passion of the complex consciousness. As though in an initiatory mystery-play, the actors for each day of the Bardo come on the mind-stage of the deceased, who is their sole spectator; and their director is Karma. The higher or more divine elements of the consciousness-principle of the deceased dawn first in the full glory of the primal Clear Light; and then, in ever diminishing glory, the visions grow less and less happy—the Peaceful Deities of the Heart-centre, and then of the Throat-centre, merge into the Wrathful Deities of the Brain-centre. Finally, as the purely human and brutish pro- pensities, personified, in the fiercest of the Wrathful Deitics,! as horror-producing and threatening spectral hallucinations, come into the field of mental vision, the percipient flees in dismay from them—his own thought-forms—to the refuge of the womb, thereby making himself to be the plaything of Maya and the slave of Ignorance. In other words, in a manner similar to that in which the earth-plane body grows to maturity and then withers and after its dcath disintegrates, the after-death body, called the mental-body, grows from the heavenly days of its Bardo childhood to the less idealist days of its Bardo maturity, then fades and dies in the Intermediate State, as the Knower, abandoning it, is reborn.
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) discrimina- tion (viveka) ; (9) covetousness (lolata) ; (10) duplicity (Lapa- tata) ; (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 re-
present 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 ex- plained 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
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 under- stood 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 com-
Mantras 221
munication 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 main- taining 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 them- selves, 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.
As the outer air vibrates to gross sounds, the inner vital- airs (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 re- sponded 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 from
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visualizing or else audibly pronouncing the mantra correspond- ing 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 unini-
tiated 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.
Initiations 223
or stddhic powers, and hence called siddhaugha; the third is of ordinary religious teachers and hence called manavaugha, ‘human line’?
Women as well as men, if qualified, may be gurus. The shishya is, as a rule, put on probation for one year before receiving the first initiation. If at the end of that time he proves to be an unworthy receptacle for the higher teachings, he is rejected. Otherwise, he is taken in hand by the guru and carefully prepared for psychical development. A shishya when on probation is merely commanded to perform such and such exercises as are deemed suitable to his or her particular needs. Then, when the probation ends, the shishya is told by the guru the why of the exercises, and the final results which are certain to come from the exercises when successfully carried out. Ordinarily, once a guru is chosen, the skishya has no right to disobey the surz, or to take another guru until it is proven that the first gar can guide the skishya no further. If the skzshya develops rapidly, be- cause of good karma, and arrives at a stage of development equal to that of the guru, the guru, if unable to guide the shishya further, will probably himself direct the skzshya to a more advanced guru.
For initiating a skzshya, the guru must first prepare himself, usually during a course of special ritual exercises occupying several days, whereby the guru, by invoking the gift-waves of the divine line of gurus, sets up direct communication with the spiritual plane on which the divine gurus exist. If the human guru be possessed of szddhic powers, this communion is believed to be as real as wireless or telepathic communica- tion between two human beings on the earth-plane.
The actual initiation, which follows, consists of giving to the shishya the secret mantra, or Word of Power, whereby at-one-ment is brought about between the s/zskya, as the new member of the secret brotherhood, and the Supreme Guru
1 The three lines of gurus are so called not because of any difference in their respective powers, but because of their different places of abode. In the Tantra- raja (ch. I) it is said that the Gurus of the Divya Order always abide in Shiva’s
Heaven, those of the Siddha Order both in the Human-World and in the Heaven- Worlds, and those of the Manava Order on Earth only.
224 Tibetan Book of the Dead: Addenda
who stands to all gurus and shishyas under him as the Divine Father. The vital-force, or vital-airs (praua-vayu), serve as a psycho-physical link uniting the human with the divine; and the vital-force, having been centred in the Seventh Psychic-Centre, or Thousand-petalled Lotus, by exercise of the awakened Serpent-Power, through that Centre, as through a wireless receiving station, are received the spiritual gift-waves of the Supreme Guru. Thus is the divine grace received into the human organism and made to glow, as electricity is made to glow when conducted to the vacuum of an electric bulb; and the true initiation is thereby conferred and the shzshya Illuminated.
In the occult language of the Indian and Tibetan Mysteries, the Supreme Guru sits enthroned in the pericarp of the Thousand-petalled Lotus. Thither, by the power of the Serpent Power of the awakened Goddess Kundalini, the skzshya, guided by the human guru, is led, and bows down at the feet of the Divine Father, and receives the blessing and the bene- diction. The Veil of Aaya has been lifted, and the Clear Light shines into the heart of the skzskya unobstructedly. As one Lamp is lit by the Flame of another Lamp, so the Divine Power is communicated from the Divine Father, the Supreme Guru, to the newly-born one, the human shishya.
The secret mantra conferred at the initiation, like the Egyptian Word of Power, is the Password necessary for a conscious passing from the embodied state into the disem- bodied state. If the initiate is sufficiently developed spiritually before the time comes for the giving up of the gross physical body at death, and can at the moment of quitting the earth- plane remember the mystic santra, or Word of Power, the change will take place without loss of consciousness; nor will the shishya of full development suffer any break in the con- tinuity of consciousness from incarnation to incarnation.
V. gREALDI Y,
In denying the soul hypothesis, Buddhism of all Schools maintains that personal immortality is impossible, because all personal existence is but a mere flux of instability and continual