How a Woman Should Begin Tantra Sadhana — Rules for the Unmarried, the Newly Married, the Childless and the Mother, and How to Take Diksha

The speaker begins with the unmarried woman who will marry in future. When she starts on the sadhana path, he says, she first looks at which shaktis to begin her upasana with. Today people search this on the internet and on YouTube and learn there that sadhana begins with the shaktis of the home, with the kul pitrs and the shaktis of the kula. But even before that, he says, she should see according to her own birth kundali in which field her sadhana will bear fruit for her. This applies to both men and women. Along with that: where does her mind settle, in which kind of sadhana, in the form of which devata, and if in a form of Bhagavati, then which form of Bhagavati chiefly attracts her. All these matters, he says, she should decide first. The reason is that if she takes hold of any one form of shakti, she will have to carry it for a long time. Whether she will be able to keep that shakti's rules or not should also be seen beforehand, and in which order she is going to proceed. Without taking all the information, he says, she can do their seva, do puja, and do sadhana up to a limit.

The second point, the speaker says, is that an unmarried girl must never, especially, worship the pitrs of her own kul, that is her maternal kul, or the kul shakti of her maternal kul, with her own hands. There is no need to be negative here, he says; many people ask why, if she is a woman, she cannot do it, why a kanya cannot serve and worship the shaktis of her own home. She cannot, he says, because of this: in the whole world, the whole universe, a mother-shakti is called mother-shakti because she has the capacity to give new life. And so the father of an unmarried kanya has the power to give his daughter in daan to other people, to another person, to increase their lineage; only then does another's kul grow. Such a great sacrifice a kanya's father makes. If the shaktis of her own kul come to be worshipped by that kanya's hand, then keep one thing in mind: a kul shakti is only ever worshipped once, by some one person. That is why it is forbidden, because the kanya is going to another house; leaving her maternal kul she will go to her in-laws' side, and the shaktis there are the ones she has to worship. If she worships the shaktis here and the kul pitrs here, then, speaking in terms of tantra sadhana, by the rules of the tantra field, in many people's homes many such things have become included in the kul shaktis, which begin to stay and travel along with her, and that should not happen. All this exists even now, he says; in earlier times it was not so, many things were classified, and today these things attach because people do not pay attention. He says he has touched this subject before and is now treating it in more detail. The reason, he says, is for her own sake: she is being kept safe for the house whose growth she will go to bring about, where she will become the Lakshmi. If she does the puja here nothing wrong will happen to her; but the house she then goes to will have trouble, because the shaktis there will not be able to join with her. He asks listeners to try to understand this.

So what should she do in that situation, the speaker asks. When she wants to begin, her father will pray and perform the puja for her. She will only sit there with folded hands; she should certainly pray and do puja in that sense. If she simply knows that these are her kul's shaktis, she can absolutely light one lamp for them, but the whole arrangement of the puja is not to be done by her at all. In some places, he says, it goes so far that where the kul devatas are worshipped the entry of unmarried girls is forbidden altogether. The reason is for her own sake: she is being kept safe for the other house whose growth she will bring, where she will be its Lakshmi. This is why, he says, the energy of an unmarried kanya is very important in the tantra path; in the Kaul path especially the unmarried kanya is given a very high place and worshipped as the direct form of shakti. So keep in mind: not to do it. Yes, she can have whatever puja she wants done for herself through her father, her elder brother or her younger brother. If she wants the kul shaktis' sthan or than decorated, she hands things over: take these flowers, decorate it, offer this, do this. They will do it there in her name, saying this is the daughter of our kul and lineage, our sister, give her protection, she wants to do sadhana, give her your blessing. That will happen. But she must not go and offer bhog with her own hand, must not go and do the puja with her own hand. Where a chauka is made, a than or sthan is made, and the kuldevi is jagrit, these things are to be kept in mind especially.

The second thing, the speaker says, is the worship of the kul pitrs: an unmarried girl should do no work whatsoever on behalf of the kul pitrs. Whatever is to be done for the kul pitrs, her brothers will do it or her father will do it. There too the same process applies, whatever vidhi-vidhan the family performs. And the vidhi of doing agyari is something kanyas should never do. She cannot do it, he says, especially while unmarried. After marriage the matter becomes different, if no one else is doing it; though even then, he adds, she should not really be doing anything on behalf of the pitrs. This too is to be kept in mind.

For the married woman, the speaker says, there are three conditions: newly married, already a mother, and not yet having had a child. He takes the newly married first. If you are newly married, he says, keep in mind that for one year you must never, even by mistake, do any kind of tamasik sadhana. A woman should not do tamasik sadhana at all if she is in the grihastha ashram, he adds. Second: even if you are going to worship some ugra shakti in a sattvik way, as a newly married woman, he would say that for at least one year you should not do the puja-sadhana of ugra shaktis either; puja you can do, seva you can do, sadhana you should not. Third, the bali vidhan: since you will want to do tantra sadhana, bali will have to be given there, even if only of a lemon or a coconut, and because you would have to do all that vidhan, for one year you do not do it. Your marriage is new; for one year do not do this. You are in grihasthi, so follow the rules of grihasthi. After that comes the khappar: if you are doing shakti sadhana, khappar is offered there, and it too will have to be offered when you do it fully. All those things, in the newly married state, are not to be done for one year. So what to do in that time? If a year has not passed and you want to begin sadhana right now, then for whatever shakti you wish to serve and worship, do not do her tantrokta sadhana but in the beginning do pauranik sadhana: do japa of her mantras as far as you are able, do path of the shatanam, sing one of her stotras, please her, do stuti. Do this first, he says, and after that move ahead on the tantrokta path.

Now the second case, the speaker says: you are married and have not yet had a son or daughter; your family planning is to have a child after some time. In that situation, whenever you begin sadhana, your first sadhana must be for this reason alone. You can do the sadhana-seva of the kul pitrs there, he says, and the puja of the kul shakti; begin from there in the right way. In the kul into which you have married, whatever its kul shakti is, its kul devata, its kuldevi, its kul Bhairav: worship them in order. For the pitrs, whatever is done by your husband's hand, your father-in-law's hand, or the hand of whoever does the seva-puja there happens for you automatically; you do not even need to say so. If the husband does it, you receive it of yourself. Have it done by their hands, and you yourself begin from the vidhi of seva-puja of the kuldevi, the kul devata and the Bhairav of that kul. This, he says, you must do for at least one year. Obtaining the grace of that place is the most necessary thing for you.

There, the speaker says, one more thing must be kept in mind, and he says he is speaking openly: in some people's houses masanik shaktis of one kind or another are worshipped. In that situation, a married woman who has not yet had a child must take care that if any vachan is being attempted to be given to her, through a dream or through any other medium, she does not take it. Otherwise what happens, he says, is that garbha bandhan takes place of itself. Her womb becomes bound; she has not yet had a child, and some laag or other attaches such that she will not have a child at all.

The second matter, the speaker says, is shmashanik sadhana. Even if you want to do it in a sattvik way, some sadhana in which there is a small provision that this thing is to be placed in the shmashan, this is to be done so, and you have not yet had a child, then please do not do all those things. The reason is that you do not have proper knowledge of these things; even if you are doing it after reading or hearing somewhere, or even under someone's guidance, he says he would still forbid it. He makes one thing clear: this is for the case where you have not yet had a child and there is no deficiency in you or in your husband, but the child has simply not come yet because your planning is to grow the lineage two or four years later. In such a condition, he says, never do shmashanik sadhana, masanik sadhana, any dhar pujan, whatever is to be done outside the house, pujan at a chauk or chauraha; do not do any of these at all. Keep this in mind, because otherwise if anything goes wrong you will be left troubled for the rest of your life.

The third condition, the speaker says: you are married and have had a son or daughter; the lineage has grown. In that condition, if you are going to do sadhana of some kind of ugra shakti in which you have to do pujan at a chauk or chauraha and so on, going fully into the tantrokta path, then the first thing to keep in mind is that your son or daughter must be big enough not to be drinking from your breast; the child must not be drinking mother's milk. That is the very first thing. The child must have grown that much. Second, he says, when you are advancing in tantrokta sadhana, first of all do the protective sadhanas, all of them, for a long time: constructing a kavach for the safety of your children, bandhan of the house for the safety of the home, and doing protection for your husband too. Their safety is necessary. First you will do that, and only after that will you go and do tantrokta sadhanas or pujan of this kind.

The speaker turns to diksha, which he says he should have raised at the start. If you are unmarried and going to take diksha, he wants to say clearly: if you are to marry in future, keep in mind that whatever diksha you are taking, from whatever panth, whatever path, whatever guru parampara, you do not know where your marriage is going to be, so difficulty and trouble can come to you. Because if after marriage you cannot keep the vidhi-vidhan and vidhi-nishedh of the guru parampara you have entered, then you will have complete trouble. So this must be thought of first. For example, he says, many people today become initiated into the Aghor path while unmarried; all this goes on a great deal now. Fine, go and be initiated, no problem. But then, accordingly, you will have to search for a life partner who is at least of that parampara, that path, or has knowledge of it, so that there is no difficulty. Otherwise, if you have become initiated in the Aghor panth or in some ugra parampara of that kind, not doing sattvik sadhanas but turned towards tamas, saying we will do tamasik sadhana, ugra sadhana, and your marriage happens with some person who gets frightened merely hearing of all this, then he will run away that very night. There are many things, he says, that will put their effect on your body. After marriage it is on the woman that all these things have the greatest effect, if you have done some such sadhana while unmarried. So an unmarried kanya must take special care about which path to be initiated in, so that even after marriage there is no trouble; this choice must be made in the right way.

If you are married and taking diksha, the speaker says, you should never take diksha alone, whatever the path may be. In the tantra path a married woman should never take diksha without her husband. For the husband, he says, the matter can be different: if the wife is not giving her company or cannot take it, and he is going into the veer path, then he takes diksha alone and does the sadhana first; that is a separate matter. But if you are a woman sadhika and going to take diksha, you must never take diksha alone. Diksha will be to both together; guru diksha will be to both together. As for the mantras of sadhana and so on that the guru ji has to give again in the form of diksha, he may give those to you alone, there is no dosha in that. But both having the same diksha from the same guru is extremely necessary. This diksha, he says, you can never take alone. After that too, he adds, keep in mind that if you are taking an ugra or tamasik diksha of some kind and are not yet a mother, then everything he said earlier for that stage must still be observed. All these things, he says, should be done after much thought.