamurthi Shiva is physically present here, under or near a miraculous Banyan tree which is visible and invisible according to receptivity. I have not been able to understand more at this stage. The hill is very traditional in outlook so vairagya, world weariness and renunciation is activated almost as a default. That has been the trend for a thousand years now and the Integral view of spiritualizing life in all aspects is an older, somewhat covered over aspect of the Hill. If you stick to it, you can access that layer. It must not be forgotten that almost all the Vedic rishis were family men with great roles to play in the world. The magnetic pull of the Hill is impossible to describe, it grabs hold of you and I finally understand the famous words of the Yoga Sutras – Yoga Chitta Vriddhi Nirodaha - Yoga is the cessation of the modifications of the mind. An unbelievable quietude and stillness takes possession of the mind when Arunachalam is remembered. In my case it seems to be cleansing accumulated sorrow and grief over many rounds, the mind body organism is one mass of pain that is slowly leaving the being, replacing it with Presence. It is terrible, but it is great. Like the Sacred Hill you rely only on your Self. 

 

Rohit Arya is an Author, Yogi and Polymath. He has written the first book on Vaastu to be published in the West, {translated into five languages} the first book on tarot to be published in India, co-authored a book on fire sacrifice, and is the creator of The Sacred India Tarot {82 card deck and book}  published in the last quarter of 2011. He has also written A Gathering of Gods due at the same time. He is the Editor of The Leadership Review, a corporate trainer, as well as an arts critic and cultural commentator. Rohit is also a Lineage Master in the Eight Spiritual Breaths system of Yoga

Rohit Arya on Karma, Healing and Predictions

 

 

I had a long career as a ‘miracle worker’. Now it is over. After you get burned consistently your thick skull finally entertains the possibility the Universe is trying to tell you something. It was not called miracle working; I called it ‘manifesting; or ‘beaming energy’. I had begun Reiki, discovered a completely disconcerting talent for it, and progressed to such an extent that over the years I attained all the exalted grand panjandrum levels the Reiki crowd so love. More importantly my Reiki went to a level that very few people manage, it began to flow cold, - still does- like ice water from a Himalayan stream, and the healings that resulted were supernatural. I made a lot of money and got entangled into a lot of futile karmic bonds as a result of this, but the discovery of cold Reiki almost made the whole process worth it.

Almost.

I did incredible things with healing, I see that today, what counts as bonafide miracles, and all I want to do today is kick my own silly ass. But healing was how I came to realize I could bend reality as it is understood, basically because it is imperfectly understood. All the healing and working as the editor of my Guru’s book on the Kundalini Shakti – she was not my guru then – caused the awakening of the Kundalini within myself. I began serious meditation and a spiritual process. My powers amplified and naturally I made an even bigger ass of myself doing ‘miracles.’ I once kept a vehicle going for nine kms, till we got to the destination, after the gear shaft came out in the hand of the person driving it. And unless you have seen urban Indian traffic you don’t know how bat-shit insane this was! This is the only example I will give, for good reasons. I know what I did, the people concerned know what I did, and disbelief is irrelevant

 

My Other great skill was in making predictions and advice … I remain very good at reading hands, very skilled at the I Ching and I am the only person in India who has written two books on the Tarot, apart from creating a deck based entirely on Indian mythology and Yoga. I also know, to some extent, the ancient Indian skill of Mukha Lakshanam, reading the signs of the face. In Tarot reading I am a god, modesty be dammed, especially as I do not read any more unless in dire circumstances. I got very, very good at these interventions, in seeing how things were going to play out, though I was somewhat of a Cassandra. This was a blessing; I did not know it then. My predictions seemed to be most potent in the long term where they were crushingly accurate. Of course I developed schandenfreude, a mean streak of “I told you so, but you did not listen, so suffer now!” Power in the hands of fools intoxicates and degenerates. I made a lot of money from the tarot too, but when the stream started thinning I could not comprehend the lessons it was seeking to communicate. This was not the proper use of the Tarot, which is a Yoga, a spiritual path, in its own right. To utilize it primarily for questions about money grubbing and relationship failure was to demean it and you don’t demean a dragon no matter how tolerant.

 

As my Yoga got stronger, I began to understand the sombre consequences of such meddling. Here are some of the lessons I learnt. When you do such things, a certain quality of people begin to cling to you, and the experience is akin to being embraced by a weepy sentimental octopus in a gas chamber. When we perform such actions, no matter what we feel or say, we have expectations of gratitude from the others. That is bound to be disappointed. People have no concept of the energy drain involved in doing such things and more importantly they do not care – they are only interested in their benefit.

If you do something remarkable once, you have to be remarkable all the time. When you display the truth of Somerset Maugham’s statement, “Only a mediocre person can be at his best all the time” they are disappointed and feel cheated. You can never satisfy expectations once you have made the blunder of miracle mongering. Siddhis, the inner energy powers, are the biggest temptation and flaw for a yogi. The people you perform miracles for, the karma between you and them is so imbalanced, it burns out and such relationships rarely survive. When you heal, when you intervene, when you fix things, you are actually starring in a spectacular heroic role in your mind, the hero, the saviour. It is complete idiocy.

 

When you perform an intervention like this you are interfering with karma. There was a karmic originating cause which manifested a situation as a response. That situation is causing trouble; by fixing it you merely remove the reaction. The karma that caused the first situation is still active, and it sends another packet of karma from your store across lifetimes, the sabija, and almost always the replacement karma is worse than the original karma! This is why healing is a blunder of enormous magnitude. As the healer, the reader, you interfered with the karma, you peeled back the veil which mercifully covered the process. Your responsibility is therefore great, as much as the person who asked for and participated in the intervention. Such things do not come without consequences, such abilities cannot be paid for only in money. In any case you cannot heal anybody, the best you can do is to help them integrate themselves. Once they become integral, the dis-ease also dis-appears. 

 

The same principles apply in making predictions and suggesting pratiharams or remedies. But over time I began to see something even stronger manifest. So there is a situation and you do a reading of some sort, a “read the future, see what is in store and how can trouble be avoided” intervention. Well and good – or so it would seem. However …I began to comprehend something so much deeper it refused to be consciously acknowledged at first! It was so massive in scope, so prodigious in its implications, and so athwart my skills that I did not wish to acknowledge it, not really. The stunning realization was this. Once you foresee the consequences of a situation {or heal it} you are bound to that outcome - and there may be much better possibilities that you are therefore aborting!!! The head reels…I know. Karma operates in such peculiar fashion. What we call destiny, or Dridha – ‘fixed karma’ is also just one band of vibrational possibility. This aggregate of forces can be changed with Purushartha, or mindful effort, the application of Will, but if we venture into prediction, into foresight, we are, so as to speak, bound to that particular line of possibility. All other, greater, more desirable results get shut off. This is staggering. It is also completely inexorable. We have no choice but to accept what we have foreseen, though if we had not done that, and creatively responded to the situation we might have ended up with much more splendid outcomes. In fact, not to intervene, to heal, to read, is almost always the best option as it retains space for creative response, and that usually leads to optimal results. What we desire as outcomes is predicated upon our limited natures and expectations, whereas karma may have something transformative in store for us, which we impede with our unthinking actions.

 

When I could no longer deny the relentless nature of this process, my readings and healings dwindled almost to zero. Every intervention is now an interference with karmic possibility. There has to be very compelling reasons indeed for such impertinence and I no longer have the hardihood to rate myself so highly. Genuine healers, those with an unmistakable Vocation, in the grand old sense of the word, have enough karmic links - Rnanubandhana, the debt-bond - with those they heal. The rest of us are muddling ourselves up in karmic quicksand. It is very difficult to accept this, especially when you are supernaturally skilled at something, as I remain. It is Skill, not Vocation and the difference is critical. The humiliating realization is that such interventions are a loss of freedom and for a Yogi such a thing is an impossible affront. For you cannot accept or reject evolving circumstances and tailor a creative response anymore, you can only go by the parameters you have created by your own good intentioned meddling. Even your movement of energy, your every action, is then circumscribed by what you have anticipated. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions” warns the old saw, and if not hell, at least long term ineffectualness is your lot when you do such things. I desist therefore, unless there is a clear internal command, an adesha, to intervene, but Shiva is merciful and such occasions are rare. 

 

Rohit Arya is an Author, Yogi and Polymath. He has written the first book on Vaastu to be published in the West, {translated into five languages} the first book on tarot to be published in India, co-authored a book on fire sacrifice, and is the creator of The Sacred India Tarot {82 card deck and book}  published in the last quarter of 2011. He has also written A Gathering of Gods due at the same time. He is the Editor of The Leadership Review, a corporate trainer, as well as an arts critic and cultural commentator. Rohit is also a Lineage Master in the Eight Spiritual Breaths system of Yoga