Theos-Talk Archives (December 1998 Message tt00063)

Daniel wrote:

> >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.

Nicholas replied:

> No, you are not.  A physical woman, with certain qualities, is the
> karmamudra.


Daniel comments:

Now you know my states of mind?? Regardless of what you may think you
divine, *I am surprised* and in fact more than somewhat surprised by
some of your answers.

In your above statement, you write:  "A physical woman, with certain
qualities, is the karmamudra."  By this brief "answer" I assume you are
saying that the word "karmamudra" can only be understood in a literal
fashion or that the word could not possibly have some other
meaning---metaphysically or symbolically.  In other words when even
Tsong Khapa uses the term "karmamudra" there is no doubt at least in
your mind that he is referring to a physical, actual female consort. Is
this what you are attempting to communicate?


Daniel wrote:

> >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?

Nicholas replied:

> Since the nub of your quandary has to do with HPB's dispassionate
> Theosophy vs. tantra's passionate one, I do not think my mere bookish view
> is worth your time.  I will just say that virtually all Westerners and
> most Asians are not qualified to practice tantra, let alone with a
> karmamudra.  Somewhere in the Mahatma Letters(?) one says that we
> occidentals can try to practice a little study of metaphysics and try to
> meditate -- but that is all.

Daniel comments:

It is difficult to understand exactly what you are attempting to
communicate in the first sentence of the above paragraph.  And the last
two sentences of your reply don't really address my question which was:
why does Nicholas take "karmamudra" to mean (only?) an actual, physical
consort?  Maybe some of your "mere bookish" views might be informative
at this point. But I guess we will never find out if you are so
unwilling to share them.


Nicholas adds:

> Twenty or 25 years ago Je Tsongkhapa's tantric stages of the path treatise
> was two-thirds translated.  It is still in print.  The titles were
> changed, but I think they are: TANTRA IN TIBET & YOGA OF TIBET.  Both had
> comments by the present Dalai Lama.  Also a reliable version of
> TSONGKHAPA'S SIX YOGAS OF NAROPA and READINGS ON THE SIX YOGAS OF NAROPA
> have just come out from Snow Lion; translated by Glenn Mullin.

Daniel comments:

Will these titles answer the question of whether the word "karmamudra"
should be understood/viewed metaphysically, symbolically or literally?


Daniel wrote:

> >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.

Nicholas replied:

> The ES teachings were (as was the TS) mainly aimed at the West -- and the
> West is not ready for real pranayama, which Patanjali made an intergral
> part of yoga.
>
> The human ego (Western or Eastern) is such that a spiritual teaching or
> practice must be called "supreme" or "esoteric" before most people will
> pay attention to it.  When we are told the plainest of truths, that our
> qualifications fit us only for the kindergarten variety of spirituality,
> most of us chafe and huff about it.

Daniel comments:

But again, Nicholas, you do not deal with the issue under discussion but
go off in another direction.  Bringing the discussion back to
"pranayama", I ask:  What do you mean by "real pranayama"?  And for
contrast what is "non-real" pranayama?  And does Patanjali teach and
advocate "real pranayama"?  Does Patanjali advocate such a practice
while HPB, M and KH warn against its use?  In Fragment I of the VOICE OF
THE SILENCE, a number of "stages" of development are given, but there is
no mention of pranayama.  (original edition, pp. 18-20).  Compare to
Patanjali's Yoga Sutras.


Nicholas wrote:

>It is many of the techniques that focus on the body, (astral, pranic or physical), that befoul us.


Daniel replies:

And from reading several graphic descriptions of "karmamudra", it
appears to me (a poor Westerner) that this "karmamudra" may ALSO be a
technique that focuses "on the body, (astral, pranic or physical)".
Could karmamudra be another "befouling" technique to add to your list?


Again Nicholas wrote:

>The form of Jnanamudra [mentioned by Jerry] is a visualized goddess ie an elemental or deva that is >sexually arousing. This practice can end up being just self-stimulation.

A good description, Nicholas, and is this technique practiced by some
Gelukpa lamas?  In Daniel Cozort's above titled book, he writes (p. 88)
:  "The seal with whom one is in sexual union may be either real [an
actual woman] or imagined. . . ."  Is this "imagined consort" what
Nicholas describes as the "visualized goddess ie an elemental or deva
that is sexually arousing"?  I will not quote any more extracts from
Cozort's book since somewhat graphic sexual descriptions are used.  For
those who would like to read the quotation within context, please
consult the chapter on "Verbal Isolation", pp. 84-88.

Compare these descriptions with the following in TEACHINGS OF TIBETAN
YOGA, translated and annotated by Garma C.C. Chang where the subject of
"visualzing the sexual act with a Dakini" is described.  One choice
quote is more than enough:

"If these measures fail [we won't quote them here!] to produce a Great
Bliss, one may apply the Wisdom-Mother Mudra by visualizing the sexual
act with a Dakini, while using the breathing to incite the Dumo-heat, to
melt the white Tig Le, and so forth."  (pp. 68)

Nicholas, are these kinds of "techniques" advocated by Tsong Khapa and
practiced by select lamas of the Gelukpa hierarchy?

For those interested in HPB's views on this same (?) subject, consult,
for example, her article "Elementals", CW, VI, 184-201.  A complete
transcription of this article can be found in The Theosophy Company's
THEOSOPHICAL ARTICLES by H.P. Blavatsky.

Madame Blavatsky in THE THEOSOPHICAL GLOSSARY writes about ". . .
.soulless elementals, formless centres of life, devoid of sense; in sort
subjective protoplasms when left alone, but called into a definite being
and form by the creative and diseased imagination of certain mortals."
(p. 154.)

Elsewhere HPB speaks of the "Brothers of the Shadow" who have "carnal
commerce with male and female Djins, Elementals, or Demons, call them
whatever you will. . . . "   She says that such "intercourse is said to
give *magic powers* and *Supernal Force*."

Nicholas, is this the kind of Jnanamudra you are referring to?

And rereading my original post, I see that you passed over several of my
questions without attempting to grapple with them.  I repeat them below.
I would appreciate your views and answers even if they are bookish.

Can one imagine Master K.H (or another member of his Brotherhood) taking
up his pen and describing this technique [of karmamudra as described in
John Powers' book or as described even more graphically in Daniel
Cozort's HIGHEST YOGA TANTRA or the technique of jnanamudra as described
by Nicholas] in all its details?

And is Nicholas (or Jerry) suggesting that members of KH's brotherhood
would practice such rites, ceremonies and techniques?

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 accepted an orthodox, literal, materialistic meaning to this term
and related ones, etc.?

Could generations of Gelukpa lamas including the current Dalai Lama have
fallen into a mistaken, literal interpretation of "karma mudra"?

I close this email with the quote from HPB I gave previously:

"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."

SD (I, 381)