PART 2 OF 2
The guru as manipulator of the divine:In view of the previously suggested dissonance between prajna and upaya, we must ask ourselves who this authority is, who via the “method” makes use of the wisdom-energy for his own purposes. This question is all the more pertinent, since in the visible reality of the tantric religions — in the culture of Tibetan Lamaism for instance — Vajrayana is never represented as a pair of equals, but almost exclusively as single men, in very rare cases as single women. The two partners meet only to perform the ritual sexual act and then separate.
It follows conclusively from what has already been described that it must be the masculine principle which effects the manipulation of the feminine wisdom. It appears in the figure of the “tantric master”. His knowledge of the sacred techniques makes him a “yogi”. Whenever he assumes the role of teacher he is known as a guru (Sanskrit) or a lama (Tibetan).
How does the tantric master’s exceptional position of power arise? Every Vajrayana follower practices the so-called “Deity yoga”, in which the self is imagined as a divinity. The believer distinguishes between two levels. Firstly he meditates upon the “emptiness” of all being, in order to overcome his bodily, mental, and spiritual impurities and “blocks” and creates an empty space. The core of this meditative process of dissolution is the surrender of the individual ego. Following this, the living image (yiddam) of the particular divine being who should appear in the appropriate ritual is formed in the yogi’s imaginative consciousness. His or her body, color, posture, clothing, facial expression and moods are described in detail in the holy texts and must be recreated exactly in the mind. We are thus not dealing with an exercise of spontaneous and creative free imagination, but rather with an accurate reproduction of a codified archetype.
The practitioner may externalize or project the yiddam, so that it appears before him. But this is just the first step; in those which follow he imagines himself as the deity. Thus he swaps his own personal ego with that of a supernatural being. The yogi has now surmounted his human existence and constitutes “to the very last atom” a unity with the god (Glasenapp, 1940, p. 101).
But he must never lose sight of the fact that the deity he has imagined possesses no autonomous existence. It exists purely and exclusively as an emanation of his imagination and can thus be created, maintained and destroyed at will. But who actually is this tantric master, this manipulator of the divine? His consciousness has nothing in common with that of an ordinary person; it must belong to a sphere higher than that of the gods. The texts and commentaries describe this “highest authority” as the “higher self” or as the primeval Buddha (ADI BUDDHA), as the primordial one, the origin of all being, with whom the yogi identifies himself.
Thus, when we speak of a “guru” in Vajrayana, then according to the doctrine we are no longer dealing with an individual, but with an archetypal and transcendental being, who has as it were borrowed a human body in order to appear in the world. Events are not in the control of the person (from the Latin persona ‘mask’), but rather the god acting through him. This in turn is the emanation of an arch-god, an epiphany of the most high ADI BUDDHA. Followed to its logical conclusion this means that the Fourteenth Dalai Lama (the most senior tantric master of Tibetan Buddhism) determines the politics of the Tibetans in exile not as a person, but as the Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara, whose emanation he is. Thus, if we wish to pass judgment on his politics, we must come to terms with the motives and visions of Avalokiteshvara.
The tantric master’s enormous power does not have its origin in a Vajrayana doctrine, but in the two main philosophical directions of Mahayana Buddhism (Madhyamika and Yogachara). The Madhyamika school of Nagarjuna (fifth century C.E.) discusses the principle of emptiness (shunyata) which forms a basis for all being. Radically, this also applies to the gods. They are purely illusory and for a yogi are worth neither more nor less than a tool which he employs in setting his goals and then puts aside.
Paradoxically, this radical Buddhist perceptual theory led to the admission of an immense multitude of gods, most of whom stemmed from the Hindu cultural sphere. From now on these could populate the Buddhist heaven, something which was taboo in Hinayana. As they were in the final instance illusory, there was no longer any need to fear them or regard them as competition; since they could be “negated”, they could be “integrated”.
For the Yogacara school (fourth century C.E.), everything — the self, the world and the gods — consists of “consciousness” or “pure spirit”. This extreme idealism also makes it possible for the yogi to manipulate the universe according to his wishes and plans. Because the heavens and their inhabitants are nothing more than play figures of his spirit, they can be produced, destroyed and exchanged at whim.
But what, in an assessment of the Vajrayana system, should give grounds for reflection is the fact, already mentioned, that the Buddhist pantheon presented on the tantric stage is codified in great detail. Neither in the choreography nor the costumes have there been any essential changes since the twelfth century C.E., if one is prepared to overlook the inclusion of several minor protective spirits, of which the youngest (Dorje Shugden for example) date from the seventeenth century. In current “Deity yoga”, practiced by an adept today (even one from the West), a preordained heaven with its old gods is conjured up. The adept calls upon primeval images which were developed in Indian/Tibetan, perhaps even Mongolian, cultural circles, and which of course — as we will demonstrate in detail in the second part of our study — represent the interests and political desires of these cultures. [3]
Since the Master resides on a level higher than that of a god, and is, in the final instance, the ADI BUDDHA, his pupils are obliged to worship him as an omnipotent super-being, who commands the gods and goddesses, Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. The following apotheosis of a tantric teacher, which the semi-mythical founder of Buddhism in Tibet, Padmasambhava, laid down for an initiand, is symptomatic of countless similar prayers in the liturgy of Tantrism: “You should know that one’s master is more important than even the thousand buddhas of this aeon. Why is that? It is because all the buddhas of this aeon appeared after having followed a master. ... The master is the buddha [enlightenment], the master is the dharma [cosmic law], in the same way the master is also the sangha [monastic order]” (Binder-Schmidt, 1994, p. 35). In the Guhyasamaja Tantra we can read how all enlightened beings bow down before the teacher: “All the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas throughout the past, present and future worship the Teacher .... [and] make this pronouncing of vajra words: ‘He is the father of all us Buddhas, the mother of all us Buddhas, in that he is the teacher of all us Buddhas’” (Snellgrove, 1987, vol. 1, p. 177).
A bizarre anecdote from the early stages of Tantrism makes this deification of the gurus even more apparent. One day, the famous vajra master, Naropa, asked his pupil, Marpa, “If I and the god Hevajra appeared before you at the same time, before whom would you kneel first?” Marpa thought, “I see my guru every day, but if Hevajra reveals himself to me then that is indeed a quite extraordinary event, and it would certainly be better to show respect to him first!” When he told his master this, Naropa clicked two fingers and in that moment Hevajra appeared with his entire retinue. But before Marpa could prostrate himself in the dust before the apparition, with a second click of the fingers it vanished into Naropa’s heart. “You made a mistake!” cried the master (Dhargyey, 1985, p. 123).
In another story, the protagonists are this same Naropa and his instructor, the Kalachakra Master Tilopa. Tilopa spoke to his pupil, saying, “If you want teaching, then construct a mandala!” Naropa was unable to find any seeds, so he made the mandala out of sand. But he sought without success for water to cement the sand. Tilopa asked him, “Do you have blood?” Naropa slit his veins and the blood flowed out. But then, despite searching everywhere, he could find no flowers. “Do you not have limbs?” asked Tilopa. “Cut off your head and place it in the center of the mandala. Take your arms and legs and arrange them around it!” Naropa did so and dedicated the mandala to his guru, then he collapsed from blood loss. When he regained consciousness, Tilopa asked him, “Are you content?” and Naropa answered, “It is the greatest happiness to be able to dedicate this mandala, made of my own flesh and blood, to my guru”.
The power of the gurus — this is what these stories should teach us — is boundless, whilst the god is, finally, just an illusion which the guru can produce and dismiss at will. He is the arch-lord, who reigns over life and death, heaven and hell. Through him speaks the ABSOLUTE SPIRIT, which tolerates nothing aside from itself.
The pupil must completely surrender his individual ego and transform it into a subject of the SPIRIT which dwells in his teacher. “I and my teacher are one” means then that the same SPIRIT lives in both.
The appropriation of gynergy and androcentric power strategies:Only in extremely rare cases is the omnipotence and divinity of a yogi acquired at birth. It is usually the result of a graded and complicated spiritual progression. Clearly, to be able to realize his omnipotence, which should transcend even the sexual polarity of all which exists, a male tantric master requires a substance, which we term “gynergy” (female energy), and which we intend to examine in more detail in the following. As he cannot, at the outset of his path to power, find this “elixir” within himself, he must seek it there where in accordance with the laws of nature it may be found in abundance, in women.
Vajrayana is therefore — according to the assessments of no small number of Western researchers of both sexes — a male sexual magic technique designed to “rob” women of their particularly female form of energy and to render it useful for the man. Following the “theft”, it flows for the tantric adept as the spring which powers his experiences of spiritual enlightenment. All the potencies which, from a Tibetan point of view, are to be sought and found in the feminine sphere are truly astonishing: knowledge, matter, sensuality, language, light — indeed, according to the tantric texts, the yogi perceives the whole universe as feminine. For him, the feminine force (shakti) and feminine wisdom (prajna) constantly give birth to reality; even transcendental truths such as “emptiness” (shunyata) are feminine. Without “gynergy”, in the tantric view of things none of the higher levels along the path to enlightenment can be reached, and hence in no circumstances a state of perfection.
In order to be able to acquire the primeval feminine force of the universe, a yogi must have mastered the appropriate spiritual methods (upaya), which we examine in detail later in this study. The well-known investigator of Tibetan culture, David Snellgrove, describes their chief function as the transmutation of the feminine form into the masculine with the intention of accumulating power. It is for this and no other reason that the tantric seeks contact with a female. Usually, “power flows from the woman to the man, especially when she is more powerful than he”, the Indologist Doniger O’Flaherty (O’Flaherty, 1982, p. 263) informs us. Hence, since the powerful feminine creates the world, the “uncreative” masculine yogi can only become a creator if he appropriates the creative powers of the goddess. “May I be born from birth to birth”, he thus cries in the Hevajra Tantra, “concentrating in myself the essence of woman” (Snellgrove, 1959, p. 116). He is the sorcerer who believes that all power is feminine, and that he knows the secret of how to manipulate it.
The key to his dreams of omnipotence lies in how he is able to transform himself into a “supernatural” being, an androgyne who has access to the potentials of both sexes. The two sexual energies now lose their equality and are brought into a hierarchical relation with each other in which the masculine part exercises absolute control over the feminine.
When, in the reverse situation, the feminine principle appropriates the masculine and attempts to dominate it, we have a case of gynandry. Gynandric rites are known from the Hindu tantras. But in contrast, in androcentric Buddhism we are dealing exclusively with the production of a “perfect” androgynous state, i.e., in social terms with the power of men over women or, in brief, the establishment of a patriarchal monastic regime.
Since the “bisexuality” of the yogi represents a precondition for the development of his power, it forms a central topic of discussion in every highest tantra. It is known simply as the “two-in-one” principle, which suspends all oppositions, such as wisdom and method, subject and object, emptiness and compassion, but above all masculine and feminine (Snellgrove, 1987, vol. 1, p. 285). Other phrases include “bipolarity” or the realization of “bisexual divinity within one’s own body” (Herrmann-Pfand, 1992, p. 314).
However, the “two-in-one” principle is not directed at a state beyond sexuality and erotic love, as modern interpreters often misunderstand it to be. The tantric master deliberately utilizes the masculine/feminine sexual energies to obtain and exercise power and does not destroy them, even if they are only present within his own identity after the initiation. They continue to function there as the two polar primeval forces, but now within the androgynous yogi.
Thus, in Tantrism we are in any case dealing with an erotic cult, one which recognizes cosmic erotic love as the defining force of the universe, even if it is manipulated in the interests of power. This is in stark contrast to the asexual concepts of Mahayana Buddhism. “The state of bisexuality, defined as the possession of both masculine and feminine sexual powers, was considered unfortunate, that is, not conducive to spiritual growth. Because of the excessive sexual power of both masculinity and femininity, the bisexual individual had weakness of will or inattention to moral precepts”, reports Diana Paul in reference to the “Great Vehicle” (D. Paul, 1985, pp. 172–173).
But Vajrayana does not let itself be intimidated by such proclamations, but instead worships the androgyne as a radiant diamond being, who feels in his heart “the blissful kiss of the inner male and female forces” (Mullin, 1991, p. 243). The tantric androgyne is supposed to actually partake of the lusts and joys of both sexes, but just as much of their concentrated power. Although in his earthly form he appears before us as a man, the yogi nonetheless rules as both man and woman, as god and goddess, as father and mother at once. The initiand is instructed to “visualize the lama as Kalachakra in Father and Mother aspect, that is to say, in union with his consort” (Dalai Lama XIV, 1985, p. 174), and must then declare to his guru, “You are the mother, you are the father, you are the teacher of the world!” (Grünwedel, Kalacakra II, p. 180).
The vaginal Buddha:The goal of androgyny is the acquisition of absolute power, as, according to tantric doctrine, the entire cosmos must be seen as the play and product of both sexes. Now united in the mystic body of the yogi, the latter thereby believes he has the secret birth-force at his disposal — that natural ability of woman which he as man principally lacks and which he therefore desires so strongly.
This desire finds expression in, among other things, the royal title Bhagavan (ruler or regent), which he acquires after the tantric initiation. The Sanskrit word bhaga originally designated the female pudendum, womb, vagina or vulva. But bhaga also means happiness, bliss, wealth, sometimes emptiness. This metaphor indicates that the multiplicity of the world emerges from the womb of woman. The yogi thus lets himself be revered in the Kalachakra Tantra as Bhagavat or Bhagavan, as a bearer of the female birth-force or alternatively as a “bringer of happiness”. “The Buddha is called Bhagavat, because he possesses the Bhaga, this characterizes the quality of his rule” (Naropa, 1994, p. 136), we can read in Naropa’s commentary from the eleventh century, and the famous tantric continues, “The Bhaga is according to tradition the horn of plenty in possession of the six boons in their perfected form: sovereignty, beauty, good name/reputation, abundance, insight, and the appropriate force to be able to achieve the goals set” (Naropa, 1994, p. 136). In their introduction to the Hevajra Tantra the contemporary authors, G. W. Farrow and I. Menon, write, “In the tantric view the Bhagavan is defined as the one who possesses Bhaga, the womb, which is the source” (Farrow and Menon, 1992, p. xxiii).
Although this male usurpation of the Bhaga first reaches its full extent and depth of symbolism in Tantrism, it is presaged by a peculiar bodily motif from an earlier phase of Buddhism. In accordance with a broadly accepted canon, an historical Buddha must identify himself through 32 distinguishing features. These take the form of unusual markings on his physical body, like, for example, sun-wheel images on the soles of his feet. The tenth sign, known to Western medicine as cryptorchidism, is that the penis is covered by a thick fold of skin, “the concealment of the lower organs in a sheath”; this text goes on to add, “Buddha’s private parts are hidden like those of a horse [i.e., stallion]” (Gross, 1993, p. 62).
Even if cryptorchidism as an indicator of the Enlightened One in Mahayana Buddhism is meant to show his “asexuality”, in our opinion in Vajrayana it can only signal the appropriation of feminine sexual energies without the Buddha thus needing to renounce his masculine potency. Instead, in drawing the comparison to a stallion which has a penis which naturally rests in a “sheath”, it is possible to tap into one of the most powerful mythical sexual metaphors of the Indian cultural region. Since the Vedas the stallion has been seen as the supreme animal symbol for male potency. In Tibetan folklore, the Dalai Lamas also possess the ability to “retract” their sexual organs (Stevens, 1993, p. 180).
The Buddha as mother and the yogi as goddess:The “ability to give birth” acquired through the “theft” of gynergy transforms the guru into a “mother”, a super-mother who can herself produce gods. Every Tibetan lama thus values highly the fact that he can lay claim to the powerful symbols of motherhood, and a popular epithet for tantric yogis is “Mother of all Buddhas” (Gross, 1993, p. 232). The maternal role logically presupposes a symbolic pregnancy. Consequently, being “pregnant” is a common metaphor used to describe a tantric master’s productive capability (Wayman, 1977, p. 57).
But despite all of his motherly qualities, in the final instance the yogi represents the male arch-god, the ADI BUDDHA, who produced the mother goddess out of himself as an archetype: “It is to be noted that the primordial goddess had emanated from the Lord”, notes an important tantra interpreter, “The Lord is the beginningless eternal One; while the Goddess, emanating from the body of the Lord, is the produced one” (Dasgupta, 1946, p. 384). Eve was created from Adam’s rib, as Genesis already informs us. Since, according to the tantric initiation, the feminine should only exist as a manipulable element of the masculine, the tantras talk of the “together born female” (Wayman, 1977, p. 291).
Once the emanation of the mother goddess from the masculine god has been formally incorporated in the canon, there is no further obstacle to a self-imagining and self-production of the lama as goddess. “Then behold yourself as divine woman in empty form” (Evans-Wentz, 1937, p. 177), instructs a guide to meditation for a pupil. In another, the latter declaims, “I myself instantaneously become the Holy Lady” (quoted by Beyer, 1978, p. 378).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Steven Segal (Hollywood actor): The Dalai Lama “is the great mother of everything nuturing and loving. He accepts all who come without judgement.” (Schell, 2000, p. 69)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Once kitted out with the force of the feminine, the tantric master even has the ability to produce whole hosts of female figures out of himself or to fill the whole universe with a single female figure: “To begin with, imagine the image (of the goddess Vajrayogini) of roughly the size of your own body, then in that of a house, then a hill, and finally in the scale of outer space” (Evans-Wentz, 1937, p. 136). Or he imagines the cosmos as an endlessly huge palace of supernatural couples: “All male divinities dance within me. And all female divinities channel their sacred vajra songs through me”, the Second Dalai Lama writes lyrically in a tantric song (Mullin, 1991, p. 67). But “then, he [the yogi] can resolve these couples in his meditation. Little by little he realizes that their objective existence is illusory and that they are but a function. ... He transcends them and comes to see them as images reflected in a mirror, as a mirage and so on” (Carelli, 1941, p. 18).
However, outside of the rites and meditation sessions, that is, in the real world, the double-gendered super-being appears almost exclusively in the body of a man and only very rarely as a woman, even if he exclaims in the Guhyasamaja Tantra, “I am without doubt any figure. I am woman and I am man, I am the figure of the androgyne” (Gäng, 1998, p. 66).
What happens to the woman?:Once the yogi has “stolen” her gynergy using sexual magic techniques, the woman vanishes from the tantric scenario. “The feminine partner”, writes David Snellgrove, “known as the Wisdom-Maiden [prajna] and supposedly embodying this great perfection of wisdom, is in effect used as a means to an end, which is experienced by the yogi himself. Moreover, once he has mastered the requisite yoga techniques he has no need of a feminine partner, for the whole process is re-enacted within his own body. Thus despite the eulogies of women in these tantras and her high symbolic status , the whole theory and practice is given for the benefit of males” (Snellgrove, 1987, vol. 1, p. 287).
Equivalent quotations from many other Western interpreters of Tantrism can be found: “In ... Tantrism ... woman is means, an alien object, without possibility of mutuality or real communication” (quoted by Shaw, 1994, p. 7). The woman “is to be used as a ritual object and then cast aside” (also quoted by Shaw, 1994, p. 7). Or, at another point: the yogis had “sex without sensuality ... There is no relationship of intimacy with an individual — the woman ... involved is an object, a representation of power ... women are merely spiritual batteries” (quoted by Shaw, 1994, n. 128, pp. 254–255). The woman functions as a “salvation tool”, as an “aid on the path to enlightenment”. The goal of Vajrayana is even “to destroy the female” (quoted by Shaw, 1994, p. 7).
Incidentally, this functionalization of the sexual partner is addressed — as we still have to show — without deliberation or shame in the original Vajrayana texts. Modern Western authors with views compatible to those of Buddhism, on the contrary, tend toward the opinion that the tantric androgyne harmonizes both sexual roles equally within itself, so that the androgynous pattern is valid for both men and women. But this is not the case. Even at an etymological level, androgyny (from Ancient Greek anér ‘man’ and gyné ‘woman’) cannot be applied to both sexes. The term denotes — when taken literally — the male-feminine forces possessed by a man, whilst for a woman the respective phenomenon would have to be termed “gynandry” (female-masculine forces possessed by a woman).
Androgyny vs. gynandry:Since androgyny and gynandry are used in reference to the organization of sex-specific energies and not a description of physical sexual characteristics, it could be felt that we are being overly pedantic here. That would be true if it were not that Tantrism involved an extreme cult of the male body, psyche and spirit. With extremely few exceptions all Vajrayana gurus are men. What is true of the world of appearances is also true at the highest transcendental level. The ADI BUDDHA is primarily depicted in the form of a man.
Following our discussion of the “mystic” physiology of the yogi, we shall further be able to see that this describes the construction of a masculine body of energy. But any doubts about whether androgyny represents a virile usurpation of feminine energies ought to vanish once we have aired the secrets of the tantric seed (semen) gnosis. Here the male yogi uses a woman’s menstrual blood to construct his bisexual body.
Consequently, the attempt to create an androgynous being out of a woman means that her own feminine essence becomes subordinated to a masculine principle (the principle of anér). Even when she exhibits the outward sexual characteristics of a woman (breasts and vagina), she mutates, as we know already from Mahayana Buddhism, in terms of energy into a man. In contrast, a truly female counterpart to an androgynous guru would be a gynandric mistress. The question, however, is whether the techniques taught in the Buddhist tantras are at all suitable for instituting a process transforming a woman in the direction of gynandry, or whether they have been written by and for men alone. Only after a detailed description of the tantric rituals will we be able to answer this question.
The absolute power of the “Grand Sorcerer” (Maha Siddha):The goal of tantric androgyny is the concentration of absolute power in the tantric master, which in his view constitutes the unrestricted control over both cosmic primal forces, the god and the goddess. If one assumes that he has, through constant meditative effort, destroyed his individual ego, then it is no longer a person who has concentrated this power within himself. In place of the human ego is the superego of a god with far-reaching powers. This superhuman subject knows no bounds when it proclaims in the Hevajra Tantra, “I am the revealer, I am the revealed doctrine and I am the disciple endowed with good qualities. I am the goal, I am the master of the world and I am the world as well as the worldly things” (Farrow and Menon, 1992, p. 167). In the tantras there is a distinction between two types of power:
Supernatural power, that is, ultimately, enlightened consciousness and Buddhahood.
Worldly power such as wealth, health, regency, victory over an enemy, and so forth.
But a classification of the tantras into a lower category, concerned with only worldly matters, and a higher, in which the truly religious goals are taught, is not possible. All of the writings concern both the “sacred” and the “profane”.
Supernatural power gives the tantric master control over the whole universe. He can dissolve it and re-establish it. It grants him control over space and time in all of their forms of expression. As “time god” (Kalachakra) he becomes “lord of history”. As ADI BUDDHA he determines the course of evolution.
Worldly power means, above all, being successfully able to command others. In the universalism of Vajrayana those commanded are not just people, but also beings from other transhuman spheres — spirits, gods and demons. These cannot be ruled with the means of this world alone, but only through the art of supernatural magic. Fundamentally, then, the power of a guru increases in proportion to the number and effectiveness of his “magical forces” (siddhis). Power and the knowledge of the magic arts are synonymous for a tantric master.
Such a pervasive presence of magic is somewhat fantastic for our Western consciousness. We must therefore try to transpose ourselves back to ancient India, the fairytale land of miracles and secrets and imagine the occult ambience out of which Tantric Buddhism emerged. The Indologist Heinrich Zimmer has sketched the atmosphere of this time as follows: “Here magic is something very real. A magic word, correctly pronounced penetrates the other person without resistance, transforms, bewitches them. Then under the spell of involuntary participation the other is porous to the fluid of the magic-making will, it electrically conducts the current which connects with him” (Zimmer, 1973, p. 79). In the Tibet of the past, things were no different until sometime this century. All the phenomena of the world are magically interconnected, and “secret threads [link] every word, every act, even every thought to the eternal grounding of the world” (Zimmer, 1973, p. 18). As the “bearers of magical power” or as “sorcerer kings” the tantric yogis cast out nets woven from such threads. For this reason they are known as Maha Siddhas, “Grand Sorcerers”.
Lamaist “sorcerer” (a Ngak’phang gÇodpa)When we pause to examine what the tantras say about the magical objects with which a Maha Siddha is kitted out, we are reminded of the wondrous objects which only fairytale heroes possess: a magical sword which brings victory and power over all possible enemies; an eye ointment with which one can discover hidden treasure; a pair of “seven-league boots” that allow the adept to reach any place on earth in no time at all, traveling both on the ground and through the air; there is an elixir which alchemically transforms base metals into pure gold; a magic potion which grants eternal youth and a wonder cure to protect from sickness and death; pills which give him the ability to assume any shape or form; a magic hood that makes the sorcerer invisible. He can assume the appearance of several different individuals at the same time, can suspend gravity and can read people’s thoughts. He is aware of his earlier incarnations, has mastered all meditation techniques; he can shrink to the size of an atom and expand his body outward to the stars. He possesses the “divine eye” and “divine ear”. In brief, he has the power to determine everything according to his will.
The Maha Siddhas control the universe through their spells, enchantment formulas, or mantras. “I am aware”, David Snellgrove comments, “that present-day western Buddhists, specifically those who are followers of the Tibetan tradition, dislike this English word [spell,] used for mantra and the rest because of its association with vulgar magic. One need only reply that whether one likes it or not, the greater part of the tantras are concerned precisely with vulgar magic, because this is what most people are interested in” (Snellgrove, 1987,vol. 1, p. 143).
“Erotic” spells, which allow the yogi to obtain women for his sexual magic rituals, are mentioned remarkably often in the tantric texts. He continues to practice the ritual sexual act after his enlightenment: since the key to power lies in the woman every instance of liturgical coition bolsters his omnipotence. It is not just earthly beings who must obey such mantras, but female angels and grisly inhabitants of the underworld too.
The almighty sorcerer can also enslave a woman against her will. He simply needs to summon up an image of the real, desired person. In the meditation, he thrusts a flower arrow through the middle of her heart and imagines how the impaled love victim falls to the ground unconscious. No sooner does she reopen her eyes than the conqueror with drawn sword and out-thrust mirror forces her to accommodate his wishes. This scenario played out in the imagination can force any real woman into the arms of the yogi without resistance (Glasenapp, 1940, p. 144). Another magic power allows him to assume the body of an unsuspecting husband and spend the night with his wife incognito, or he can multiply himself by following the example of the Indian god Krishna and then sleep with hundreds of virgins at once (Walker, 1982, p. 47).
Finally, we draw attention to a number of destructive Siddhis (magical powers): to turn a person to stone, the Hevajra Tantra recommends using crystal pearls and drinking milk; to subjugate someone you need sandalwood; to bewitch them, urine; to generate hate between beings from the six worlds, the adept must employ human flesh and bones; to conjure up something, he swings the bones of a dead Brahman and consumes animal dung. With buffalo bones the enlightened one slaughters his enemies (Snellgrove, 1959, p. 118). There are spells which instantly split a person in half. This black art, however, should only be applied to a person who has contravened Buddhist doctrine or insulted a guru. One can also picture the evil-doer vomiting blood, or with a fiery needle boring into his back or a flaming letter branding his heart — in the same instant he will fall down dead (Snellgrove, 1959, pp. 116–117). Using the “chalk ritual” a yogi can destroy an entire enemy army in seconds, each soldier suddenly losing his head (Snellgrove, 1959, p. 52). In the second part of our analysis we will discuss in detail how such magic killing practices were, and to a degree still are, a division of Tibetan/Lamaist state politics.
One should, however, in all fairness mention that, to a lesser degree in the original tantra texts, but therefore all the more frequently in the commentaries, every arbitrary use of power and violence is explicitly prohibited by the Bodhisattva oath (to act only in the interests of all suffering beings). There is no tantra, no ceremony and no prayer in which it is not repeatedly affirmed that all magic may only be performed out of compassion (karuna). This constant, almost suspiciously oft-repeated requirement proves, however, as we shall see, to be a disguise, since violence and power in Tantrism are of a structural and not just a moral nature.
Yet, in light of the power structures of the modern state, the world economy, the military and the modern media, the imaginings of the Maha Siddhas sound naive. Their ambitions have something individualist and fantastic about them. But appearances are deceptive. Even in ancient Tibet the employment of magical forces (siddhis) was regarded as an important division of Buddhocratic state politics. Ritual magic was far more important than wars or diplomatic activities in the history of official Lamaism, and, as we shall show, it still is.
The tantric concept, that power is transformed erotic love, is also familiar from modern psychoanalysis. It is just that in the Western psyche this transformation is usually, if not always, an unconscious one. According to Sigmund Freud it is repressed erotic love which can become delusions of power. In contrast, in Tantrism this unconscious process is knowingly manipulated and echoed in an almost mechanical experiment. It can — as in the case of Lamaism — define an entire culture. The Dutch psychologist Fokke Sierksma, for instance, assumes that the “lust of power” operates as an essential driving force behind Tibetan monastic life. A monk might pretend, according to this author, to meditate upon how a state of emptiness may be realized, but “in practice the result was not voidness but inflation of the ego”. For the monk it is a matter of “spiritual power not mystic release” (Sierksma, 1966, pp. 125, 186).
But even more astonishing than the magical/tantric world of ancient Tibet is the fact that the phantasmagora of Tantrism have managed in the present day to penetrate the cultural consciousness of our Western, highly industrialized civilization, and that they have had the power to successfully anchor themselves there with all their attendant atavisms. This attempt by Vajrayana to conquer the West with its magic practices is the central subject of our study.
_______________
Notes:[1] The first known Tantric Buddhist document, the Guhyasamaja Tantra, dates from the 4th century at the earliest. Numerous other works then follow, which all display the same basic pattern, however. The formative process ended with the Kalachakra Tantra no later than the 11th century.
[2] A conference was held in Berkeley (USA) in 1987 at which discussion centered primarily on the term upaya.
[3] This cultural integration of the tantric divinities is generally denied by the lamas. Tirelessly, they reassure their listeners that it is a matter of universally applicable archetypes, to whom anybody, of whatever religion, can look up. It is true the Shunyata doctrine, the “Doctrine of Emptiness”, makes it theoretically possible to also summon up and then dismiss the deities of other cultures. “Modern” gurus like Chögyam Trungpa, who died in 1989, also refer to the total archetypal reservoir of humankind in their teachings. But in their spiritual praxis they rely exclusively upon tantric and Tibetan symbols, yiddams and rites.