The Tibetan Book of the Dead — ed. W. Y. Evans-Wentz

Some clue to the separable elements of consciousness as they manifest themselves in the Intermediate State is gained from the significance of the Tantric divisions into petals of the lotuses, or chakras. For example, the Heart-centre Lotus, or Anahata-chakra, is described as a red-coloured lotus of twelve petals, each petal representing one of the chief elements of personality (vrit¢2) as follows: (1) hope (ashd@) ; (2) care or anxiety (chin7a) ; (3) endeavour (cheshia) ; (4) feeling of mineness (amaia) ; (5) arrogance or hypocrisy (dambha) ; (6) languor (vikalata) ; (7) conceit (ahangkara); (8) discrimination (viveka) ; (9) covetousness (lolata) ; (10) duplicity (Lapatata) ; (11) indecision (vztarka); (12) regret (anutapa).

The Throat-centre Lotus, or Vishuddha-chakra, also called

1 Of the Wrathful Deities there are two classes, the less wrathful (Tib. To’- wo) and the more wrathful (Tib. Drag-po). See Waddell, op. cit., pp. 332-3:

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Bharatisthana, consists of sixteen petals. The first seven symbolize the seven Sanskrit musical notes. The eighth symbolizes the ‘venom’ of mortality. The next seven represent the seven seed mantras, and the sixteenth is the symbol for the nectar of immortality (amyrzta).

To each of the thousand petals of the Brain-centre Lotus variously coloured letters of the Sanskrit or Tibetan alphabet, and other symbols, are esoterically assigned ; and this chakra is said to contain in potential state all that exists in the other chakras (of which it is the originator) or in the universe.

Each of the Dhyani Buddhas, likewise, as elsewhere explained from a different view-point, symbolizes definite spiritual attributes of the cosmos. Thus, Vairochana is appealed to by the Tantrics of Northern Buddhism as the universal force producing or giving form to everything both physical and spiritual; Vajra-Sattva (as the reflex of Akshobhya) is the universal force invoked for neutralizing by merit evil karma; Ratna-Sambhava, for the reproduction of all things desired ; Amitabha, for long life and wisdom; Amogha-Siddhi, for success in arts and crafts. In Vajra-Sattva, in his purely esoteric aspect, all the other Peaceful and Wrathful Deities of the Mandala of the Bardo Thédol are said to merge or be contained.

III. MANTRAS, OR WORDS OF POWER

In Vajra-Sattva, in his purely esoteric aspect, all the other Peaceful and Wrathful Deities of the Mandala of the Bardo Thédol are said to merge or be contained.

III. MANTRAS, OR WORDS OF POWER

A clue to the power of mantras, as referred to throughout the Bardo Thodol, lies in the ancient Greek theory of music ; namely, that, if the key-note of any particular body or substance be known, by its use the particular body or substance can be disintegrated. Scientifically, the whole problem may be understood through understanding the law of vibration. Each organism exhibits its own vibratory rate, and so does every inanimate object from the grain of sand to the mountain and even to each planet and sun. When this rate of vibration is known, the organism or form can, by occult use of it, be disintegrated.

For the adept in occultism, to know the mantra of any deity is to know how to set up psychic or gift-wave comp. 221munication similar to, but transcending, wireless or telepathic communication with that deity. For example, if the adept be of the left-hand path, that is to say, a black magician, he can, by mantras, call up and command elementals and inferior orders of spiritual beings, because to each belongs a particular rate of vibration, and this being known and formulated as sound in a mantra gives the magician power even to annihilate by dissolution the particular elemental or spirit to whom it belongs. As a highwayman at the point of a gun compels a traveller to give up money, so a black magician with a mantra compels a spirit to act as he wills.

On account of this supreme power of sound, when formulated in mantras corresponding to the particular rate of vibration of spiritual beings and of spiritual and physical forces, the mantras are jealously guarded. And, for the purpose of maintaining this guardianship, lines of gurus (i.e. religious teachers) are established in whose keeping the words of power are placed. Candidates for initiation into this Brotherhood of Guardians of the Mysteries must necessarily be well tested before the Treasures can be entrusted to them, and they themselves, in turn, be made Guardians.

Unto the shishya, after he has been well tested, the mantra which confers power over the sleeping Goddess Kundalini is transmitted ; and when he utters it the Goddess awakens and comes to him to be commanded. Then is the need of the guru great; for the awakened Goddess can destroy as well as save—according as the mantra is wisely or unwisely used.

Then is the need of the guru great; for the awakened Goddess can destroy as well as save—according as the mantra is wisely or unwisely used.

As the outer air vibrates to gross sounds, the inner vitalairs (prama-vdyu) are set in motion and utilized by the use of the sounds of mantras: the Goddess first catches up the subtle occult sound, and, in tones of divine music, she causes it to ascend from her throne in the Root-Support Psychic-Centre to one after another of the Centres above, until its music fills the Lotus of a Thousand Petals and is there heard and responded to by the Supreme Guru.

The visualization of a deity, as frequently directed in our text, is often but another way of thinking of the essential characteristics of that deity. A like yogic effect comes fromp. 222 visualizing or else audibly pronouncing the mantra corresponding to that deity; for, by speaking forth as sound the mantra of any deity, that deity is made to appear.

Unless the mantras are properly intoned they are without effect; and when printed and seen by the eye of the uninitiated they appear utterly meaningless—and so they are without the guidance of the human guru.

Furthermore, the correct pronunciation of the szantra of a deity depends upon bodily purity as well as upon knowledge of its proper intonation, Therefore it is necessary for the devotee first to purify, by purificatory mantras, the mouth, the tongue, and then the mantra itself, by a process called giving life to or awakening the sleeping power of the mantra.

The occult ability to employ a mantra properly confers supernormal powers called Szddhz,) and these can be used, according to the character of the adept, either as white magic for good ends or as black magic for evil ends: the right- and left-hand paths being the same up to this point of practical application of the fruits obtained through psychic development. One path leads upward to Emancipation, the other downward to Enslavement.

IV. THE GURU AND SHISHYA (OR CHELA)
AND INITIATIONS

Very frequently the Bardo Thodol directs the dying or the deceased to concentrate mentally upon, or to visualize, his tutelary deity or else his spiritual guru, and, at other times, to recollect the teachings conveyed to him by his human gurz, more especially at the time of the mystic initiation. YVogzs and Tantrics ordinarily comment upon such ritualistic directions by saying that there exist three lines of gurus to whom reverence and worship are to be paid. The first and highest is purely superhuman, called in Sanskrit dévyaugha, meaning ‘heavenly (or “divine”) line’; the second is of the most highly developed human beings, possessed of supernormal

1 Siddhi here means ‘ Powers’ arrived at through yogic practices. Literally, Siddhz is the attainment of any aim.

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