Chinnamasta
Many Faces,
Three Shimmering Apples
Sondra Tudor
RedJadeHummingBird
Used with
permission by www.ExoticIndiaArt.com
“If God had
no desire, there would be no creation.”[1]
Where
is She and What Is She Doing?
If
we were to want to visit a temple dedicated to Chinnamasta today, there are
few, but one is close
to
Here
is part of an article from The Telegraph,
”Another
important aspect of the temple is the awe it generates among
its devotees. Worshipping the Chhinamasta
demands certain rituals to
be observed, requiring arduous religious
discipline. The pujaris
confide that ordinary mortals find it hard to
visit the temple after
sunset when tantriks seeking siddhi gather
there to do their special puja.” [3]
Three Apples of Wisdoms and
Three Severed Heads
Although Hinduism and Buddhism are both
enlightenment philosophies i.e. they focus primarily on transcendence as the
method of solving the problem of human suffering, I believe that the Ten
Mahavidyas, including the severed headed goddess Chinnamasta, share practices,
aims and wisdoms with Women’s Spirituality.
The specific orientation of Tantra reinforces this tendency. As Harish Johari says, “If God had no desire,
there would be no creation, no world.
Tantra performs the unique work of studying
this desire.”[4] A world where the animating spirit is desire is
a world full of itself, full of presence, full of apples and wisdom and heads.
In
Pagan, Wiccan, Goddess and other Earth-centered spiritual paths, we
place emphasis on immanence, on the presence of the divine manifest, especially
the
Divine Herself Immanence of Gaia. We stress involvement. Our energy, rather than upward, is, as Anodea Judith says, “Down and within, towards manifestation, soul and body and toward engagement with the world around us.”[5] We are seeking to alleviate suffering by “engaging the forces that cause it.” We are part of what she calls an “embodiment” philosophy and we share our basic beliefs with “somatic therapies and bioenergetics”[6] and I believe with aspects of these two transcendent philosophies, both of which have Tantric traditions and a goddess called Chinnamasta (Hindu) and Chinnamunda (Buddhist).
In
our Goddess traditions we engage in many ways: by direct action in our communities and homes;
by ritual; by magic and prayer; by spells and devotions; by meditations and
reflections. So do the devotees of
Tantra, although with the stated final aim of seeing through all the play to
its essential illusion, not of mining the wisdom of the body, communing with
earth devas or cleaning up the river as ends in themselves.
In
Mahayana Buddhism the end vision of the Tantric vehicle (Vajrayana) is
Buddhahood. This state is gained by
mastery of the six perfections: generosity, ethical conduct, patience, effort,
meditation and transcendent insight of the essential voidness of reality.[7] With the exception of the last
perfection, Goddess paths share these aims. To master the perfections, to
attain Buddhahood, may take many lifetimes.
The Tantric path, known to be quicker, has the reputation of being
definitely more dangerous. The
temptation to use the special skills one acquires to expedite progress for
personal gain, rather than for the good of all, is known to ensnare many
students.[8]
Is It a Bird, a Witch or a
Tantrika?
The
eight great siddhis or mundane powers strived to by Tantric Buddhists are
explained thus by Elisabeth Anne Bernard.
Khadga—the
power to be invincible with a sword empowered with specific mantras
Anjana—an
eye salve that removes ignorance
Padalepa—a
salve applied to make one swift of foot
Antardhana—ability
to become invisible
Rasa-Rasayan—the
alchemical ability to transform base metals into gold
Khecara—the
ability to fly through the air
Bhucara—the
ability to go anywhere in an instant
Patala—the
power to go to the nether worlds.[9]
One
may also acquire the six suprasensory perceptions: clairvoyance, clairaudience,
understanding of illusions and miracles, reading others thoughts, remembering
ones previous lives, eradication of ‘fluxes’. [10]
Feel
at home, Divine Feminine?
In
the Hindu Tantric tradition, the worship of Chinnamasta is basically the same as
for other Goddesses and Gods--one repeats her mantra, draws or imagines her yantra
and asks to become one with her form through mediations.[11] It is a call to be the vessel for a
particular face of the Deity and in this way can be the most profound
relationship a person may have in their lives.
It is specific.[12]
According
to David Kinsley, “The adept must know, ‘perfect’, and repeatedly
recite the goddess’s mantra (japa sadhana) throughout out the worship rituals,
carefully select and protect a place of worship with the appropriate mantras
and mudras (hand gestures); correctly imagine and interiorize the goddess; draw
or carefully imagine and worship her yantra; invoke the goddess’s hymns
including her hundred and thousand name hymn…[13]
In general the sadhaka (practioner) seeks to identify with the goddess in
question, to have a vision of her.” All
of this is secret between guru, sadhaka and goddess. Not the student’s family
and definitely not the public will know the details.[14]
It is worth noting that Chinnamasta is only one of two of the ten Great Wisdom goddesses who are a ‘left-hand path only’ goddess. These goddesses are reserved for seekers who are particularly daring, as the left-hand path involves, “partaking in the five forbidden things: meat, fish, wine, a particular type of grain (possibly a drug of some sort) and illicit sexual intercourse.”[15]
Needed A Skillful Snake
Handler Not a Serotonin Uptake Inhibitor?
One of the ways Chinnamasta has been seen that interests me is as an iconographic representation of Kundalini energy.[16] The streams of her blood are surging cosmic energy. This energy is sometimes described as a feminine serpent lying coiled at the base of our body’s trunk.[17] As it rises and wakens it can express itself in much uncomfortable and unrecognized physicality.[18] Our culture, unaccustomed to this experience, is just now beginning to open up to the possibility that some afflictions are the symptoms of Kundalini awakening.
El
Collie in her e-book Shared
Transformation explains her personal experience, and she dedicates a
website to helping others to understanding similar challenges.
She
says,
“The Goddess
is as merciful as she is fierce, and for some, spiritual awakening may arrive
in gentle waves of personal insight and gradual revelation. But many of us are
discovering that the road to enlightenment often veers through rugged terrain
as well as billowing fields of bliss. Spiritual energies can storm the senses
like a psychic hurricane, relentlessly smashing through every level of
obstruction to inner growth. Once unfurled, there is no way to reverse the expansive,
consciousness-raising intent of fiery Kundalini.”[19]
Read
these stories about awakened Kundalini if you are attracted to this path and
feel a cautionary take interesting. Bernard
says that, “Since Tantra is fraught with dangerous methods they could make a
person insane without the guidance of an adept teacher.”[20] Viewed as Kundalini, the image
of Chinnamasta's blood is her Kundalini energy and we can see this energy
has literally taken her head off, freeing it in the service of her companions
and herself.
Here
is a story that emphasizes an overtone of compassionate sacrifice in the
Chinnamasta story, a theme I explore in my first essay [21]about
Her.
Once Parvati went with Her
friends Dakini and Varnini to take a bath in the
After a short
while, Her friends once again appealed to Her, telling Her that She was the
Mother of the Universe and they Her children, and asked to be fed quickly.
Parvati replied that they should wait until they got home. Her friends could
not wait any longer and demanded that their hunger be satisfied immediately.
The compassionate Parvati laughed and with her finger nail cut Her own head.
Immediately the blood spurted in three directions. Her two friends drank the
blood from two of the directions and the Goddess herself drank the blood from the third direction. Since she cut Her own head, she is
known as Chinnamasta."[22]
The
tone of this tale contrasts with stories that highlight the darkest aspect of
feminine power—a goddess who wants blood and blood sacrifice[23]
(A Hindu custom rejected by Buddhists) and with other stories speculating that Chinnamasta is a reflection of the most heroic
warrior within us--one who faces the terrors of death and embraces those
transforming powers. Here is a ditty,
best sung, from me to those powers, to Her.
Three for Her
Three
apples you lay at my feet dear one
Three
apples that shimmer the night
These
apples bereft of their tree dear one
As
you are without a head tonight
A
kiss a kiss a kiss for the maiden
And
one for the Queeny too
Three
kisses again for the hag, in pleasure
For
she’s the one who holds your treasure
Outside
its usual place.
It
may be we need to go
Beneath
the
Waves
of daylight
To
find to fetch to give
The
things she finds for her delight
And
wizened or headless those
Apples
to give are really for us
We
know and once she gets the treats
Expected
through the Gate
We’ll
go.
And
here we meet another philosophical view—integrative. This is where we might pause and see as the
great thinker-feeler Jung did that the very essence of the mind is to create
the illusion of opposition, that this illusion serves us in a profound way, but
that the deeper we delve the more the we might encounter the wholeness and transformation
of the Soul’s path. Here, as women
disenfranchised for Goddess knows how long, we are winding our way back and
through all of history, discovering our story both specific and universal. Each of us is looking at Chinnamasta with fresh
eyes, with gratitude, amazed at another face of the Feminine, a reflection of
ourselves this time as a Goddess of sacrifice, transformation and courage, her
apples shimmering in our new light. We
are the light.
So
Mote It Be!
This
document can be re-published only as long as no information is lost or changed,
credit is given to the author, and it is provided or used without cost to
others.
This
essay is part of a longer investigation of the ways Women’s Spirituality
interpenetrates other spiritual paths and will be published on
RedJadeHummingbird’s website www.ripeningthesoul
later this year.