How and Why a Tantric Guru Binds a Disciple

The speaker sets out the situation. You went to some person and were learning sadhana from him; he is your Guru. You learned sadhana from him and also attained siddhi and other things. But in the course of time your Divyadrishti got closed — you started to become unable to see or hear anything, and gradually whatever you had attained became kunthit (dulled). When you try to find out about this from your guru, and try to take his guidance, he refuses; or else he tells you that you have no need of all these things. The speaker says the questions are how and why this happens, and above all, how a guru binds his disciple (Bandhan); the rest of the talk answers these.

The speaker says: look, a Guru is a guru, and he will not give you all the vidyas. If he is giving you ten vidyas, then he will certainly keep an eleventh vidya with himself — a vidya that could be of use at some time in life, so that if you set off on some wrong path, he can do your Bandhan with it. Gurus keep such things back. He then marks this off from the topic of the day, which is a very common case: the disciple is right, sattvic, pure and of clean conduct, and even so the guru binds him.

The speaker says that the biggest reason behind a Guru binding a disciple who is himself right, sattvic, pure and clean in conduct is dhan — money. It is an artha-pradhan yug, an age in which wealth comes first. He describes it: you have learned all the vidyas from your guru-ji, but you are not going by what he says. If he says, "brother, do this kind of work for me", you refuse. This does happen, he says — the disciple that the guru taught then talks back. It is a different matter, he adds, whether the guru is saying it in order to take a test, or what exactly he is saying. But if a deed of this kind takes place and some guru binds you, he says, the question becomes how it is done; that is what he explains next.

The speaker says the biggest matter here is this: the Guru knows about the vidyas you have made siddh through him — what you have taken in vachan (pledge), by which mantra you did the AvahanThe invocation that calls a deity to be present in the image or yantra before worship begins. (invocation) of that shakti, by which mantra you took a vachan from her, and in accomplishing which tasks you are siddh through that shakti. Everything you can carry out through that shakti — he has knowledge of all of it. So when a Bandhan is done, he says, it depends on the guru's samarthya (capability). He can bind that shakti by giving merely a single vachan, through SankalpaA formal ritual resolution spoken aloud before an offering or observance, declaring its intent and dedicating its merit. alone.

The speaker says there are some gurus who, when they know about the mantra-vidya, also have that mantra's Upasanhar VidhiThe withdrawal procedure by which a vidya or siddhi that was conferred is formally taken back or dissolved. (the procedure for withdrawing it). In every Guru Parampara it is different. Through that means — since you are their disciple, they have the information; they know everything about you and also everything about the subject of the mantra — they use it and apply the Bandhan. Then those things will not work for you. Whichever devi-shakti was to come to you, they give her a vachan, and she refuses to come to you; she will not come. These, he says, are all the kinds there are of this.

Besides the methods above, the speaker says, there are a few tantra sadhaks of a particular kind who do this: while you are doing sadhana, they cut and keep your choul, that is, your hair; some have your chutaiya (lock of hair) cut and kept; some have the dashang cut and kept as well. Nails, for example — they say you will have to give these first. Nails of the hands and feet, the hair of your head: all these things they keep with themselves. The biggest reason behind this, he says, is that if in the course of time you perfect something very great and do not go by their word, they can put a stop to it. This, he says, plainly happens; there are no two opinions on it.

The speaker says that when a Guru has to do a Bandhan, either he is capable of binding without telling the disciple at all, or there is a second way: if the vidya is to be made completely kunthit, so that it never again blossoms in the disciple's body — so that it can never develop again. He explains why this works on the Sukshma Sharir. Whatever energy or capacity is in the body, whichever shakti is invoked — first that energy, that Tattva, grows in the body; then the shakti forms a balance with the person's energy, with his sukshma sharir, and gives Divyadrishti. Divine sight is received by the sukshma sharir. The subtle energy, the subtle body, the prana sharir and prana urja are connected to the physical body; when a divine shakti is invoked and divine sight is gained through her, the sukshma sharir is the medium between the physical body and that divine energy. So the divine sight or dur-shravan (distant hearing) one has gained developed in the sukshma sharir. Therefore, he says, if the guru wants that this person should never in his life gain that hearing or seeing capacity through this sadhana, he binds the sukshma sharir. He will do it through some tantra, through granth vidya, or he will bind the disciple's sukshma sharir with some other vidya of his own, or make it malin (dirty). He may feed the disciple some Abhimantran-charged object or some jadi (herb), so that the energy, the tattva — whether a Yaksha, gandharva, kinnar and so on, any shakti of the Preta or UpadevaA category of subordinate or lesser divine beings ranked below the principal deities — ancestors (Pitrus) are classified under this category. category, or even a dev shakti — is simply unable to show grace any more. Or, he says, they may even want to come before the disciple: he is doing a great deal of mantra japa, they are coming before him — but since he is bound by the guru, they are not able to remove this vachan and can never give him divine sight again. They will certainly come, and even stand before him, but he will not have the capacity to regain this thing. In such a situation everything has to be changed. These are all the kinds, he says, and beyond these there are many more things through which gurus put a bandhan on a disciple by means of shaktis and make his siddhis kunthit.

The speaker explains the mechanism. Whatever energy or capacity is in our body, whichever shakti we invoke — first of all, that energy, that Tattva, grows in our body. Then that shakti makes a balance with our energy, makes a balance with our Sukshma Sharir, and gives us Divyadrishti. Divine sight, he says, is received by the sukshma sharir. The subtle energy, the subtle body, the prana sharir, the prana urja — these are connected to, joined with, our physical body. When we invoke some divine shakti and through her obtain divine sight, our sukshma sharir becomes the medium between the physical body and that divine energy. That is to say, its development has taken place in the sukshma sharir: the divine sight we have obtained, or the dur-shravan (distant hearing) shakti we have obtained, has developed in the subtle body.