Felicia Heidrick's Excerpts from Liber XV
From West to East and Back Again:
Excerpts from Liber XV - The Gnostic Mass in light of
the Bhagavata Purana, the tantras, Kalachakra,
and a specific yoga sequence
This is an evolving exegesis. I will post to my social media accounts as I update.
DISCLAIMER Insights based on 23 years of reviewing some tantras in English translation, direct experience of the Gnostic Mass, and direct experience of sahajiya Awakening via the knowledge & practices of the Shakta & Shaivite tantrika traditions of which I am an initiate. No, I am not soliciting students! No, this is not for profit.
DEDICATION To All who celebrate the Gnostic Mass, most especially the women of Thelema - you dear Sisters *are* the Power of Space, the Absolute as Nuit & Kundalini Shakti; to all the men of Thelema who know "Thou art That and That am I"; and to all my beautiful Ze's, Sisters, and Brothers on the Rainbow Spectrum, this is a passion play of That which is within each of us, the Macrocosm and microcosm.
"And, forasmuch as meat and drink are transmuted in us daily into spiritual substance…”
Familiar with PaRDeS of Torah/Qabalah exegesis as the four ways to "enter the Garden of Eden” or four ways to understand a written work?
"The influential Kaulavali Nirnaya Tantra, a digest of many of the greatest of the Kaula tantras, says that drinking is either divya, vira or pashu. The first is the realisation that the Goddess as wine-nectar is within, the second uses alcohol, while for the pashu it is prohibited as it is done without understanding. To a vira who wants to be liberated, ordinary prohibitions do not apply. Wine is Shakti and flesh [meat] is Shiva.”
"the Kularnava Tantra says that the divine person, or divya, realises that wine flows from the 1,000 petal lotus, flesh is the sense of duality, fish is the disordering of the senses and sexual intercourse is the union of Kundalini with supreme Shiva. Indeed, the commentary to the famous Karpuradistotra goes further and says that true sexual intercourse is union with the goddess within.” More on this subject, here.
"AUMGN AUMGN AUMGN”
Western sources provide an interesting exposition.
Still, the question remains, why not OM?
Why AUM and why add the guttural G and the palatal, dental and retroflexive
places of articulation
of the letter N to it in this specific pattern?
Practice of the different forms at different pitches reveals something if one is attuned
to subtle harmonic energetic changes in the body, either alone or with partner(s).
But, knowledge and understanding of the Vedic and Tantric mystical cosmological significance
and the enfolding process of the phonemes
certainly aids one's ability to use this method, alone, to actually dissolve into the Absolute of
Infinite Space, Awakening thereby.
In short, the Sanskrit letters/phonemes that make up the word AUM are among the first in the creative cosmological
process underlying the patterning of the whole of Reality. AU is one of the phases
of the fourfold Power of Action. The letter M is the anusvAra, the Siva-bindu,
taught as the fusion of Sun, Moon, and Fire (knowing, known, and knower, respectively). As the creative
cosmological process continues, the tattvas are created. The letter G is the tattva of fire.
The phoneme N is of three forms, the tattvas: audibility, speech (voice), and hearing.
The process by which AUM arises from the Absolute and Awe, etc., is described in this short chapter of
Abhinavagupta’s Tantrasara, translated to English by Christopher Wallis, PhD, Sanskrit, Cal Berkeley.
There is but one flaw in Wallis' translation: referring to the Highest Divinity as "He" and "Himself". The Absolute
is genderless and sexless Presence at the end of Desire.
For the Vedic explanations of how AUM/OM, alone,
builds the body of deity, conquers death, leads to immortality and liberation from rebirth – in this lifetime:
This Whole World is OM: Song, Soteriology, and the Emergence of the Sacred Syllable by Finnian McKean Moore Geret,
Harvard, 2015
The Section Headings, alone, are certain to excite interest.
The Priestess "...bears the Sword from a red girdle"
Liber AL, I:60: "The Five Pointed Star, with a Circle in the Middle, & the circle is Red"
"She, the very body of the Absolute, the very self of the bindu tattva, is both with qualities and without qualities." -- Kamadhenu Tantra, the 36 Tattvas/Prapanchas (five-foldness) of the Universe
Two Children
"In the Hindu Kalachakra tradition, the female aspect is Sakti or Energy. She is symbolised by the Moon as Shiva is symbolised by the Sun. From their sexual union of red and white bindus or potentials, proceeds the entire creation. This creation is the child or the microcosm. The Tibetan Kalachakra holds that the male aspect represents Prajna (Wisdom) and the female aspect Upaya (Means)." --Mike Magee, Tantrik Astrology
Note: the entire chapter on The Wheel of Time/Kalachakra is worth reading, at a minimum.
"Ye shall gather goods and store of women and spices; ye shall wear rich jewels"
Spices, jewels, and women==shaktis/powers/planetary powers/treasures countering malefics == the Ratnas of which there are 3x4 and Navagrahas for which there are many synonyms which yield a treasure trove.
"and so shall ye come to my joy."
Space/The Absolute/All
"I charge you earnestly to come before me in a single robe, and covered with a rich head-dress."
Skyclad == naked brilliance/robed in the Sun/Sahasrara
"Put on the wings"
Hamsa=become the swan's wings of Ajna cakra; Khechari==become the flyer in the Void (also a mudra)
"arouse the coiled splendour within you"
with Asvini mudra & mulabandha, amaroli/sahajoli/vajroli mudra, arouse the delight of Muladhara vrittis - Shakti/Kundalini
"Drink to me, for I love you!"
Amrta (The Final Ratna) via prana
The entire EGC Mass is full of these recursive themes.
(to be continued)
In the Mahanirvana-tantra, Kali in the form of Sakti is praised by Shiva:
"At the dissolution of things, it is Kala [Time] Who will devour all, and by reason of this He is called Mahakala [an epithet of Lord Shiva], and since Thou devourest Mahakala Himself, it is Thou who art the Supreme Primordial Kalika. Because Thou devourest Kala, Thou art Kali, the original form of all things, and because Thou art the Origin of and devourest all things Thou art called the Adya [the Primordial One]. Re-assuming after Dissolution Thine own form, dark and formless, Thou alone remainest as One ineffable and inconceivable. Though having a form, yet art Thou formless; though Thyself without beginning, multiform by the power of Maya, Thou art the Beginning of all, Creatrix, Protectress, and Destructress that Thou art."