How a Deity or Spirit Becomes "Bound" Through Mantra Vidya

The speaker introduces the topic as somewhat strange and different, one that will add to the listener's knowledge in the field of tantra. He says there must be a curiosity in the mind: how can any shakti harm someone without considering dharma and adharma? He puts it concretely. We hear that on so-and-so a maran tantra prayog was done, and then someone says it was a prayog of Kali ji, or of Bhairav ji. So why would Bhairav ji or Kali ji ever do a maran prayog on anyone? They are shaktis that appeared and manifested for the protection of dharma. How, then, in adharma? Many such doubts, he says, must arise, and the talk is placed before the listener to explain how this actually happens. The explanation that follows is that a shakti, once pleased by a sadhak's one-pointed love or compelled by his mantra, gives its word and becomes bound by it; that mechanism, not the shakti's own righteousness, is what decides what it does.

The speaker explains the binding in two modes. First, bhav. In the field of tantra, or in any bhakti path, when we do the sadhana and upasana of a deity with bhav foremost, with kriya foremost, with the principles of upasana, as our nitya and naimittik rule, and dedicate every moment of our life to some deva shakti, some divine energy, then from the bhav-energy born of that one-pointed love the shakti is nourished, becomes pleased, and appears before us. Showing grace, it gives a word of this kind: "whatever you say, that work we will accomplish; we are under the sway of your love." Second, kriya. When a person, with kriya foremost, makes shaktis siddha through such mantras that the shakti is compelled, under the sway of those mantras, to do the work, then too such acts are carried out. He then calls the subject a part of paralaukik vigyan, other-worldly science. One repeats a single mantra again and again, which we call japa. As it is repeated, an energy is built. The projection or target of that energy is some one divine energy, some one divine shakti, which has unlimited strength. By dedicating it to them we obtain from them an anshatmak shakti, a portion of their power, on the understanding that we will use or misuse this portion for our own selfish purpose. That, he says, is the reality, whether we call it obtaining a boon, or grace, or blessing. A shakti bound by its word in this way, he says, is then given a place at various spots, served and worshipped, and that very shakti is used well or misused.

For an example, the speaker turns to the Puranic accounts, which he says are full of this. Look at every daitya, danav and rakshasa: all of them, with one rule and one nishtha, as a devotee, equipped with the whole vidhi-vidhan, worshipped some one shakti for a fixed time or for a very long time. He takes the case of someone worshipping Shiva ji, who is Maharudra. Some daitya did tapasya to him for a hundred years, and Shiva ji appeared. For as long as he did that hundred-year tapasya to Mahadev, his living, his conduct and thinking, his behaviour and his daily sandhya worship were all divine. His character was like that of an outstanding and worthy Brahmin, one of whom we can say: yes, this is a Brahmin, he does his daily rites, sandhya-vandan and so on. But when Mahadev appears and the daitya obtains from him the boon he wanted, the aim in his mind is fulfilled: "Mahadev, give us such a power that with it we can do whatever we wish." Now, the speaker says, the honour and maryada of that mantra, of that tapasya, of the bhav he showed and the time he gave, has to be kept by Mahadev. Niyati has fixed this, and Bhagavan himself is niyati. He is doing his lila, but try to understand the matter here: committed to it, he grants such powers. After obtaining the power, he says, the daityas and danavas forget the maryada of that tapasya. "So many hundred years of punya, how can they be destroyed?" And with the power they now do whatever they please.

From the Puranic case the speaker moves to the present. In Kalikaal too, he says, whatever tantra, mantra and related practices are going on, somewhere the same matter is at work. In today's time, he says, the negative shaktis are made siddha with intensity: bhoot, pret, pishaach, baital, brahmarakshas, daitya, danav, shaktis like Mahishasura. To make all these shaktis siddha in a short time and in the form of the maximum possible strength, subjects of tantra were created by the siddhas. Those systems, he says, were somewhere for one's own protection and for destroying enemies. Now, in the place of the welfare of people, they are somewhere used, misused, to cause harm to others and for prayogs such as maran. Here too, he says, the same matter applies.

The speaker corrects a common picture. It is not, he says, that when a maran prayog is done on someone, or a negative energy is projected, it was simply lifted and let loose just like that. The person has done tapasya. The sadhak who does this kind of misuse has also served, for 40 days, 50 days, a month, a whole year, the shamshan, the masan, or his guru. After that service he obtained that kind of vidya, and he made that vidya siddha with hardship and difficulty. After the siddhi, whatever deva or devata, masan or masani, or whatever shakti appeared, a trivacha was made with them. Now, he says, however much his tapobal, and even if it is only a kshudra shakti, the mantra japa and so on done for its sake gave it strength. That energy was satisfied by it, and it gave him its word. After this, when he projects on you, or to destroy you or to cause you pain invokes that siddha energy, saying "come, do such a work", then, because they have already given their word, and because they have come under the sway of the tapasya this person did for so long, they have to do that work.

Having shown how a negative shakti is bound, the speaker turns the lesson on the listener's own worship. If we are serving God, serving the divine mahashaktis, we must be one-pointed. Look, he says: the people who worship negative energies, who make bhoot-pret siddha, are very devoted. They make no mistake, because they know that if a mistake happens their life will go. But when someone serves God, he knows that a mistake or a missed rule will make no difference: God is kind and merciful, he will hardly give us trouble. So he comfortably does ten days and leaves five; does five days and leaves two; does a month and leaves four months. This tendency to drop, he says, is the very reason those things are not obtained. He sets the two side by side. On one side a person is serving and worshipping his own aradhya, his masan-dev, with one-pointedness, giving bhog and offerings by daily rule, offering liquor, offering a cock, whatever his subject is. On the other side, over offering bhog to God, people come to blows at home: the bhog is finished, so you go and bring it; why did you offer this in the naivedya; it should be offered like this; why are you offering something so expensive. So your nishtha never forms either. Today you worship at 6, tomorrow at 8, the day after at 10. That person is completely firm that it must start at 12 at night, meaning it must start; he will not let it become 12:01. But you have no concern with that. So nishtha falls short, he says. And when that person worships and does sadhana of a shakti, he does it with such divinity that he takes it to be God in person. Here, you keep even God as a child, and in the confusion of bhav after bhav you go on disrespecting him. The result you get, he says, is the result of that same disrespect.

The speaker brings the two halves of the talk together. Bhagavan, he says, is in the control of the devotee in the way described. In exactly the same way, the shaitan, and whatever negative energies and shaktis there are, are also under the sway of their devotee's mantra, under the sway of his kriya, under the sway of his bhav. And it is for this very reason that they cause harm. So understand the subject in this way, he says: it is all a play of energies. This is his answer to the opening doubt about how a dharma-protecting shakti can act against someone: the binding, not the shakti's nature, decides.

Closing the talk, the speaker gives a definition. How energy is changed from one energy into another energy, he says, is what tantra vidya is. And this same vidya is misused or used well by any sadhak by means of his tapobal. Tapobal, he says, is the very energy through which all these things are accomplished successfully. Protection will also come from it, destruction will also come from it, punishment will also come from it. In other words, it is possible only through tapobal. Every other kriya apart from tapobal, he says, is momentary. Have an Utara done for someone, have some upay or kaat done: it will help for 24 hours, for two days, for up to ten days, and after that it is not going to help for a long time. He closes by hoping the subject has been understood, so that surrender toward one's Ishta Devata grows firm in the right way and one succeeds.