சனி, 13 ஜூலை, 2013

What is Diksha

ராதே கிருஷ்ணா 13-07-2013

What is Diksha

M.s. Eswaran shared William Thomas's photo.
What is Diksha

In San­skrit the word for ini­ti­a­tion is ‘dik­sha’ which comes from the root ‘diksh’, to ded­i­cate one­self. Ini­ti­a­tion implies that the dis­ci­ple ded­i­cates him­self to the ser­vice of the guru and accept­ing his guid­ance. It also means that the disciple dedicates himself to something that was previously beyond his perception and understanding. Whether formal or subtle, ini­ti­a­tion has been known and utilised through­out the world. In ancient Greece the word for ini­ti­a­tion was ‘musierion’ which means ‘dedication and knowledge that can­not be divulged’. Ini­ti­a­tion was an essential part of the ancient mystical soci­eties — ‘The Mysteries’.

In Latin the word for ini­ti­a­tion is ‘sacra­men­tum’, that which binds. Ini­ti­a­tion binds the dis­ci­ple to his guru and also binds him to a deeper iden­ti­fi­ca­tion with his own being. Fur­ther, ini­ti­a­tion has the same type of impli­ca­tions as the word ‘Yoga’. ‘Yoga’ means ‘the process whereby one grad­u­ally binds or yokes one­self’ to one’s deeper nature or being’ . We can say that the path of Yoga is a process of pro­gres­sively more sub­tle ini­ti­a­tions. One gains a deeper insight into life and one­self. Such is the mean­ing of initiation.

Ini­ti­a­tion in Tantra is to awaken the Shakti that is dor­mant in us and, through a series of ini­ti­a­tions into dif­fer­ent prac­tices and tech­niques, a tantric seeks to unite this dor­mant Shakti with the ever-wakeful Shiva. In Tantra there are the fol­low­ing types of dik­sha or initiation:

1. Spar­sha dik­sha: Ini­ti­a­tion and instruc­tion by touch is likened to the slow nour­ish­ing of its young by the bird with the warmth of its wings. It is the dik­sha where the guru divinises the sad­haka by his mys­ti­cal touch. We have the exam­ple of Ramakr­ishna Parama­hansa who one morn­ing put his feet on the chest of Naren­dra, and as a result of that mys­tic touch Naren­dra lost his body-mind con­scious­ness and was trans­formed from a scep­tic Naren­dra into a God-intoxicated Vivekananda.

2. Dhrik or dhrik­sangya dik­sha: Ini­ti­a­tion by sight is Like the nour­ish­ing of its young by the fish through its see­ing alone. In this form of dik­sha, the process of trans­mis­sion of shakti is by sight. The guru trans­mits spir­i­tual power to his dis­ci­ple by mere see­ing. Ramana Maharshi used to impart ini­ti­a­tion to his deserv­ing dis­ci­ples by sight only, at Arunacha­lam, his ashram in South India.

3. Man­asa dik­sha: In this dik­sha the dis­ci­ple receives the grace of the guru by thought. Here, the dor­mant Shakti within the dis­ci­ple feels the sub­tle, intu­itive pow­ers of Shiva, This dik­sha is also known as ‘Shak­ti­pat’, the awak­en­ing of Shakti.

4. Anushthana dik­sha. It was like a prepara­tory class. This ini­ti­a­tion was also known as vaidiki dik­sha. Before tak­ing the tantric ini­ti­a­tion, it was cus­tom­ary to go through the vedic rites and rit­u­als. In the absence of a com­pe­tent guru who could ini­ti­ate and guide the dis­ci­ple in the deeper sci­ence of sad­hana, vedic dik­sha became very pop­u­lar among the ordi­nary folk, and tantric dik­sha was con­fined only to a few. Anusthana dik­sha was con­sid­ered nec­es­sary and impor­tant for the man of ani­mal ten­den­cies and instincts, to tran­scend his prim­i­tive and under­de­vel­oped frame of con­scious­ness and to try to reach into the other higher lev­els of consciousness.

5. Var­na­mayi dik­sha: It is said that it removes all bonds and brings the real­i­sa­tion of supreme god­hood and a stats of eter­nal bliss. It lib­er­ates man from the bondage of pasha (the noose). Here the pasha is rep­re­sented by one instinct. There are fifty instincts in a human being and each instinct is a vritti or pat­tern of mind. They are rep­re­sented by fifty let­ters and these fifty let­ters are rep­re­sented by dif­fer­ent petals of var­i­ous Lotuses.
The lotuses are known as chakras and the let­ters are placed in the dif­fer­ent chakras of the dis­ci­ple and are swal­lowed by the kun­dalini as it ascends through the chakras, free­ing the sad­haka from those vrit­tis, instincts or pasha. When all the let­ters are swal­lowed up by the kun­dalini, the sad­haka attains the stale of eter­nal blessed­ness. This is called samadhi. It means that all the vrit­tis are extin­guished and that the sad­haka is lib­er­ated from the bondage of pasha.

6 . Kalaa dik­sha: The dif­fer­ent expres­sions of Shiva or con­scious­ness are known as kalaa; the crude man­i­fes­ta­tion of Shiva is in the form of waves and vibra­tions. Bindu, nada and kalaa are the three stages of cos­mic evo­lu­tion. In the state of bindu and nada the bondage of Shakti is the­o­ret­i­cal. Paramshiva under­goes trans­for­ma­tion due to the acti­va­tion of Shakti, but in the state of bindu and nada there is no objec­tive man­i­fes­ta­tion of Paramshiva, supreme con­scious­ness. Grad­u­ally, due to the pre­dom­i­nance of the sta­tic prin­ci­ple, tamo­guna, Paramshiva is trans­formed into the phe­nom­e­nal world. This is the state of kalaa. Kalaa is noth­ing but the phys­i­cal waves and vibra­tions of the cos­mo­log­i­cal order.
Accord­ing to Tantra, the whole uni­verse is Shiva –maya. Every being is tran­scen­den­tal but due to cer­tain faults the world becomes Shiva– Shakti — maya, the illu­sion of energy and con­scious­ness. Due to the illu­sion, a human being, who in real­ity is tran­scen­den­tal in nature, does not have the real­i­sa­tion of his per­fec­tion, and thinks that he is an imper­fect crea­ture. For it the world is maya and for the lib­er­ated soul the world is Shiva-maya.
In kalaa dik­sha there are two ele­ments. First, it brings the aware­ness of the mind, and sec­ond it brings the aware­ness that the world is a mys­tic arrange­ment of Shiva, Kalaa dik­sha destroys dark­ness. Man attains divin­ity. He becomes Shiva.

7. Aanavi dik­sha. When, with the help of mantra sad­hana, under the guid­ance of a com­pe­tent guru, the dis­ci­ple becomes free from the bondage of world maya.

8. Shakti dik­sha: The guru transmits his shakti to his disciple by any means and method of sight, sound or touch, by written letters or ver­bal communication. The guru transmits his shakti to his disciple in order to conquer the maya and awaken his creativity.

9. Shamb­havi dik­sha: This is one of the highest ini­ti­a­tions in the tantric tra­di­tion. By the mere touch of the guru, a disciple goes into sahaj samadhi. It is known as shamb­havi dik­sha where ‘through the mere look or speech or touch of the guru, the disciple attains, instan­ta­neously, knowledge of the supreme reality or truth.

Posted by Sadhak on February 28, 2011
From http://www.yogamag.net/archives/1991/bmar91/sat291.shtml

Sri Karunamayi is revered in India as an embodiment of divine motherly love, due to the love and affection that she showers liberally on people, animals, and even plants, the spiritual knowledge and guidance that she gives freely to all of humanity.
Amma showers Her divine love during diksha











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