Becoming Bhairava…
I was obsessed with Kali, and to a degree Prathyangira who is my Guruji’s Devi. Now they are about equal in my heart, and in many ways they are the same so occupy the same space in my heart. Not separate spaces. What I didn’t know, and was never told, is that as a being in a male body to invite Kali in you must become Bhairava, and I was doing this with my deep dedication to my sadhana, I just didn’t know it.
Prathyangira’s Bhairava is Sharabha, or Sharabeshwara, a very Ugra form that Shiva took in the tale of Narasimha. So recently I’ve begun his sadhana as well, and feel a strong pull toward him because of my love for Her. Plus I think I just really am drawn to be the odd man out. He isn’t someone many people even know about, just like Prathyangira, so it’s a less popular thing to be attracted to. Yet I am drawn to those things that the crowd has no interest in. That is where my heart lies. Finding the amazing in the obscure. I’m a big believer in the Shakti of a thing can be spread too thin, and one way that can happen is by having more and more devotees. Especailly those knowing your mantras. The more the merrier it’s said, while it may be true, the more there are the less power there is behind each recitation of Her/His mantra. So the obscure is all the more to my liking.
Not that I search it out, just that I’m naturally drawn to it. Maybe it’s a samskara I incurred, or some karma from another lifetime that keeps me this way. My mother used to think if she said blue I’d say red just to be obstinate. Not truly, but to some degree I can see how she’d think this. Her and many others. I like what I like and I usually do a lot of research into what I like and so know a lot about it and am too eager to argue about what I know, way too often. But I’m trying to let things go these days but it’s a process.
So in my search to find Smashan Kali in my inner being I sat at a smashan in Dehradun, where I was living for 6 months at that time, and became Bhairava in my my own way to pull Maa to me. It worked and made me a lot of canine friends in that place, and friends with the Doms, who are the Tantrik caste that handles the cremation ground work. It was an amazing process and I’ve written the story before. Maybe I will again for my site too, but for now that’s all I need to say about this.
So in my time away from Guruji, in Germany after I had lived with him the second time I was pulled back to Prathyangira. Not that I’d left Her, but during my Kali process I sort of left her on the back burner. She didn’t hold anything against me though because now that I’ve taken up Her sadhana full time again, I’ve doubled down with two mantras of Hers. This in a short time made me find interest in Sharabha as Her Bhairava. Last year Guruji gave me diksha to an Aghora Shiva mantra and that made me really love inviting in the masculine energy as well, though soft, it brought more balance into my body and mind. So to seek it again made sense, and upon my asking about it I was given a mantra and told to do it, so here I am. And it’s good, making me strong inwardly and have a deep resolve. It’s also brought me back to place of wanting to read and write again.
Not that I was losing interest in these forms of expression, just that I was really living so deeply in my own state of mind that I was unable to remove myself enough to even be able to write something abstract.
As a side note: I’m writing this being back in Dehradun again for a three month stint this time, and in coming here I have been less inspired to do much of anything, so the extra sadhana Guruji has given me is helping me get back in my groove. Though slowly….
So, why all this talk about Devas and Devis in such a way? In tantra our goal is to become the God we love. To realize the sensations and aspects of that deity within ourselves, so we can then live from that place. Experience life as they would, or as they do, through us. To also be there with those qualities ready for another if they should need our help. To be the fullest, most energetically aware version of ourselves that we can. To live life so fully and so full of Shakti that we pull the focus of others who will then wonder “what on earth are they doing differently than me that they glow like that?!?”
For me it’s also about using the abilities I have received through my sadhana to teach yoga, which has been my source of income for over two decades, in such a way that people can feel their own energy, the energy of their Ishta Devata and to learn how to move it, control it if you will (though we often surrender to the Shakti itself rather than try to manipulate it). To be that being another needs at that moment to show them how God would live if they were in your body/mind life experience. And to learn how to embrace our power, within the context of the yoga practices, the tantrik practices and within “real life” whatever the hell that means!
Ok, let’s leave it there for now…