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Cisco CCNA Certification Exam 640-553
07 January, 2009
As I have pointed out on many an occasion this question of Sadhana is of the highest importance, and has been in recent times much overlooked. It is that which more than anything else gives value to the Agama or Tantra Shastra. Mere talk about religion is only an intellectual exercise. Of what use are grand phrases about Atma on the lips of those who hate and injure one another and will not CISCO 640-553 help the poor. Religion is kindness. Religion again is a practical activity. Mind and body must be trained. There is a spiritual as well as a mental and physical gymnastic. According to Shakta doctrine each man and woman contains within himself and herself a vast latent magazine of Power or Shakti, a term which comes from the root "Shak" to be able, to have force to do, to act. They are each Shakti and nothing but Shakti, for the Svarupa of Shakti, that is, Shakti as it is in itself is Consciousness, and mind and body are Shakti. The problem then is how to raise and vivify Shakti. This is the work of Sadhana in the Religion of Power. The Agama is a practical philosophy, and as the Bengali friend and collaborator of mine, Professor Pramathanatha Mukhyopadhyaya, whom I cite again, has well put it, what the intellectual world wants to-day is the sort of philosophy which not merely argues but experiments. This is Kriya. The form which Sadhana takes necessarily varies according to faith, temperament and capacity. Thus, amongst Christians, the Catholic Church, like Hinduism, has a full and potent Sadhana in its sacraments (Samskara), temple (Church), private worship (Puja, Upasana) with Upacara "bell, light and incense" (Ghanta, Dipa, Dhupa), Images or Pratima (hence it has been called idolatrous), devotional rites such as Novenas and the like (Vrata), the threefold "Angelus" at morn, noon and evening (Samdhya), rosary (Japa), the wearing of Kavacas (Scapulars, Medals, Agnus Dei), pilgrimage (Tirtha), fasting, abstinence and mortification (Tapas), monastic renunciation (Samnyasa), meditation (Dhyana), ending in the union of mystical theology (Samadhi) and so forth. There are other smaller details such for instance as Shanti-abhisheka (Asperges) into which I need not enter here. I may, however, mention the Spiritual Director who occupies the place of the Guru; the worship (Hyperdulia) of the Virgin-Mother which made Svami Vivekananda call the Italian Catholics, Shaktas; and the use of wine (Madya) and bread (corresponding to Mudra) in the Eucharist or Communion Service. Whilst, however, the Blessed Virgin evokes devotion as warm as that which is here paid to Devi, she is not Devi for she is not God but a creature selected as the vehicle of His incarnation (Avatara). In the Eucharist the bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ appearing under the form or "accidents" of those material substances; so also Tara is Dravamayi, that is, the "Saviour in liquid form". (Mahanirvana Tr. xi. 105-107.) In the Catholic Church (though the early practice was otherwise) the laity no longer take wine but bread only, the officiating priest consuming both. Whilst however the outward forms in this case are similar, CISCO 640-721 the inner meaning is different. Those however who contend that eating and drinking are inconsistent with the "dignity" of worship may be reminded of Tertullian's saying that Christ instituted His great sacrament at a meal. These notions are those of the dualist with all his distinctions. For the Advaitin every function and act may be made a Yajña. Agape or "Love Feasts," a kind of Cakra, were held in early times, and discontinued as orthodox practice, on account of abuses to which they led; though they are said still to exist in some of the smaller Christian sects of the day. There are other points of ritual which are peculiar to the Tantra Shastra and of which there is no counterpart in the Catholic ritual such as Nyasa and Yantra. Mantra exists in the form of prayer and as formulae of consecration, but otherwise the subject is conceived of differently here. There are certain gestures (Mudra) made in the ritual, as when consecrating, blessing, and so forth, but they are not so numerous or prominent as they are here. I may some day more fully develop these interesting analogies, but what I have said is for the present sufficient to establish the numerous similarities which exist between the Catholic and Indian Tantrik ritual. Because of these facts the "reformed" Christian sects have charged the Catholic Church with "Paganism". It is in fact the inheritor of very ancient practices but is not necessarily the worse for that. The Hindu finds his Sadhana in the Tantras of the Agama in forms which his race has evolved. In the abstract there is no reason why his race should not modify these forms of Sadhana or evolve new ones. But the point is that it must have some form of Sadhana. Any system to be fruitful must experiment to gain experience. It is because of its powerful sacraments and disciplines that in the West the Catholic Church has survived to this day, holding firm upon its "Rock" amid the dissolving sects, born of what is called the "Reform". CISCO 646-204 It is likely to exist when these, as presently existing sects, will have disappeared. All things survive by virtue of the truth in them. The particular truth to which I here refer is that a faith cannot be maintained by mere hymn-singing and pious addresses. For this reason too Hinduism has survived.
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