Theos-Talk Archives (December 1998 Message tt00015)

SUBJECT:  Karmamudra:  Should it be understood/viewed metaphysically,
symbolically or literally?

[The following has been hastily written.  Hopefully it will set some
minds to questioning and thinking.  I will try to expand on it in the
next week or so.]

HPB writes in the SD (I, 381):

"Such is the cosmic and ideal significance of this great symbol [the
lotus] with the Eastern peoples. But, applied to practical and exoteric
worship -- which had also its esoteric symbology -- the lotus became in
time the carrier and container of a more terrestrial idea. No dogmatic
religion has ever escaped the sexual element in it; and to this day it
soils the moral beauty of the root idea. . . . It is the profane of the
past ages who have degraded the pure ideal of cosmic creation into an
emblem of mere human reproduction and sexual functions: it is the
esoteric teachings, and the initiates of the Future, whose mission it
is, and will be, to redeem and ennoble once more the primitive
conception so sadly profaned by its crude and gross application to
exoteric dogmas and personations by theological and ecclesiastical
religionists. The silent worship of abstract or noumenal Nature, the
only divine manifestation, is the one ennobling religion of Humanity."

I thank everyone for their comments on karmamudra and related subjects.
In particular, both Jerry and Nicholas have given alot of good material
on which to ponder.

But I am somewhat surprised that both Jerry and Nicholas seem to be
saying or at least implying (maybe I am reading too much into their
words) that the word "karmamudra" should be interpreted in a literal,
physical fashion.

In answering my question:  "Did Tsong Khapa really mean an actual
physical female companion or consort?", Nicholas replies:  "Not for all,
but sometimes for some".  Nicholas' words would seem to imply that Tsong
Khapa "approved" of physical female consorts for *some* tantric adepts
as a means of gaining liberation in one lifetime?  If this is what
Nicholas is saying or implying, I ask, why does Nicholas take
"karmamudra" to mean (only?) an actual, physical consort?

Take for comparison the word "pranayama".  Many schools of yoga take
this as part of the means or road to enlightenment, but look at what
Blavatsky and her Masters say in their writings about pranayama.  And
see the interpretation that HPB gives to this word "pranayama" in her
E.S. Instructions.


"The letter killeth the spirit."  This would appear to be a recurring
theme and message throughout all of HPB's writings on symbols and their
meanings (exoteric, esoteric, profane and real).

And on the subject of "karmamudra" taken literally, John Powers,
explains that "in the practices using seals, the experience of orgasm is
conjoined with techniques that draw the winds into the central channel."
This appears to my mind as nothing but a hatha yogic techinque which is
described in many Indian books.  Can one imagine K.H or another member
of his brotherhood taking up his pen and describing this technique in
all its details?

Was Tsong Khapa advocating "karmamudra" in the most literal sense or was
there some more esoteric, metaphysical meaning to this term as he used
it?  Furthermore, after Tsong Khapa's death could the Gelukpa
establishment have evolved or accepted an orthodox, literal,
materialistic meaning to this term and related ones, etc.? And could
generations of Gelukpa lamas including the current Dalai Lama have
fallen into a mistaken, literal interpretation of "karma mudra"?  These
are at least questions that should be asked, carefully thought about,
and researched, etc.  At least I would think some students of Blavatsky
writings would want to do this.

Jerry asks the question:  "Why do you suppose that so many Tibetan
deities and Knowledge Holders are shown in sexual union with a female
consort?"

Well, are we suppose to take all of this as literal?  "Monkey see,
Monkey do"? Consult Blavatsky on symbolism, etc.  What does she write
about similar symbols, representations, etc.?

And what is the origin (going back through the centuries) of this idea
that "to attain buddhahood in one lifetime it is necessary to use an
'action seal' (an actual consort)"?  Why would it be really necessary?
Do all roads or means really lead to the mountain top?

I close this email with these words of HPB:

"Time and human imagination made short work of the purity and philosophy
of these teachings [of Gautama the Buddha], once that they were
transplanted from the secret and sacred circle of the Arhats, during the
course of their work of proselytism, into a soil less prepared for
metaphysical conceptions than India; i.e., once they were transferred
into China, Japan, Siam, and Burmah. How the pristine purity of these
grand revelations was dealt with may be seen in studying some of the
so-called "esoteric" Buddhist schools of antiquity in their modern garb,
not only in China and other Buddhist countries in general, but even in
not a few schools in Thibet, left to the care of uninitiated Lamas and
Mongolian innovators." SD, I, pp. xx-xxi.