From cat@luckymojo.com Tue Oct 13 13:54:36 1998 Return-Path: Received: from mindy.accesscom.com (root@ns2.accesscom.com [205.226.156.3]) by shell.accesscom.com (8.8.8/8.8.8/Debian/GNU) with ESMTP id NAA00158 for ; Tue, 13 Oct 1998 13:54:35 -0700 Received: from marine.sonic.net (marine.sonic.net [208.201.224.37]) by mindy.accesscom.com (8.8.8/8.8.8/Debian/GNU) with SMTP id NAA23997 for ; Tue, 13 Oct 1998 13:54:35 -0700 Received: (qmail 1009 invoked from network); 13 Oct 1998 20:54:35 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO sub.sonic.net) (208.201.224.8) by marine.sonic.net with SMTP; 13 Oct 1998 20:54:35 -0000 Received: from 208.201.230.62 (d62.pm8.sonic.net [208.201.230.62]) by sub.sonic.net (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA00538 for ; Tue, 13 Oct 1998 13:54:29 -0700 X-envelope-info: Message-ID: <3623CD95.31F0@luckymojo.com> Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1998 14:00:53 -0800 From: catherine yronwode Organization: Lucky Mojo Curio Co. X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0Gold (Macintosh; I; 68K) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com Subject: ramakrishna forward Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO Path: ultra.sonic.net!jupiter.dnai.com!newshub.sirius.com!news-xfer.geo.net!news-stk-2.sprintlink.net!news-west.sprintlink.net!news-peer.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!news-peer.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!newsfeed.cwix.com!204.238.120.130!news-feeds.jump.net!nntp2.dejanews.com!nnrp1.dejanews.com!not-for-mail From: yohanan@my-dejanews.com Newsgroups: alt.yoga, alt.magick.tantra Subject: Ramakrishna's Tantrika Guru (was: Re: Indian Men, American Women) Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1998 20:49:41 GMT Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion Lines: 119 Message-ID: <6vtq15$55d$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> References: <19981009201006.09200.00008868@ng18.aol.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.125.166.250 X-Article-Creation-Date: Mon Oct 12 20:49:41 1998 GMT X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/2.0 (compatible; MSIE 3.01; Windows 95) X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 PROXYSVR, 1.0 x3.dejanews.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 209.125.166.250 Xref: ultra.sonic.net alt.yoga:17982 alt.magick.tantra:6850 In article <19981009201006.09200.00008868@ng18.aol.com>, vatreya@aol.com (VAtreya) wrote: > > In the life of Ramakrishna paramahamsa, it is mentioned that he learnt the > tantra art from a yogini. i remember reading it in swami nikhilananda's book > 'life of swami vivekananda' but never thought it could provoke discussion. i > would like to know who this yogini might be. > thanks > Vasudevan S Atreya > A few months after the Rani (Ramakrishna's original patroness) died in 1861, a strange woman appeared at the temple river landing. An attractive--one text describes her as "extraordinarily sexy"--middle-aged brahmin woman (or "brahmani"), she was dressed in the red robes of a Bhairavi and carried a bundle of books in her hand. Her hair was dishevelled, like that of Kali. She claimed that she had found two out of the three great souls that had been revealed to her by the goddess. She was now seeking the third. To Hriday's amazement--Ramakrishna had refused to associate with women up to this point--Ramakrishna immediately entrusted himself to her wisdom, relating to her all his visions and strange experiences, "like a child." The Bhairavi assured the troubled priest that he was not mad by using her books to prove that the same things had happened to Radha, the lover of Krsna, and Caitanya, the sixteenth-century saint of Bengal. "Who calls you mad, father? You are not mad. You are in great ecstasy." Probably at the Bhairavi's prodding, Mathur (Ramakrishna's patron) brought in a local Tantric scholar named Vaishnavacharan, whom the Bhairavi seems to have known, to establish the Bhairavi's conclusions that Ramakrishna's seemingly pathological behavior was in fact a sign of his unprecendented religious status. The young priest was relieved when Vaishnavacharan's diagnosis matched the Bhairavi's: "I'm glad to know it's not a disease." A similar discussion, staged again by Mathur shortly after the arrival of Gauri, yet another Tantric scholar, would conclude that Ramakrishna was a veritable incarnation of God. Mathur, the Bhairavi, and their Tantric friends were clearly in control of things. The precise nature of Ramakrishna's relationship with the Bhairavi, like almost everything else about the saint, is something of a secret. In the Katham.rta we are told that after seeing Ramakrishna eat, Gauri used to ask Ramakrishna whether he took the Bhairavi for his sadhana, that is, whether he had engaged in ritual intercourse with her. Ramakrishna made no reply to Gauri's question, or if he did, M refuses to record it. The reader is left with a similar silence in the Jivanav.rttanta. Datta uses an ambiguous section heading for these initial scenes with the Bhairavi, a heading which constitutes, like Gauri's curiosity, a question and like Ramakrishna's reply, a refusal to answer. The phrase Datta uses is brahmaNir sahita milana. It could mean either "union with the Brahmani" or "meeting with the BrahmaNi,' depending on how one wants to take the verbal noun, milana. The term is commonly used to mean sexual union. When Ramakrishna, for example, uses the term, it usually refers either to the sexual pleasure a wife and husband experience in their conjugal relations or to a mystical form of sexual union: "Saccidananda Siva is in the thousand-petaled lotus--he unites with Sakti. The union (milana) of Siva and Sakti!" It is also used in the texts to refer to the physical joining of the sexual organs, and to Tantric ritual intercourse. The term, however, can also mean simply "meeting." But even here, it should be pointed out that, for Ramakrishna, a "meeting" of this type possesses unmistakable sexual dimensions: "Sitting down or visiting with a woman for a long time, that too is called sexual intercourse (ramaNa). Accordingly, in the last volume of the Katham.rta, the Paramahamsa, quoting the Tantras, lists "the eight types of sexual intercourse (maithunamaShTanga) that a renunciant must avoid: "There are eight kinds of sexual intercourse. That bliss one experiences when one listens to talk about women, that is a kind of sexual intercourse. Talking about women (praising them) is also a kind of sexual intercourse. Keeping anything of a woman's close to you and deriving bliss from it, that too is a kind of sexual intercourse. Touching is a kind of sexual intercourse." For Ramakrishna, as for the Tantras, any kind of social intercourse with a woman is always just that: intercourse. Human interaction, at least between the sexes, is charged with sexual powers, acknowledged or not. Datta's use of the expression "Union with the BrahmaNi," then, is at best ambiguous. He never explicitly describes a scene in which Ramakrishna actually engages in intercourse with the Bhairavi, but in the end he leaves the door open to just such a possibility by his acknowledgement that he is keeping secrets: "We have heard of various happenings concerning the BrahmaNi, but on this topic we hesitate to reveal all of them to the public." Like Ramakrishna in the Katham.rta, then, Datta refuses to answer Gauri's question concerning the precise nature of Ramakrishna's "intercourse"with the Bhairavi. This secret silence surrounding the Bhairavi and the ambivalence that her presence seemed to invoke from practically everyone carries over into almost every scene involving her. Mathur, of all people, immediately distrusted her. Suspicious of both her physical charms and her traveling habits (she traveled alone), he is said to have one day asked her mockingly, "Where is your Bhairava [male Tantrika], O Bhairavi?" She cleverly pointed to Siva lying beneath the feet of the goddess in the Kali temple. "But that Bhairava doesn't move," Mathur replied. "Why have I become a Bhairavi if I cannot rouse the unmoving?" she snapped back. Mathur shut up. Two other early scenes involving the Bhairavi are especially revealing in light of my analysis of Kali as Mother and Lover. In the first, the Bhairavi is meditating on her chosen god, Raghuvira (the same deity of Ramakrishna's family), in the Panchavati and is about to offer him food and drink when the sight of a "strange vision" plunges her into samadhi: At this same time, the Master felt drawn [to that place] and in a half-conscious state showed up there. Completely possessed by a divine power, he began to eat all of the ritual food offered by the BrahmaNi. After a while, the BrahmaNi regained consciousness, opened her eyes, and saw that such actions of the Master, merged in an ecstatic state, corresponded to her own vision. She was filled with bliss as the hairs of her body stood on end. After a while, the Master regained normal consciousness and was disturbed about what he had done. He said to the BrahmaNi: "Who knows, mother, why I lose control of myself and do such things!" The Bhairavi, convinced now that her chosen deity dwelt in the body of Ramakrishna, immersed her image of Raghuvira in the river, for she had obtained "the concrete and abiding presence of Raghuvira in the body and mind of the Master." Ramakrishna in effect had replaced the image. It is important to note here the terms with which Ramakrishna commonly addressed the Bhairavi--"Mother"-- and with which the Bhairavi addressed Ramakrishna--"Child." It was a relationship that Ramakrishna felt quite comfortable with, despite the hints of something improper or scandalous in his behavior. But sometimes the Bhairavi attempted to initiate a quite different relationship, one to which Ramakrishna objected....