GESTIÓN Y CREACIÓN DEL CEMENTERIO GENERAL DE LIMA

object for contemplation, leading to meditation, along with a mantra. These practices are taught by qualified teachers to advanced students. Swami Rama, in his Shri Vidya video series, presents the core of the practice – what he calls ―the shortest cut‖ -- without the Shri Yantra, available to anyone who is ready to receive it. Readiness usually requires preparatory practices over time. As with all his video lectures, they require repeated viewing over time, revealing more and more as the Seeker‘s sadhana progresses.

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Oh Daughter of the Snowy Peak, the best of poets flounder

Trying to describe Your beauty, at most conjuring up Brahma and other gods.

Eager to see Your face, Apsaras in heaven imagine being one with Shiva Then look out through his eyes at You.

Shiva alone has the ability to look directly at Shakti. The rest of us have to invent gods such as Brahma, Vishnu and the rest: mere shadows of the indescribable.

Apsaras are something like heavenly damsels, who live near the god realm. They could be called the female aspect of the mind, which can be seen as surrender, the only way to get past the intellect. This may also refer to the nadis, which are often represented as devis or dakinis or gopis (see more after V.14).

The Seeker tries to imagine what it is like to be an Apsara, looking through Shiva‘s eyes. But can‘t surrender enough yet to drop imagination.

Swami Rama says in Lecture 3, 47min.: ―Now I was talking to you about the pranic force.

About the mother divine in you. Who has created this structure, who has given you beauty, who has given you all that you have. That mother is there in you, that‘s direct Shakti. Sun without its light is not sun. As sun is different from the light, but sun cannot exist without light, therefore the atman cannot live without atma Shakti. If there‘s no atma Shakti, there‘s no atman.‖

24 min into Lecture 4: ―Is Divine Mother related to the Lord Within? They are one and the same. There are two aspects of the lord: One is silent aspect or mental aspect, another is expressive aspect. That creative aspect is called Mother, that silent aspect is called Father… of the Universe. One is called Shiva, another is called Shakti. Without Shakti, nothing can be created. This universe was directly created by Shakti. You see… ..source is Shiva, but Shiva without Shakti‘s help cannot create the universe. One is unmanifested power, another is manifestation. That which manifests is called Shakti, that which remains in unmanifested form though it is still there is called self-existent power – that is Shiva – and which manifests itself that‘s called Shakti. Fine discrimination is there.‖

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Upper Franklin 1973. Stoneware 5ft.

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A worn out old man, unlovely to look at, sluggish in love's art --

If he just gets a side glance from You, hundreds of young women run after him, With hair ribbons flying loose and garments slipping from their jar-like breasts, The locks of their golden girdles violently bursting and their garments in disarray.

Shankara becomes more than passionate in this verse, letting kama run wild to point out how strong the desire is for divine union. If you read Swami Rama‘s Love Whispers, which is a collection of his poems to Mother Divine, you will find the same passion. Just like an old man, the Seeker is inert until even the smallest glimmer of Shakti enters his consciousness. Then all the nadis (often portrayed as young women in Sanskrit poetry) become aligned toward Shiva.

Obviously there is no possibility of stopping such a great outburst of energy. There are said to be 72,000 nadis -- subtle energy channels -- in the body. For example, in the stories of Krishna and the Gopis (young female cowherds), he stole their saris while they were bathing in the river, so they had to expose their naked bodies. The metaphor is about cleansing the mind so that prana can flow in a directed way in the nadis, and concentrate in Sushumna (the central nadi in the subtle spine).

Golden girdles could refer to the illusory golden disc of Maya which keeps Shakti in Muladhara, and blocks her higher movement.

In Video 3, about 60 minutes, Swami Rama is discussing Agni Sara, and describes how that practice can increase both hunger and sexual appetite. On the subtle level, Agni Sara

increases the fire in Manipura chakra, providing fuel to take Kundalini higher in the subtle body when gross desire is transmuted into desire for divine union.

45 min into Lecture 4: ―The renunciates give diksha to their students on this path, and one of the finest paths of diksha is upward traveling. [draws five short lines at bottom, the fifth extends upward as a sinuous line, topped with an arrow] When the student is ready, when he is eager to know this, then upward traveling. Who travels upwards? Shakti. Then there is no way of traveling downwards. If Shakti travels downward, then it is under your conscious control, never unconscious.‖

50min: ―There is a method of initiation which is called upward traveling. In upward traveling, vigorous pranayama exercise, not breathing—pranayama exercise – is taught with certain bandhas, and then the food that is secreted by the ovaries and testes starts going upwards.‖

―So when the teacher sees all these hurdles and barriers, he initiates on the path of .. when the student says… when he‘s crossed his sixty-five, seventy [years] and says ‗I have seen, now I would like… please give me… I find this difficulty‘, then this initiation is given. Upward

traveling. For the tendency of the mind is downward. And it‘s something literal, biological. It is done. It is taught.‖

Swami Rama says in Saundaryalahari lecture 3: ―All the breathing exercises, all the pranayama exercises, are meant to have perfect control over the pause…[Breathing exercises] are

superficial, they are important, but they are superficial. They are not called pranayama. They prepare you to do pranayama. Pranayama are the deeper exercises. They can be done

mentally. Through pranayama you can apply sushumna; through breathing you cannot. That‘s the difference.‖

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