Etiología de la conducta de consumo

Perceived as the Void, as the dissolved form o f con­

sciousnesst when all beings are dissolved in sleep in the supreme Brahman, having swallowed the entire universe, the seer-poets call her the most glorious and the eldest, Dhumavati.

She exists in the forms o f sleep, lack o f memory, illusion, and dullness in the creatures immersed in the illusion o f the world, but among the yogis she becomes the power that d

THE GRANDMOTHER SPIRIT

Dhumavati is the eldest among the Goddesses, the Grandmother Spirit. She stands behind the other Goddesses as their ancestral guide. As the Grandmother Spirit she is the great teacher who bestows the ultimate lessons of birth and death. She is the knowledge that comes through hard experience, in which our immature and youthful desires and fantasies are put to rest.

Dhuma means “smoke.” Dhumavati is “one who is composed of smoke.” Her nature is not illumination but obscuration. However, to obscure one thing is to reveal another. By obscuring or covering all that is known, Dhumavati reveals the depth of the unknown and the unmani­

fest. Dhumavati obscures what is evident in order to reveal the hidden and the profound.

Dhumavati is portrayed as a widow. She is the feminine principle devoid of the masculine principle. She is Shakti without Shiva as a pure potential energy without any will to motivate it. Thus she contains within herself all potentials and shows the latent energies that dwell within us.

To develop these latent energies we must first recognize them. This requires honoring Dhumavati.

Dhumavati shows the feminine principle of negation in all of its aspects. On an outer level she represents poverty, destitution, and suffer­

ing, the great misfortunes that we all fear in life. Hence she is said to be

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crooked, troublesome, and quarrelsome — a witch or a hag. Yet on an inner level this same negativity causes us to seek a greater fulfillment than can be achieved in the limited realms of the manifest creation. After all, only frustration in our outer life causes us to seek the inner reality.

Dhumavati is whatever obstructs us in life, but what obstructs us in one area can release a new potential to grow in a different direction. Thus she is the good fortune that comes to us in the form of misfortune.

PRIMORDIAL DARKNESS

Dhumavati represents the darkness on the face of the deep, the original chaos and obscurity which underlies creation. She is the darkness of primordial ignorance, Mulavidya, from which this world of illusion has arisen, and which it is seeking to transcend. The truth is that we are bom in ignorance. It is not some theory but the hard and clear fact of our existence. We don’t really know who we are or where we are going in life.

Our life is a limited light between two greater darknesses. Hence Dhumavati or smoke embraces us on both sides.

Dhumavati represents the power of ignorance or that aspect of the creative force which causes the obscuration of the underlying light of consciousness. While Maya is the magic or illusion power of the Lord that makes the one reality appear as many, ignorance is a form of darkness which prevents us from seeing the underlying reality.

Yet ignorance has a higher meaning. Only when we recognize that we are ignorant, that we really don’t know anything, can we begin to learn.

Moreover, as we grow in consciousness we recognize that the ordinary mind has no real capacity for true knowledge, that true knowledge only begins when we set the ordinary thought process aside. It is not so much that we do not know as that what we call knowledge can never take us to the truth. For yogis this higher ignorance means ignoring or forgetting the movements of the mind, letting go of all fears, desires, likes and dislikes, opinions and beliefs. By no longer recognizing any reality outside of consciousness we go beyond the field of death.

Dhumavati is thus the primal sleep wherein all the creatures of the universe are dissolved in the underlying reality of the Supreme Brahman.

She is also Yoga-nidra or the yogic sleep in which the yogi is merged into the pre-creation state of consciousness and no longer perceives the exter­

nal world. She represents the bliss of the before-creation state, wherein the formless Brahman alone exists. She helps us to forget the bad dream of Samsara and return to the blissful being of Nirvana. She is the wisdom of forgetting.

THE VOID

Dhumavati is the void, wherein all forms have been dissolved and nothing can any longer be differentiated. Yet this void is not mere darkness. It is a self-illumining reality free of the ordinary duality of subject and object. Hence Vedanta states that the Goddess appears as the Void but is not really void, as even the void can only exist relative to the Seer. In fact the true void or immaterial state is consciousness itself. As such, Dhumavati is pure, perfect and full Awareness in which there are no longer any objects. The Void is not merely emptiness but the cessation of the movements of the mind. Dhumavati is thus ultimately silence itself.

THE POWER OF SUFFERING

Dhumavati represents the negative powers of life: disappointment, frustration, humiliation, defeat, loss, sorrow and loneliness. Such experi­

ences overpower the ordinary mind, but to the yogi they are special doors of opportunity to contact the reality which transcends desire. To recognize in these negative experiences of life the great Grandmother Goddess and her lessons is to gain a great victory for the soul. For such brave souls Dhumavati grants the virtues of patience, perseverance, forgiveness and detachment. She turns her devotees into great teachers for humanity.

Dhumavati reveals the imperfect, transient, unhappy and confused state of ordinary egoic existence in order that we may transcend it. Her form is not pleasant but shows the dark shadow of the world so that we may no longer be entranced by its superficial joys. Honoring these

“negative” experiences as the wisdom of the ancient Goddess helps us transmute them into energies of delight.

DHUMAVATI AND KALI

Dhumavati is the elder form of Kali, Kali as an old woman. She represents time or the life-force dissociated from the process of manifes­

tation. She is the timeless which never really enters into the process of time. She is not revealed in the ordinary world but present as a background screen or smoke that helps us see beyond the evident forms around us.

Those who are trying to ward off negative influences should worship Dhumavati. She gives transcendence and freedom, returning us to the condition prior to the arising of any negative forces.

LOCATION IN THE BODY

Dhumavati is another Goddess that relates to the heart or the middle region. But her energy is withdrawn, either apart from manifestation, or

recoiling from it. Hence she is only vaguely present anywhere, though her spirit looms behind everything.

MEDITATION FORM

Dhumavati is portrayed as a tall and thin old woman with disheveled and matted hair. She is fearful, unattractive and dark in complexion, with a wrinkled face, and her limbs are red. She has a harsh look in her eyes and she is missing a number of her teeth, which are otherwise large in size. Sometimes she is portrayed with fangs and her nose is long and snout-like. She is dressed in old or dirty clothes and her breasts hang down.

She rides a chariot whose insignia is a crow. In her left hand she carries a winnowing basket and with her right makes the gesture of knowledge (cinmudra). In other accounts she carries a skull-cup and sword in her two hands. She wears a garland of severed heads and is ever hungry and thirsty, always provoking quarrels and misunderstandings.

The winnowing basket shows the need to discern the inner essence from the illusory reality of outer forms. Her fearful appearance is intended not to frighten us but to reveal the danger of considering sensory pleasure as bringing fulfillment. As the ugly form of the Goddess she teaches us to look beyond apparent beauty to the inner truth. We could say that this is the image of the witch. Yet the witch in yogic circles is not just a negative spirit. Teaching us the negative side of life, she liberates us from attach­

ment and unfolds the inner realities.

MANTRA

Dhumavati’s mantra is essentially the same as her seed-syllable Dhum repeated.

Dhum dhum dhumavati svaha!

Dhum means “smoke” or “to obscure.” This mantra obscures or darkens all false lights. It creates a protective smoke that hides us from any negativity. Ultimately it negates our apparent existence so that the God of death cannot find us.

The seer of the mantra is Pippalada, a famous sage of the Atharva Veda and Prashna Upanishad, known for his special knowledge of Prana.

Yet technically Dhumavati has no Shiva or masculine form with which the seer of her mantra can be identified. The Dhumavati Yantra can be used along with her mantra.

127 MEDITATION APPROACHES

Dhumavati’s worship consists in discarding all thought waves and merging into the great unknown silence beyond. We begin to see her when we stop focusing on the outer forms of things and recognize the back­

ground presence in which they occur. This requires unfocusing our perception, no longer seeing the evident lines in things but noticing the background space instead. This requires giving up the false light of names and opinions and looking at all objects and events without any precon­

ceptions, likes or dislikes.

Meditation upon the Void as the supreme reality, on non-being as the ultimate source and end of all manifest beings, is another method of relating to her. Meditation upon impermanence or the transient nature of all things is yet another approach.

We contact Dhumavati when we withdraw from the known, stop seeking anything in the realm of time, become totally disillusioned and detached from all apparent realities, and learn to rest in our unborn nature.

Giving reverence to sorrow and disappointment as Divine friends who have come to teach us the limitations of the body-mind is another means of honoring her wisdom.

BAGALAMUKHI YANTRA

BAGALAMUKHI:

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