From cat@luckymojo.com Wed Oct 14 14:20:04 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 OAA24489 for ; Wed, 14 Oct 1998 14:20:04 -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 OAA10558 for ; Wed, 14 Oct 1998 14:20:03 -0700 Received: (qmail 11756 invoked from network); 14 Oct 1998 21:20:02 -0000 Received: from unknown (HELO sub.sonic.net) (208.201.224.8) by marine.sonic.net with SMTP; 14 Oct 1998 21:20:02 -0000 Received: from 208.201.229.206 (d206.pm6.sonic.net [208.201.229.206]) by sub.sonic.net (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA20853 for ; Wed, 14 Oct 1998 14:19:57 -0700 X-envelope-info: Message-ID: <3625250D.6910@luckymojo.com> Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 14:26:21 -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: more dirt on ramakrishna (part 3) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO Path: ultra.sonic.net!jupiter.dnai.com!newshub.sirius.com!news.maxwell.syr.edu!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: Re: Ramakrishna's Tantrika Guru (was: Re: Indian Men, American Women) Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1998 15:25:53 GMT Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion Lines: 66 Message-ID: <702fq4$bhr$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> References: <19981009201006.09200.00008868@ng18.aol.com> <6vtq15$55d$1@nnrp1.dejanews.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.125.166.250 X-Article-Creation-Date: Wed Oct 14 15:25:53 1998 GMT X-Http-User-Agent: Mozilla/2.0 (compatible; MSIE 3.01; Windows 95) X-Http-Proxy: 1.0 PROXYSVR, 1.0 x2.dejanews.com:80 (Squid/1.1.22) for client 209.125.166.250 Xref: ultra.sonic.net alt.yoga:18006 alt.magick.tantra:6881 The Bhairavi clearly tried to employ sexual intercourse as one of her means to teach Ramakrishna Tantric truths. Consider, for example, the following scene. Night has fallen. The Bhairavi calls into the darkness and a beautiful young woman appears. The Bhairavi sits her down on the "seat of the goddess," strips her naked, and instructs Ramakrishna to worship her as the goddess: "Father, repeat your mantra as you sit in her lap with your thoughts filled with the knowledge that she is the Mother of the Universe herself!" Ramakrishna weeps and cries to his divine Mother, but the Bhairavi does not relent. Ramakrishna begins to repeat his mantra, sits in the woman's lap, and immediately falls into samadhi. He has to be brought back to consciousness by the Bhairavi. Here one can see a Tantric ritual designed around profoundly oedipal themes: Ramakrishna is instructed to sit in a naked woman's lap "with the knowledge that she is the Mother of the Universe herself." But Ramakrishna cannot perform the incestuous act. He cannot relate to woman as Lover, even in the secret confines of a Tantric ritual. Unlike the Tantric Hero, who delights in his own sexual partner as he meditates on Kali delighting in waves of passion on top of Siva, all poor Ramakrishna can do is cry to his Mother and retreat into a state that looks as much like a defensive trance as a mystical state. For Ramakrishna, the goddess is a consoling Mother who protects Her child from the adult dangers of sexuality and not, as for the Hero, a Lover who grants the striving aspirant the bliss of union. In article , sandymac@sandymac.demon.co.uk (Alexander Maclennan) wrote: > yohanan@my-dejanews.com 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. > > Much snipped > > In this context it an enlightening study is Kali`s Child, Jeffrey J. > Kripal,Univ of Chicago Press 1995. In this he examines Ramakrishna`s > somewhat tormented sexuality and by going back to the Bengali > originals, circumvents the falsifications of the Ramakrishna Mission > in the English texts and shows that the `secret teachings` were > tantric. > > Before the arrival of Bhairavi, he had been influenced by a wandering > sadhu called Kena Ram and it was after this he started to eat garbage > food and faeces. This is an Aghori praxis and Kena Ram is the name > of an Aghori guru who set up a math at Benares in the eighteenth > century which is still active and this name is adopted by the > subsequent mahants there. The book is a great read. > > -- > > Alexander MacLennan sandymac@sandymac.demon.co.uk