Tattwa Shuddhi - Day 2

Tattwa Shuddhi Day 2 Aug 9

Today Jyothi Madam started the lecture by helping the participants to understand how rich our Indian culture is and how sad it is that we are losing touch with them rapidly.

She said,

We all think that religion, rituals, spirituality, etc., they are all different from each other. But in reality they all lead to one source, i.e., Tantra.

Our Masters were so advanced, they realized that the ways of the mind are innumerable and therefore devised many methods and ensured that the mind is not allowed to escape from the reality which is that we are nothing but the Primordial Energy. Primordial Energy is nothing but Spanda (In Kashmiri Saivism) or Vibrations.

Tattwa Shuddhi - Jyothi Ma

As we have seen yesterday, Tattwa Shuddhi employs Mandala (Idol worship), Yantra (abstract images using lines like square, triangle, circle, etc.) and Mantra (potential sound vibrations) to clean ourselves. This cleaning is essential if meditation has to happen us. Meditation can happen only when we can train our body and mind to be still and observe itself. This sitting still is a struggle for us because we are not able to come out of body consciousness and the mind is scattered and is on the move, like mercury. Very difficult to consolidate and hold it in a place.

Masters say, begin from where you are. Many interpretations can be assigned to this statement, all of them rightly so. But the most relevant interpretation got revealed to me (it is the understanding of the writer of this report and hence subjective) today when Jyothi Madam explained the effect of Tattwa Shuddhi. Tattwa Shuddhi starts with the energy vibrations that we have at present and helps us to gradually cross over different energy levels and finally experience the vibrations within us that matches the vibrations of the Primordial Energy – merging with GOD. It is here that the seer and the seen becomes one. Our energy vibrations becomes one and identical with the cosmic vibrations. It is not so now because there is an imbalance due to impurities. Through Tattwa Shuddhi when we start cleansing, our energy vibrations attains equilibrium and starts unfolding its true and pure potential. Suddenly and instantly the realization occurs that we are in no way different from that Cosmic Consciousness !

Tattwa Shuddhi involves visualisation and imagination, yantra and mantra. When we apply these on different parts of our body what happens in reality is that unconsciously and without much effort our mind crosses the barrier of body, meaning that we are no more conscious of our physical body but at the same time we are aware of what we do using our body. This, in other words, means that our consciousness shifts from the gross physical body and touches another dimension that we have i.e., energy vibrations.

Yes, this actually happened when we practiced the application of yantra and mantra, with visualisation and imagination on our body, we no more experienced the physical body but the subtler level of vibrations. When we chanted the mantra associated with each yantra, different combinations of energy had different effects on the energy patterns in our body.

The mind was so focussed during the practice, without consciously forcing it to stay with what we are doing, it simply was doing its job like the fragrance simply gets carried away by the air.

Jyothi Madam said, it is my promise that if you do this practice regularly, soon you will learn how to overcome your body consciousness within seconds, whenever you sit for meditation.

This is what Madam was referring to yesterday when she said sharpening the perception. The mind was spot on, on what it was assigned to do without anything distracting or disturbing it. This state is referred to as ‘Atha’ by Patanjali in his Yoga Sutra. Atha means staying in the present without the interference of past or future. When we learn to prolong this Atha and make it an effortless happening in us, we are in meditation.

This Atha is a sure result when we start practicing Tattwa Shuddhi.

Madam had a word of caution for us which is that this practice has to be done with Bhavana, complete emotion (not sure whether this is the appropriate English equivalent for Bhavana). Intelligence has no role to play. If intelligence shows up during this practice, then this method will not work, however hard one may try.

Madam shared the beauty and purpose behind the culture of temples and the innumerable Gods that we have and how they are related to this Tattwa Shuddhi. Since we are focussing in this programme on a particular technique of doing Tattwa Shuddhi, I am not providing the gist of it here apprehending it may take away the focus of the reader from what is being shared through mandala, yantra and mantra technique.

Until tomorrow, Happy Sadhana.

N. Narayanan

SST, Delhi Chapter