I've read some posts about it and find it interesting that some representations of Red Jambhala have a elephant head and others don't, and some consider him, with or without the elephant head, to be the equivalent of Ganesh in Vajrayana.
Is it true?
How deep does this vow of not telling everyone go?
To this day, not even my own family knows I'm a Vajrayana practitioner, they only think I'm Buddhist.
But last week, I went to therapy to get some guidance in my life and career, and this question came up. She told me to tell her my whole life story during the first sessions.
When I get to the part where I became a Vajrayana practitioner, should I mention it, or should I do the same thing I did with my family — just tell her I became Buddhist and move on?
I can't explain I just feel IMMENSELY PULL TOWARDS HER, I think this is the 5th time I create a post like this sorry for repeating but it feels like I'm never satified with the answers I get.
DO I NEED DIKSHA OR NOT?
AND FOR HER SAHASRANAMA, CAN I LISTEN TO WORSHIP OR IT ALSO NEEDS DIKSHA?
IF I WORSHIP BALA TRIPURA SUNDARI(AIM KLEEM SAU MANTRA WITHOUT DIKSHA, WHAT IS THE WORST THAT CAN HAPPEN?
Just saw a video on youtube where a guy explains about Ram naam chanting and he said that it not only brings Rama's naam blessings but it also activates the chakra which has "RAM" as it's seed syllable.
Is it true? If it is, RAM naam chanting is indeed a very strong mantra in itself.
How to know if a particular sadhana is burning our karmas or backfiring, if suffering takes place in both the cases?
Okay so today I was in a very complicated situation that I want to share because I feel bad I couldnt put anything into words because it feels so overwhelming to try to explain it with so many misconceptions about Hinduism and Tantra that came to the west that I didn't even knew where to start!
English is not my native language so I will do my best to translate it, sorry for any mistakes!
So there's this guy at my job who I met today and when asked about religion stuff I mentioned that I was a Hindu practitioner but not yet initiated into Tantra, but I wanted to.
Then this person looked kinda weird at me and said that I "surprised him".
Well, it's not so common for someone to follow Hinduism where I live so I get his point.
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What I thought before saying anything after his reaction:
After I saw his reaction I felt "oh no here we go" because he is a Christian and if that person is on of those radical "only my God is the savior and the truth" then I know I'm doomed, he will tell me I'm going to hell and bla bla bla...
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After thinking about the situation I was in, I said:
Well but you know tantra is no sexualized stuff like you see here in the west with sexual massages, orgasm, etc...
I don't exactly know why but it felt right in the moment to start deconstructing his wrong view of tantra, because as I said at the start, there are so many layers that I don't even know where to start.
Then he looked at me and said "oh okay, interesting, and what is this hinduism thing you do?"
And then I kinda didn't know what to say, should I tell him that I practice mantras for Shiva and Shakti? Should I tell him that I practice meditation? It's a so vast question that I froze.
Then I said "it's very complex we can talk more about it another time, I need to go"
Then he said "okay next time we talk more, I want more information on this, I like to learn about other religions"
So I was leaving anyways but this was a relief because at least this guy is open minded which is a big win, so he is willing to learn.
Then I thought that it would be a good idea to ask you guys for help on what I should say.
So I created a simple text in which I use some part of his own religion to try to help him understand Hinduism better.
I hope this is good, please correct any mistakes, I'm also a beginner and I don't want to spread misinformation.
================================================
My text: (remember that I'm no English speaker so I will do my best to translate)
To start, Hinduism is not Polytheistic nor Monotheistic. Then you will say "but they have so many Gods how they are not polytheistic?"
It's because these many Gods are the expression of ONE God, they are ONE God fragmented in various different forms.
There's one story which says that Durga is challenged by an Asura(something closer to the Christian idea of "demon") to defeat him without the help of other Gods. Then Durga accepts and says, "There is nothing in this whole universe that is not me, including you"
What she says is that she is already everything and all Gods, if this challenge was made for Shiva, for example, he would say the same thing because he is also all the Gods and everything in him.
But then you may ask "if they are one, why so many different gods?" It's because each person has a different necessity, some identify better with a male form of God, others with a feminine one. Some just are attracted to Shiva, whiler others to Durga, Chandi, Ganesh, Krishna, etc...
"And what about those fierce forms of deities, like Kali holding a severed head and other forms drinking blood? Do you think that God would do something like this?" Those are just archetipical representations and nothing more. In that picture where Kali is holding a head, it means the death of your Ego. Kali didn't kill someone and cut his head off. It just represents the death of your Ego, not a literal death. Kali and the other Gods are the most compassionate beings you will ever meet, they would never hurt us, these fierce forms are just because maybe someone need a fierce form to deal with their anger, which a compassionate form wouldn't do the job. Others identify better and need a more compassionate form. There is God in all forms for everyone, and they all lead to the same place in the end of the journey.
"But my religion has the 10 commandments in the Bible which teach us to love each other and to always do the right thing, I never seen these in your religion" Yes we have these too, and Hinduism teaches exactly the same thing, they are called Yamas and Niyamas.
Here they are the 10 Yamas:
And here are the 10 Niyamas;
For example, forgiveness is mentioned a lot in Christianism, when Jesus is being crucified he says "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they do". When Jesus says it, and here we can use Buddhism, which is another religion that comes from India, here we can use Buddhism to explain: Buddha says that one of the main causes for suffering is IGNORANCE. People are ignorant of their true reality and thus they cause suffering for others and for themselves. That is why Jesus says to forgive them, because in the end these people are suffering even more than he is and creating karmic seeds that will come back to them in future lives. Jesus forgives because he understand the true reality of all of this. Only someone so elevated as him could forgive, because he understands that they are suffering, not him, and they think they are making him suffer, but in the end it will all come back to them, in other words, they don't know what they are doing.
In the end, your religion and my religion both teach the same thing and we aim for the same goal, we just differ on the way to get to it.
Mantra Japa is just another form of prayer. Mantras are the deities, when you chant it the deity is there, just like when you pray for your Christian God.
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That is it, please correct my mistakes. Also I will speak to him so I won't obviously remember all the yamas and niyamas, I'll just recite some of them but for this post I thought it would be cool to post all of them
I also thought about starting the text mentioning that there is STRONG evidence that Jesus went to India in those years not mentioned in the Bible, there is strong evidence that he was a Yogi and there are some historical mentions of versicles where he is clearly teaching meditation to his disciples.
But this is kinda polemic because it's not 100% proven and I don't know if I should just mention it or not.
Okay so today I was in a very complicated situation that I want to share because I feel bad I couldnt put anything into words because it feels so overwhelming to try to explain it with so many misconceptions about Hinduism and Tantra that came to the west that I didn't even knew where to start!
English is not my native language so I will do my best to translate it, sorry for any mistakes!
So there's this guy at my job who I met today and when asked about religion stuff I mentioned that I was a Hindu practitioner but not yet initiated into Tantra, but I wanted to.
Then this person looked kinda weird at me and said that I "surprised him".
Well, it's not so common for someone to follow Hinduism where I live so I get his point.
----------------------------------------------------------------
What I thought before saying anything after his reaction:
After I saw his reaction I felt "oh no here we go" because he is a Christian and if that person is on of those radical "only my God is the savior and the truth" then I know I'm doomed, he will tell me I'm going to hell and bla bla bla...
----------------------------------------------------------------
After thinking about the situation I was in, I said:
Well but you know tantra is no sexualized stuff like you see here in the west with sexual massages, orgasm, etc...
I don't exactly know why but it felt right in the moment to start deconstructing his wrong view of tantra, because as I said at the start, there are so many layers that I don't even know where to start.
Then he looked at me and said "oh okay, interesting, and what is this hinduism thing you do?"
And then I kinda didn't know what to say, should I tell him that I practice mantras for Shiva and Shakti? Should I tell him that I practice meditation? It's a so vast question that I froze.
Then I said "it's very complex we can talk more about it another time, I need to go"
Then he said "okay next time we talk more, I want more information on this, I like to learn about other religions"
So I was leaving anyways but this was a relief because at least this guy is open minded which is a big win, so he is willing to learn.
Then I thought that it would be a good idea to ask you guys for help on what I should say.
So I created a simple text in which I use some part of his own religion to try to help him understand Hinduism better.
I hope this is good, please correct any mistakes, I'm also a beginner and I don't want to spread misinformation.
================================================
My text: (remember that I'm no English speaker so I will do my best to translate)
To start, Hinduism is not Polytheistic nor Monotheistic. Then you will say "but they have so many Gods how they are not polytheistic?"
It's because these many Gods are the expression of ONE God, they are ONE God fragmented in various different forms.
There's one story which says that Durga is challenged by an Asura(something closer to the Christian idea of "demon") to defeat him without the help of other Gods. Then Durga accepts and says, "There is nothing in this whole universe that is not me, including you"
What she says is that she is already everything and all Gods, if this challenge was made for Shiva, for example, he would say the same thing because he is also all the Gods and everything in him.
But then you may ask "if they are one, why so many different gods?" It's because each person has a different necessity, some identify better with a male form of God, others with a feminine one. Some just are attracted to Shiva, whiler others to Durga, Chandi, Ganesh, Krishna, etc...
"And what about those fierce forms of deities, like Kali holding a severed head and other forms drinking blood? Do you think that God would do something like this?" Those are just archetipical representations and nothing more. In that picture where Kali is holding a head, it means the death of your Ego. Kali didn't kill someone and cut his head off. It just represents the death of your Ego, not a literal death. Kali and the other Gods are the most compassionate beings you will ever meet, they would never hurt us, these fierce forms are just because maybe someone need a fierce form to deal with their anger, which a compassionate form wouldn't do the job. Others identify better and need a more compassionate form. There is God in all forms for everyone, and they all lead to the same place in the end of the journey.
"But my religion has the 10 commandments in the Bible which teach us to love each other and to always do the right thing, I never seen these in your religion" Yes we have these too, and Hinduism teaches exactly the same thing, they are called Yamas and Niyamas.
Here they are the 10 Yamas:
And here are the 10 Niyamas;
For example, forgiveness is mentioned a lot in Christianism, when Jesus is being crucified he says "Father, forgive them, they don't know what they do". When Jesus says it, and here we can use Buddhism, which is another religion that comes from India, here we can use Buddhism to explain: Buddha says that one of the main causes for suffering is IGNORANCE. People are ignorant of their true reality and thus they cause suffering for others and for themselves. That is why Jesus says to forgive them, because in the end these people are suffering even more than he is and creating karmic seeds that will come back to them in future lives. Jesus forgives because he understand the true reality of all of this. Only someone so elevated as him could forgive, because he understands that they are suffering, not him, and they think they are making him suffer, but in the end it will all come back to them, in other words, they don't know what they are doing.
In the end, your religion and my religion both teach the same thing and we aim for the same goal, we just differ on the way to get to it.
Mantra Japa is just another form of prayer. Mantras are the deities, when you chant it the deity is there, just like when you pray for your Christian God.
========================================================
That is it, please correct my mistakes. Also I will speak to him so I won't obviously remember all the yamas and niyamas, I'll just recite some of them but for this post I thought it would be cool to post all of them
I also thought about starting the text mentioning that there is STRONG evidence that Jesus went to India in those years not mentioned in the Bible, there is strong evidence that he was a Yogi and there are some historical mentions of versicles where he is clearly teaching meditation to his disciples.
But this is kinda polemic because it's not 100% proven and I don't know if I should just mention it or not.
I read a comment here where a guys said his income multiplicated by 5x for 21 days while he was reciting this ganapti atharvashirsha.
I have some questions:
1- I woud like to know if there are equivalents of this kind of text to recite for other deities like Shiva, Durga, etc...
2- And I also would like to know if there are any requirements like diksha, ritual, etc... to recite this
3- And does it need to be recited in sanskrit for benefits or can I recite it in my native language?
4- Can I recite this ganapti atharvashirsha and any other deity equivalent of this text before my Mantra Japa daily practice or these kind of texts like the ganapti atharvashirsha need to be done at a different time?
Are there equivalents of "Ganapati Atharvashirsha" for other deities? And I have some questions about it.
I read a comment here where a guys said his income multiplicated by 5x for 21 days while he was reciting this ganapti atharvashirsha.
I have some questions:
1- I woud like to know if there are equivalents of this kind of text to recite for other deities like Shiva, Durga, etc...
2- And I also would like to know if there are any requirements like diksha, ritual, etc... to recite this
3- And does it need to be recited in sanskrit for benefits or can I recite it in my native language?
4- Can I recite this ganapti atharvashirsha and any other deity equivalent of this text before my Mantra Japa daily practice or these kind of texts like the ganapti atharvashirsha need to be done at a different time?
I've been with the desire to chant this mantra for some time but I have no diksha.
I've seen Sri M on youtube saying that it is possible but I don't know if his reputation is good.
Any advice?
So I never understood it but now it clicked. Correct me if I'm wrong please.
I had a hard time to understand how a Hindu could practice Vajrayana, since it's Buddhist and they diverge in many ways, at least in the way they think about the self, emptiness, they have some differences and it didn't make sense.
BUT NOW I THINK I FIGURED IT OUT!
Yea I know this may seem dumb but to me it blew my mind.
So the thing is that "Vajrayana" CAN BE TWO THINGS!
Vajrayana can be understood as:
1- The Buddhist Tantric System
2- A system inside Hindu Tantra
So that is why I talked to a guy some months ago who told me he was a practitioner of both and I thought he did the Buddhist Vajrayana sadhanas while he did other Hindu sadhanas too.
I'm only initiated into the Buddhist Vajrayana so it was kinda weird but now it make complete sense, the "Vajrayana" he practiced is INSIDE his Hindu tradition so he wasn't doing the Buddhist stuff like generating bodhicitta, taking refufe in the Buddha, etc...
Now I also understand the arguments on "Buddhist Tantra(Vajrayana) comes 100% from Hindu Tantra" and even some more stronger arguments which suggest that Vajrayana isn't Buddhist at all.
I don't know to what extent I agree to these arguments but now I understand better where they come from.
Anyways, that is it, if you want to add something of correct me if I said something wrong, please do so!
Also I read about "Adharāmnāya transmission" and I would like more deitails on it, if possible, this seems to be the "Vajrayana" part of Hindu Tantra.
I heard this some time ago and this makes me very VERY afraid of Hindu Gods like Shiva and hindu Goddesses like Tara, Durga, etc...
Is it true??? If it is true, how to avoid it?
What would make them angry at someone???
Can someone accomplish a mantra by daily consistent practice at home or only in a retreat?
And IF it's only possible in a retreat, then why do we practice daily?
(Sincere question, I know it sounds dumb but I do count and I think you count your mantra recitations too to know where we are in our practice, to know when we accomplish 100.000, 500.000, etc... At least I was told to do this)
Is it the same as get the "siddhi" of a mantra?
Like for Green Tara "Om Tare Tuttare Ture Soha" it would be 500.000 times, right? Or 100.000?
If I want to attend an empowerment just as a blessing, is that possible or I need to ask if it is possible first?
And if I attend as a blessing only, do I need to do the visualizations and recite the things like refuge, samaya, all the prayers during the event or I just sit and watch and do absolutely NOTHING?