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The yoga of the Yoginīs: advanced level

Dr. Olga Sobaiva explores the advanced yoga practices of Yoginīs, focusing on tantric texts and esoteric traditions.

Ask about this video. Answers come from its transcript only — with the timestamp, so you can check them.

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Key Takeaways

  • Yoginī yoga is an advanced, esoteric practice deeply rooted in tantric traditions.
  • Yoginīs encompass a broad category including human, non-human, symbolic, and cosmic entities.
  • Understanding Yoginī yoga requires considering both male and female practitioner perspectives.
  • Tantric texts like the Jayadurga Yamala are crucial for studying Yoginī practices but are complex and challenging.
  • The practice involves serious spiritual and ritual dangers, emphasizing careful selection and respect.

What the video covers

  • Introduction by Jim Allen highlighting Dr. Olga Sobaiva's expertise in tantric studies and digital humanities.
  • Dr. Sobaiva discusses the concept of Yoginīs as both human and non-human entities within tantric and non-tantric literature.
  • The lecture explores the symbolic and cosmic roles of Yoginīs in mandalas and chakras, representing states of consciousness and the universe.
  • Historical, geographical, and linguistic context is provided, emphasizing the Sanskrit origins and Nepalese manuscript preservation.
  • The presentation covers the esoteric nature of Yoginī yoga, including the advanced stages and practices described in key tantric texts like Tantra Sadhava and Jayadurga Yamala.
  • Discussion on the dual perspectives of male practitioners versus female Yoginīs and their implications for understanding Yoginī yoga.
  • Examination of the dangers and serious nature of Yoginī practices as taken by practitioners (Sadakas).
  • Insight into the classification and roles of Yoginīs, including their symbolic representation and connection to mantras.
  • The talk addresses the evolution of Yoginī traditions from secret internal practices to more public royal traditions.
  • Use of visual aids such as paintings to illustrate the complex and dual nature of Yoginīs.

Chapters

  1. 00:00Introduction and Speaker Background
  2. 05:16Symbolism of Yoginīs in Chakras and Mandalas
  3. 11:07Historical and Linguistic Context of Yoginī Texts
  4. 17:00Classification and Nature of Yoginīs
  5. 23:04Practices and Rituals of Yoginī Yoga
  6. 29:08Advanced Stages and Textual Analysis
  7. 37:15Internalization and Symbolism of Yoginīs
  8. 43:17Tradition Evolution and Secret Practices
  9. 51:54Ritual Settings and Spiritual Experiences

Answers

Questions about this video

Who is Dr. Olga Sobaiva and what is her expertise?

Dr. Olga Sobaiva is an academic collaborator at the University of Zurich specializing in tantric studies and digital humanities, with nearly 20 years of research on Yoginīs.

What are Yoginīs according to this lecture?

Yoginīs are described as both human and non-human entities involved in tantric practices, symbolic figures in mandalas, and cosmic representations of states of consciousness.

Which texts are central to understanding the yoga of the Yoginīs?

The Tantra Sadhava and the Jayadurga Yamala are key tantric texts discussed in the lecture that provide detailed teachings on the advanced yoga of the Yoginīs.

Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

00:00
Speaker A
Thank you, Theo. Good evening, everyone. I'm Jim Allen, chair of the Center for Yoga Studies, and it gives me great pleasure this evening to be introducing our speaker, Dr. Olga Sobaiva. Her official role is academic collaborator at the University of Zurich. I've known Olga for a while, and I've been aware of her work for a long time. It's absolutely fascinating. Her main interests are tantric studies. She's also a great expert on digital humanities.
00:15
Speaker A
university of zurich um i've i've known olga for a while and i've been aware of her work for a long time it's absolutely fascinating her main interests are tantric you know tantric studies she's also a great expert on digital humanities and
00:31
Speaker A
We were talking earlier. She's doing amazing work at the moment, trying to sort out optical character recognition of manuscripts, but she assures me that luckily that means we philologists won't be made completely redundant in the end because she thinks that the contents of the manuscripts are still so difficult that the computers won't be able to understand them. So that's good news. We're still hopefully going to have jobs in the future.
00:45
Speaker A
the end because she thinks that the contents of the manuscripts are still so difficult that the computers won't be able to understand them so that's good news uh we're still in in hopefully still have jobs in the future
00:56
Speaker A
Olga, Dr. Sobaiva, has been working on yoginis for nearly 20 years. I think her PhD from the University of Lausanne was on the subject. She's been working in that area ever since. In particular, she's going to be talking to us tonight about the yoga of the yoginis' advanced level. I think this is a slight joke and a little bit of a joke in the title in that the yoga that these yoginis practice is extremely advanced. I think extremely esoteric.
01:08
Speaker A
talking to us tonight about the yoga of the yogany's advanced level i think this is a slight uh joke and a little bit of a joke in the title in that the yoga that these yoga needs practice is extremely
01:20
Speaker A
She's going to be talking to us about the teachings about yoginis in the Tantra Sadhava and then also in a very fascinating huge text called the Jayadurga Yamala, which I first became aware of gosh 25 years ago when I was working on my PhD because Alexis Anderson has worked on it quite a bit, and he would read sections of it with me, sections about yoginis there. Dr. Sobaiva has got the very brave task of editing and translating this enormous, extremely difficult esoteric text.
01:37
Speaker A
years ago when i was working on my phd because alexis anderson has uh has worked on it quite a bit and he would read sections with it uh of it with me sections about yoganese there and uh dr serbia has got the very
01:52
Speaker A
Yes, well, I think that's about all I can say. I'm very excited. I've had a quick preview of the slides. They look wonderful, and I'm very excited to listen to Dr. Sobaiva's lecture. So over to you, please, Olga.
02:07
Speaker A
wonderful and i'm very excited to uh to listen to dr serwayeva's lecture so over to you please argo thank you very much for this wonderful presentation and thank you for inviting me well on all projects that james described i think i would
02:24
Speaker A
Thank you very much for this wonderful presentation and thank you for inviting me. Well, on all projects that James described, I think I would need to get reincarnated a couple more times in order to get them finished. But let's get to the yoginis. So, do you see my screen well?
02:47
Speaker A
and to get to the advanced level let's go so a precise aim would be um just a second maybe i try to move this zoom yeah and let's go we shall try to define the yoga of the yoginis find out the stages
03:09
Speaker A
Okay, so then, my today's presentation is to present the yoga of the yoginis and to get to the advanced level. Let's go. So a precise aim would be, just a second, maybe I try to move this zoom. Yeah, and let's go. We shall try to define the yoga of the yoginis, find out the stages of their yoga, and see how these stages were described in tantric and non-tantric literature.
03:25
Speaker A
practitioner versus the point of view of the female one and how it can help us to define the yoga of the yoginis in in what it really was i have decided to choose this picture as some representation for this precise conference it is
03:45
Speaker A
We shall try together to reflect on the ontological reality of the described practices. Our main questions, however, will be: What is the point of view of the male practitioner versus the point of view of the female one, and how can it help us to define the yoga of the yoginis in what it really was?
04:03
Speaker A
painter called kailash raj the painting is like as if separated into two parts so if from the center you go to the left you see a yogini like kali blessing the king if you go to the right you see exactly
04:19
Speaker A
I have decided to choose this picture as some representation for this precise conference. It is supposed to be a story of King Vikramaditya meeting the goddess Kali, and it is a copy of an original story in Kalabhavan, Varanasi, a painting of the 18th century by a known author. So this is a reproduction by a modern paper painter called Kailash Raj.
04:35
Speaker A
sadika very seriously having said that let's try first of all to define the yoginis i shall again resize my screen a little bit sorry for this so who are the yoginis in the text i'm working on there are
04:58
Speaker A
The painting is like as if separated into two parts. So if from the center you go to the left, you see a yogini like Kali blessing the king. If you go to the right, you see exactly the same figure of Kali eating something from the big pot and the clothes of the king lying in the down right corner. So this represents well that one has to be very careful with yoginis, and the danger was real. It was taken by the Sadaka very seriously.
05:16
Speaker A
practitioner jokiness can be also symbolic figures populating chakras or mandalas there are multiple cosmic yogurts and yogurts of the elements we shall see them today there's symbolizing residuals so states of the universe and states of consciousness if you like
05:37
Speaker A
Having said that, let's try first of all to define the yoginis. I shall again resize my screen a little bit. Sorry for this. So who are the yoginis? In the text I'm working on, there are multiple types of them. So first of all, this can be human women participating in the tantric practice. It can also be various non-human beings with spirits, mostly appearing in dreams, visions, or altered states of consciousness, and this happens rather in front of the male practitioner.
05:56
Speaker A
and this can be human and non-human maybe the best way to represent the whole structure would be to imagine the mandala and you which you like in the center which will be a goddess this goddess will be surrounded by
06:10
Speaker A
Yoginis can be also symbolic figures populating chakras or mandalas. There are multiple cosmic yoginis and yoginis of the elements we shall see today. They symbolize residuals, so states of the universe and states of consciousness, if you like.
06:27
Speaker A
while they're still in the mandala it is really extremely complicated to separate human and non-human yoginis then coming out of the circle of the mandala we would see some lower kind of yogini such as for example deckiness or shakiness along with
06:44
Speaker A
A yogini is also the means to encode the mantras. So even if you have real non-living beings described, it might be simple code. So among this rather vast category, we have yoginis that do some yogic practice, and this can be human and non-human.
07:04
Speaker A
um so yoga and yoginis these two terms were not always together um i prepared here a small summary of my article from i think 2010 so if we take classical patanjala yoga we will see that there are in their only male yogis
07:23
Speaker A
Maybe the best way to represent the whole structure would be to imagine the mandala, and you, which you like, in the center, which will be a goddess. This goddess will be surrounded by closed deities looking very similar to the main goddess. This would be generally called the Devi or Devata.
07:43
Speaker A
the yoga is constructed something feminine appears first in said anti-kashiva yoga this is shakti or for the main god shiva in this respect however as soon as we get to bhairavashastra or bhairava revelation which is shaiva shakta tending rather towards shaktism we would
08:06
Speaker A
Then on the next level, rather than petals, we would have an assignment of the yoginis, and some of these yoginis might be human while they're still in the mandala. It is really extremely complicated to separate human and non-human yoginis.
08:20
Speaker A
we're going to see today uh let me in this rather long introduction bring you some historical geographical and linguistic context what i'm going to talk about today is perpet based on the sanskrit texts and these texts were written rather in
08:38
Speaker A
Then coming out of the circle of the mandala, we would see some lower kind of yogini, such as, for example, dakinis or shakinis, along with bhutas, pretas, pishachas, and other non-human monster-like types of beings. These are inside the city of the mandala but outside the circle, if you like. So the yogi, the human yoginis, would be praised like on the rim of the circle.
08:57
Speaker A
between 8th and 10th centuries how much my texts are representative so if in blue um square you can imagine that these are indic texts in various languages anything that existed in medieval india a part of it in green would be sanskrit
09:19
Speaker A
Yoga and yoginis, these two terms were not always together. I prepared here a small summary of my article from, I think, 2010. So if we take classical Patanjala yoga, we will see that there are only male yogis. Nothing feminine is mentioned at all. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but this was my conclusion.
09:38
Speaker A
the yoginis and of this 20 i will take two so this is really a drop in the ocean that's what i'm going to tell cannot be taking as the final point in this research by no structures imagination so now following the classification of
09:56
Speaker A
In the Pashupata yoga, there are again yogis. These are actually male Brahmins, and the yoginis and everything feminine is rather some object against which the yoga is constructed. Something feminine appears first in Shaiva anti-Kashiva yoga. This is Shakti or the main god Shiva.
10:13
Speaker A
deities we would have a number of sub separations of which i will mention only to here would be yamalas with brahmayam being edited now and early trika as another sub separation and within the context of early tracker would have the muller text
10:31
Speaker A
In this respect, however, as soon as we get to Bhairava Shastra or Bhairava revelation, which is Shaiva Shakta tending rather towards Shaktism, we would see that the male practitioners are called Sadaka, and on the female side, there is an explosion of various kinds of yoginis, and they are called dakinis, yoginis, and some other like 40 different terms, some of which we're going to see today.
10:48
Speaker A
tantras at baba tantra probably written around 8th century that takes a major part that disappeared from the long version of siddhargeshwarimata so this is this will be our first text and i propose to take tantrasad bhava chapter 16
11:07
Speaker A
Let me, in this rather long introduction, bring you some historical, geographical, and linguistic context. What I'm going to talk about today is perpet based on the Sanskrit texts, and these texts were written rather in northern India, but they were preserved in much later Nepalese manuscripts.
11:27
Speaker A
chapter 16 consists it's rather long one consists of 372 slokas there are multiple people working on these texts before me so i would like to mention that the existing transcripts done by mark ditkowski that was about her site around 2005.
11:45
Speaker A
The traditions reflecting the practices of the yoginis existed, I think, between the 7th and probably the 13th century of the common era, and the core phase of this was probably between the 8th and 10th centuries.
12:02
Speaker A
so the chapter would consist consist of two parts first would be dealing with kinds and signs of yoginis so basically what they are what are their classifications how to recognize them and what yogic practice they are doing second part of the chapter is written
12:19
Speaker A
How much my texts are representative? So if in blue square you can imagine that these are Indic texts in various languages, anything that existed in medieval India, a part of it in green would be Sanskrit texts which we know about, hundred thousand different titles.
12:37
Speaker A
from up down would be the cosmic yoginis it gives the name of the six most powerful cosmic yoginis and this six jogen is not three as one would expect for trigger text but six jogging is assigned to six petal lotus and the trident
12:59
Speaker A
As for tantra texts, there were probably around five thousand different titles counting from what is pretty of the Nepal now. Among the standard texts, around 20 that survive and are available talk about yoga of the yoginis, and of these 20, I will take two.
13:21
Speaker A
produces a bindu um unfortunately maybe james i mean i i will not be able to define what bindu is precisely in this context maybe james could could add some later on but this bindu becomes agitated and it starts moving
13:39
Speaker A
So this is really a drop in the ocean. That's what I'm going to tell. It cannot be taken as the final point in this research by no stretch of imagination. So now, following the classification of Alexis Anderson, who was the first one to work on this kind of text seriously, u...
13:59
Speaker A
during this circular movement of the bindu infinite number of yoginis is produced according to this text what you can see here in the down left corner is actually some tatwas which you might recognize as samkhya that was however they slightly different
14:18
Speaker A
and the status was from sound down to earth they have a growing number of qualities from one to five growing number of gunas for example sound would have only one quality touch two and earth would have five all these yoginis they don't have human
14:38
Speaker A
form they're qualified as anu rupa meaning that they're like like atoms or something like this and it is said that all of them all these millions and milliards of yoginis is one single supreme yogini parading all so this is considered to be the highest
14:56
Speaker A
level now we're going down and in chapter 16 of the tantras at baba we will we would find 150 shlokas on basically various classifications of yoginis so i just list them briefly here so that we are not lost in the further material
15:16
Speaker A
yoginis can be classified by the places where they appear these are geographical places or sacred places of various kinds they can be classified by the cooler or clowns of the matricus to which they belong they can be also
15:33
Speaker A
classified by the male chef of the clan they are differentiated according how they are born to their yogic practices and finally to an economics to the age of recognition meaning when a yogini recognizes herself as being such or when she is recognized
15:55
Speaker A
by others as being such so according to the places to their peer we are going again from sort of the higher hierarchy of this yoginis down all the time in this presentation but it will be a little bit confusing
16:10
Speaker A
because the name yoginis or shakiness would appear at various levels of this hierarchical classification this is probably due to the fact that multiple layers of previous traditions go to somehow collided in this tantras valley 16.
16:27
Speaker A
so the yoginis who are born you know who have human form so they they are really they have human form they are born from human parents and they belong to one of the seven clans are classified according to the places
16:43
Speaker A
in which they appear into four kinds those born in pittas pitha jazz and those have this is the strongest one and they have divine nature then we have those born in the fields of shetra and these are interestingly called devata
17:00
Speaker A
of really goddesses is our mixed nature and the tantras above will further provide an interesting explanation to such precise classification and then we would have almost normally women resorting to some sacred places called yonija and dropping catcher is also mentioned in this
17:21
Speaker A
classification however no explanation is given and all of these yoginis assigned to these various sacred places also belong to this one of the seventh lands of the matrix from brahmani to yageshwari or brahmi to augustus are various names
17:39
Speaker A
so first we are moving again down and the text is trying to fit the yoginis into the block of seven so i will just read my translation aloud lesson i will explain the furthest of separations there are shakiness rudra shakiness
17:57
Speaker A
chavis chavarricas shivas devatas and yoginis such as the seven sub-separations of beautiful yoginis should be known as accomplished from before or what she does so meaning that actually yoginis they are born already perfect it's like as if they were
18:17
Speaker A
practicing something in the previous lives actually text suppose is that your yoga practitioner has not one life but a multitude of them and this practice continues from one into another up to seven different lives in a row so it is not uh yoga is not seen here
18:37
Speaker A
yet as one life achievement it's really a long process that can go through multiple lives so those who are accomplished from before and born already perfect are the highest kinds of yoginis so these are really yoginis uh and they recognized also very early
18:56
Speaker A
as we're going to see devatas or goddesses interestingly lower should be known by sadly those who obtain yoga or laptop yogas um so these are actually getting some sort of initiation and start practicing from this life then we have another sub separation of
19:19
Speaker A
this yogurt is according to the geographical places so there are higher yoginis called yoginis and these are assigned to precise geographical regions the list of these places are as long and i try to map it to a modern map of india
19:38
Speaker A
it it's not really precise so it's difficult exactly to look at the places but if we go from indus river to nepal then to assam and then down to country and we come back to madhya pradesh by rajasthan
19:53
Speaker A
we come back to indus river madhya pradesh and rajasthan so this would be the core of the yogini world according to this tantra in the places that are not mentioned as a lower yoginis and this would be called shakiness
20:09
Speaker A
so then they would have a very important classification according to the seven matrikas or mothers from chamunda to calmare here and this matrix has a note of the same kind they are classified according to their nature which can be divine
20:26
Speaker A
rather like a yaksha or rather like rakshas this name's probably abbreviated as yaksha and rakshas some older variants of them this also appears in chapter 14 of the tantrashiva now let's try um again to come down again to the yoginis that
20:49
Speaker A
are non-cosmic and they're classified yet on another different level so those which are which have form which are non-cosmic they can be cooler jazz and here kula means not related to the clans of mothers but means born in the human families and they can
21:09
Speaker A
be devatas and this classification is contradictory to what i just said so the kula jazz are human women born uh in families of forecasts and the devatas that are really goddesses they live in a special world and these
21:27
Speaker A
are to be seen by various yogic procedures by the sadhakas and worshiped so cooler just basically have two sub separations and it's not clear how these two fit together but there are two groups mentioned so this can be a human women that are
21:45
Speaker A
recognized after the age of 27 or shakiness so this is like sort of lower yoginis and what do these women do they attack victim in vulnerable states and there is a list of vulnerable states of somebody sick afraid wet
22:05
Speaker A
has oil on the body and things like this and feed on the body liquids and why do they do it because they want to obtain the cd of changing form rupa siaparivata let me say a few words about gender
22:22
Speaker A
polarity in tantras at baba so if we talk about human practitioners only we would clearly have male sadhaka and female duty as his partner for really physical outside ritual however this male sadaka searches to meet the yoginis of various
22:44
Speaker A
kinds and actually his progress in yoga of tantra assad power is measured according to this um hierarchical ladder of yoginis which you see on the right which stretches from goddesses down to categories to yoginis and to shakiness of whom shakiness are the most dangerous
23:04
Speaker A
this has to be kept away or avoided yoginis have to be chosen carefully because one should meet the yogini of his particular client etc but female duty as female partner does not appear in this ladder anyhow so it's like as if
23:20
Speaker A
a different category between human female and non-human female let's see what else we can find in this text the text has the chapter has two paradoxical schlokas i call them pandora men so among these clans some rare men narrate of the same kind
23:46
Speaker A
they obtain that same state by infinite heroic mode or another one by awakening the circle of mothers by rituals or tapas the rare man narah ketchit obtained this supreme cd how could we interpret this so there are multiple possibilities here
24:10
Speaker A
we could read it that women have this yoga of the yoginis naturally but able men of this kind are rare or we could imagine that this practice is designed for women specifically or there is no contradiction to things
24:25
Speaker A
that men can reach the position of equality with higher kinds of yoginis or even with matricus and whatever i would personally wish to see in these two slokas the truth is rather tending towards the third interpretation here for example we have the
24:45
Speaker A
classifications of yoginis according to the five male leaders and what are these leaders so hari vamana and simho narasimha these are forms of vishnu then we have mahakala like standing on the border and then we have bhairava and yoginis
25:04
Speaker A
here are classified from down up from hari to bhairava so interestingly that like imagine the whole universe was created by yoginis shiva is barely mentioned in this chapter and then we have this five kings of yogunus if you like
25:23
Speaker A
so again the chapter is contradictory and putting various layers one top of another and trying to make sense out of it however let us try to see what do these various kinds of yoginis do so shakiness they kill
25:42
Speaker A
and extract dravias or magical substances or liquids we can translate it in order to change form those underwhelmings are rudra shakiness they can already change form and they can enter the mind of the other being and what they want is a nectar so there
26:01
Speaker A
are five kinds of nectar panchama italia and so basically amrita would be the key word here yoginis that are governed by naresimha are the same like the previous one but they do not kill and they extract nectars from the whole
26:19
Speaker A
holy chidra most paradoxical most interesting for me are the yogin is called shamarikas related to makakawa so this extract five nectars carry men away and able of producing multiple forms it is interesting to note that although the text that would link any kind of
26:41
Speaker A
yoginis to mahakala in india it seems to me that they have disappeared i am not aware of anyone of such text i would be very happy to find one but around 15th century there were buddhist tantras translated into chinese and this
26:59
Speaker A
mentioned mahakala and yoginis and what this yogini is doing chinese takes actually sort of kill people but they kill only those who must die any and this also will be repeated in the tantras such as tantra said baba
27:18
Speaker A
that are still sort of survived to that registers however when there is and the yogi is called so from the name of shiva of course we can translate this as auspicious yoginis so this rather have a pure patanjala like cd out out of nowhere
27:42
Speaker A
actually they must mantras and dianas they have to they have eight yogic cds so animal and other they know three times past present and future and they can they see or they can go voluntary in supreme state of yoga
28:03
Speaker A
so again it is said in the text that yoginis so again the term is used as generic and as a sub term and it's very difficult to separate yogi is a higher than the above five classes and yoginis are perfect in yoga
28:18
Speaker A
by the previous life knowledge that's how i interpret again to kena with hina they are endowed with unbroken pledge so they have never broke the samaya and are born from the bodies having complete knowledge this is very interesting thing because
28:39
Speaker A
so this would mean that they are born also from some sort of perfect parents and when abhinav gupta tells about himself in one of the texts he wrote he actually says that he is born from the yogini yogini
28:55
Speaker A
basically he assigns the title of yogini to his own mother so being born from a yogini automatically gives a higher status to a yogini so the low one get pledge prata samaya and here text is again contradictory so
29:14
Speaker A
this they get this pledge and they're sort of obliged to do mantras and varatas but they do not do japa homa puja and other such practice so how could you do mantras without japan is it a japa something something else is
29:29
Speaker A
supposed to be here but it's the text is very difficult to interpret we only have this so now just that we don't get lost we shall see what the auspicious kinds of yogi needs to do and we are going to talk about those who
29:47
Speaker A
are under byron that are shiva's so of shiva there are seven classes and then these seven classes are not mentioned we have a separation of two we have shakiness who are called excellent and why they're called excellent because they drink
30:04
Speaker A
blood of people of all four varnas of of all forecasts if you like and there are others called kravia does and though they eat flesh we have here an example of two of these shockings described how they look like
30:20
Speaker A
and what they do fat of yellowish complexion round faced having lost into the past i'll explain later she is doing it she drinks a lot of blood another is shining black with red eyes loving quarrels she cries and extracts the blood hitting
30:37
Speaker A
victims and their vulnerable points marmosom marmon so now we should we shall try to find out the difference from the rest so the rest would be called ashiva the non-auspicious ones and here in the sub classifications of these
30:57
Speaker A
ashi was known no species are opposed in certain sense to the shakiness so of ashiva there are seven sub categories they have wonderful names chushika the one who sucks chumbika one who kisses patra alechica one who licks the ball
31:22
Speaker A
different difficult to translate so she again from the word tusak and nakra may be a crocodile something like crocodile sakura if you prefer and then there are two yogin to two kinds of yogurts that are related to the
31:38
Speaker A
way they breathe so one briefs one inhales and extracts the drivers from above these are called utwanishvasika and one does the same from below problem on exhalation we don't know this is ad honestly so let us get now to some precise kind
32:03
Speaker A
by fixing eyes on the tip of your nose so this would be nasagra practicing yoga she always sucks nectar she is known to be nakratushi another one has the face upwards and with a single inhalation she drinks this one is upped for an ishvasika
32:21
Speaker A
being naked she always goes at night to the house of another server typo but her mouth covered with cloth because she is upside down she always drinks a lot of blood she is add honey swashika the one who inhales from below
32:39
Speaker A
it's interesting to note that um we could switch from the context of tantric text which is supposed to be secret kept from practitioner and we could find a very close description in a text written for the non-initiated i would like to bring you an example
32:55
Speaker A
from the catastrophic sagara book 6 chapter 6 verse 156 on which describes what could be recognized the chushika from tantra said baba i shall use translation done by tony king so the story goes like this a barber of the king has a beautiful wife
33:16
Speaker A
the king goes to this wife and the barber is sick out she's sick with it so he stops eating and one king asks what's going on with you he answers king my wife is a witch dakini and when i am asleep she extracts my
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Speaker A
entrails and sucks so she sucks them and then replaces them as before this is how i have become lean so how can continual refreshment and eating nourish me when i said this to the king he became anxious and reflected
33:51
Speaker A
can't surely be a witch dakini why was i so captivated by her i wonder whether she will suck my entrance also and basically leaves the girl quiet so but why would uh all these various kinds of yoginis human as well as
34:10
Speaker A
non-human do such stuff if i summarize the verses from 201 to 212 of tantras about 16 we would have a list of the reasons so they would get by this invisibility shape-shifting so they would be able to assume a form of any animal
34:30
Speaker A
that it will they would get some knowledge cd non-specified and as the top most cities would be able to attract a victim but there is a higher reason for this so basically the shloka which you have here and half
34:54
Speaker A
describes the reason of of the yogi of the practice of the yoginis so what they want really to achieve is to get to the place of yogeshwara and this is called in sanskrit yogeshwari samstown really the the place where you geshwari
35:11
Speaker A
is stationed it is not clear what is mean here by yogeshwari if it is really the strongest matrika so you geshe or chamunda or if it is a goddess or some sort of independent goddess so which we know close to
35:26
Speaker A
nothing so how do they get to this state by yoga yoga here is not specified but i believe this is what has been described so far by tapas tapas is actually some sort of mahabharata-like tapas by vision of
35:43
Speaker A
their own mantra so vision of their own mantra means actually in this language mantra cd so when the deity of the mantra appears in front of the practitioner and some sort of dialogue happens and the fourth way by which yogis obtain higher state
35:59
Speaker A
of yoga is by killing the janma victim so then this janma victims janma pashu these are actually human beings reborn with particular signs only to be sacrificed by the yogis throughout seven or maybe eight even lives and again we will find
36:23
Speaker A
here a small note on men men who know all mothers actually the term used is that they really know closely the mothers also obtain that through fruit so it is like as if what has been described before yoga
36:38
Speaker A
tapas mantra and all this janma sacrifice janma being sacrifices are specifically for women and for men there is a different way so now we shall get to the last classification point as the age of recognition so the strongest yoginis as
37:02
Speaker A
i have briefly mentioned are pita gels this are recognized as such at the age of eight cetera just know that they are such by twelve or probably recognized by others were apologized at sixteens and yogi yoni jazz was
37:19
Speaker A
like normal women born from yoni by the age of 27. well if classification is more or less clear the last age of 27 is slightly emblematic and what would it mean in fact in india it seems like that the age of 27 if a
37:38
Speaker A
woman does not get married by this age it is strongly believed that something happens to her that she would never get married she is different so then she might be a yogi this is the only explanation of the age
37:51
Speaker A
that i could find so far let us summarize what we have learned so far so there are multiple levels of yogini practice which i will show here three so the lower yoginis are called in the text shudra they do vampiric practices they
38:11
Speaker A
extract blood or other liquids from victims in order to obtain the basic power of changing form on the intermediate level of this yoga of the yoginis so the turning point would be sacrificing a human victim in order to get the ability to fly and
38:29
Speaker A
we shall get to this later and so these levels of the yogis are really coherent uh within themselves and sort of self-sufficient however on the top of it in tantrashap we also find siddha or accomplished yoginis and these are
38:48
Speaker A
perfected from birth with yogic cds so it is like as if we would have here two different traditions one i would call it cooler i might be wrong but i believe that this text were originally politics probably the
39:02
Speaker A
all this kind of tantras and this uh kula tradition got sort of superimposed by the yogic tradition at around the time when the trash ball was redacted and thus we have this um conjunction point of two different yogas yoga the yoginis down and the
39:22
Speaker A
classical yoga which is coming from patanjali tradition and i believe it is when this conjunction happened here it is at this point that all these various wild beings shakiness darkness chushikas etc they started to be called yoginis so let us summarize tantras bhava 16
39:46
Speaker A
again so you can easily do the yoga to reach the state of yogeshwari yoga is similar to potential yoga but for the highest classes of them but they do not practice it they are somehow born with it yoginis practicing yoga belong to lower
40:03
Speaker A
classes and this yoga is a vampiric yoga by which they obtain the ability of shape-shifting and attract victims for sacrifice and now if we take one chapter before tantras above 15 it's actually chopped on yoga and the yoga is fully internalized
40:21
Speaker A
basically it is the whole kundalini awakening procedure uh and uh actually the whole body is interpreted in tantric terms so the central channel is a lonely tree etc etc so various kind of um reinterpretation of what external tantric entourage
40:43
Speaker A
is happening here already however in the chapter after it in infantry's above 16 the organisation described according to much much all the traditions it seems to me however this text stops after more or less the eugenies obtain the power of shape
41:02
Speaker A
shifting and we don't know much what happens after and in order to learn more advanced level of the yoginis we would have to address a different text so what happened after tantra said baba tantra said as alexis anderson has just described it
41:19
Speaker A
in his various publication a large part of it at least to go to incorporate it into mata tantra which i have formal proof that parts of this kubrick mata tantra were incorporated into jaidra tayama the text i'm working on
41:34
Speaker A
since at least 2006 um especially as this is visible in the form of codes for the videos so tantrasad was written around age kubjica tantra in this sense would be around age to ninth generation was redacted around 9th to 10th century likely
41:58
Speaker A
towards 10th century jaidra consists of four books called chatkas each has six supposed to have six thousand shlokas however they are shorter especially shatkar too in the shadow three we have it can be like if separated into three
42:18
Speaker A
independent parts so the first part chapter from 1 to 23 would be a very classical part of jedra tayamola so we would have a chapter where um there is a code of the video of the goddess there is a
42:35
Speaker A
description of this goddess hermandala nyasa how to initiate a disciple and what siddhi sadhana brings however this is changes drastically in the chapters from 24 to 34 11 chapters and these chapters even have independent numeration so this is clearly a piece of another
42:55
Speaker A
text that got appended to original material of this this part which i'm talking about is called yogini samchara prakaranam or explanation of the assembly of the yoginis this text is followed by a set of chroma chapters and then shotka stops
43:15
Speaker A
so we're going to talk about now about the material of this yogini sanchar prakarna this text exists in eight manuscripts so far which i have all i collected them there are 11 chapters in it is as i said
43:29
Speaker A
independent block was in the third chakra first of all it was mentioned by bhakti and the text was edited pre-edited if you like by alexis anderson in 2004 on the basis of five different manuscripts the text is interesting because it is like as if
43:49
Speaker A
continues and expands on the tantrashiva 16. so what are the main features of the yoga in samsara prakarna this is a clear reference to a shadanga yoga so the yoga note of eight not ashtanga no but of six limbs it's a shallow variety
44:09
Speaker A
of yoga if you would like to learn more about it i would advise to read the book by some devastation then this text list in lists in chapter 157 yogini related tantras so it was it has some internal references
44:28
Speaker A
but it really says that there were 57 tantras describing the practices of yoginis among these 57 texts i could trace at least eight in nepalese manuscripts however they are not edited except the two mentioned siddhis rarimata edited by judith torjok and brahmayam
44:51
Speaker A
allah being edited by shaman hatley and shabakesh so these are available in addition to what i am presenting today if you remember tantrasaba creation of the world it was purely feminine here however in yogani samsara prakaranam well like is getting either two and all
45:11
Speaker A
the tradition which was still more shy but less structure or we are dealing with some sort of rewriting back to shaivism of more radical elements both are possible so shiva main god has three forms here which is akhora not terrible mahagura
45:30
Speaker A
very terrible and ghorakura extremely terrible one and from this male form spring here the three goddesses aguara because for mahagura the same kinds of lower yoginis as we saw in tantrashivs or shakiness chum because sushi cause etc and from the extremely terrible form we
45:53
Speaker A
would have the 18 families of the matrikas with their duties messengers female messengers and kinkara servants so 18 families of matrikas is the signs that the text is extremely ancient the same 18 family is also mentioned in tantra and in some very old puranas
46:16
Speaker A
and it seems to me that originally there were probably more kinds of matrices than seven and just when the tradition reached the general public somehow all this multiple matrices they got crystallized into seven and the list got rather reduced then
46:34
Speaker A
expanded so now let us just remember that here creation is rather from masculine to feminine so already there is a hierarchy from masculine to feminine creation he has explained is an operation of the alphabet in which the states of universe tatwas
46:56
Speaker A
are linked to the letters by combining those letters into mantras and by joining these letters to particular channel in the body the practitioner can influence the world here are also details of internal chakras and in this case they're often replaced
47:15
Speaker A
by syllables so although the text is still dealing with wild deities there is a tendency to internalize beautify the thing by replacing the yoginis with symbolic elements so as for the embodied yoginis if and untranslated as higher classes of
47:38
Speaker A
being able to reach the states that were rare for men here in the yugini samsara prakaranam the goddess asks for easier way for women specifically because they have unstable mind and so they fall on the time from the
47:54
Speaker A
visualization they are unable to do mantras and those are such usual practices and interestingly she asks bhairava precisely to explain her subtle or sukshima practice so what bhairava suggests for yoginis basis of all yoga he says is blood
48:16
Speaker A
extraction from a victim and the mechanism of it is a visionary state in which the practitioner links the channel to the petals of the visualized lotus and assigns the letters to them and this affects the state of the victim
48:34
Speaker A
interestingly uh a whole range of patanjala like cities are integrated into cities of yoginis in the yogini samshara prakranga what this is not really surprising because jaydratha actually mentions some sort of yoga sutra near nayama or a commentary
48:50
Speaker A
on yoga sutra and it is not clear to me so far which text exactly is meant this is in chat one so what what special capacities do yogunis have here they have full control of nature they can break mountains
49:07
Speaker A
or stop the oceans they have eight yogic cities anime etc but these are sort of mentioned in passing they can heal and kill do usual black magic but all this um vashankaris tampana etc etc are like as if revised in relation to
49:27
Speaker A
vampiric vampiric practices so for example paralysis of the victim's tampa would mean not a physical paralysis like a sort of sickness or such such state but it would mean to stop the flow of prana in the channels of the victim
49:48
Speaker A
mudra here does not specifically mean a hand gesture but it can be a sign of recognition for the yoginis but most importantly it is a seal mudra so really something impressed on the victim or rather on the um
50:04
Speaker A
soul of the victims that deprives the victim of will flying disappearing and reappearing invisibility climbing huge trees changing shape all this serves to find and approach the victims yogis also have the knowledge of time and by this means
50:23
Speaker A
specifically the time of death of the victim and they have ability to enter the body of the of another this is called paradigm provisional we can ask again for whom this is this text there are two schlokas that actually say that this
50:41
Speaker A
is a practice specifically for women a liquor flesh and blood all that by a woman or even a man purusho piva using the video accomplishing elections will be extracted suddenly listen to goddess of great intelligence i will tell you that knowledge
50:59
Speaker A
it is particularly for women not in them and for men who are connected to so what exactly is being extracted here the basic substances are called dragyas these drivers can be from eight kinds of animals and dravia is extracted from animals
51:26
Speaker A
interestingly bring the cities of transforming a yogurt into a different kind of supernatural being for example by i don't know eating a dog she could transform herself into erections so i would give such example but there are some precise
51:42
Speaker A
letters of this but dravia should be preferably from humans dravia we would imagine that it is something liquid but here not specifically so it can include various body substances and also skin for example and bone so not specifically liquid
52:01
Speaker A
top of the top of these drawings is extraction of the soul or life of the victim it's called jiva karshana interestingly we do not have any description of yogini actually doing these extractions in centro said baba or jayadratha so these are all
52:22
Speaker A
prescriptions sort of whereas general interpretation like nothing nothing really happens at the level that um this yogini who found such a great tradition extracted on such a date from such a such a person such drive as nothing of this kind what we have is
52:41
Speaker A
actually prescriptive stuff and it is mostly addressing male practitioner so we are told multiple times that the drug is extracted and by the male practitioners and offered to yoginis and various goddesses make all the supernatural beings very happy
52:59
Speaker A
so again it is not clear for whom is actually the text um yogini samchara prakaranam has a classification of cds which is totally endemic to this text i could never find anything which would expand it anyhow in the other text so if
53:17
Speaker A
you know about something that looks close to this please let me know so the cities of yoginis have two sub separations this can be yogiki and kaliki and the later one are not related to goddess kali but they are
53:32
Speaker A
related to time so among yogiki city we would have precisely the colorful things that noted below blood extraction should be mastered within one year five nectars of panchamrita extraction within six months to one year after blood extraction extruder acid is low acid this actually
53:52
Speaker A
technical term meaning that they are related to eight kind of animals and modifying yogini's form into animals or into other supernatural beings so these are six months to one year and then extraction of the soul or life of a
54:12
Speaker A
victim should be mastered within 12 years so as you see it is quite quite some time to master this yoga of yogin is according to this text however kali ki cd is something special so this uh describing this kaliki city the text
54:30
Speaker A
says that there are some months in indian month in indian year linked with particular nakshatras and moon phases when this series can be achieved easier as far as i interpret this text in this yoga of the yoginis we would
54:51
Speaker A
have various terms from classical yoga that you might know reinterpreted in order to feedback to this one vampiric practice so nadi would mean a channel but not not just either pingala and sushumna but a multitude of channels these are related to the openings of the
55:14
Speaker A
body some of them and through them the yoginis can enter the body of the victim chakra here would be not uh swatistana muladhara in the this sort of chakras chakra here rather means some sort of visualized lotus on the petals of which the channels of
55:38
Speaker A
victim are arranged in a particular way so it is internal and external path are totally merged together so chidra is a whole literal meaning is this and this would mean an opening in the body of the victim which can be any for example organs of
55:56
Speaker A
senses are considered to be the doors through which yoginis can enter and also in some texts navel can be a place of entry shadow it is not a physical shadow of the person but by this is meant subtle body rather
56:15
Speaker A
so um in jaidra tayamawa all beings regardless of do they practice yoga not have a number of bodies the next one after stu la sharira the physical one is sushma sharira and the synonymous is chaya and by actually affecting this
56:32
Speaker A
subtle body uh yogini or sadaka can have influence on the physical body of the victim finally we have term parakai pravesha in with various synonyms means the entry into the body of another there are some passages which absolutely
56:53
Speaker A
fascinating that i would like to to read aloud with you it's my translation and it's definitely not perfect so i hope to find more material such as this to be able to understand better what is going on so uh here we have a practice which
57:11
Speaker A
would use chair or subtle body of the victim the intelligent one should recite 100 times the name of the victim sadhya then he will suddenly see the subtle body chaya of the victim pashu station there he should at night cut the chair by
57:28
Speaker A
means of a sharp weapon while reciting the video then the victim will fall wherever stationed so basically affecting the subtle bodies for the victim kills so the stool sharira as well here we have a practice which combines knowing time
57:49
Speaker A
and the channels the past is known in the navel the present in the heart the lord of yoga of the yoga at the end of the aisle eyes end of the eyes i don't know where it is but
58:02
Speaker A
probably behind the eyes will see everything everywhere by this order the 24 nadis are separated by three and become thousands or beautiful there are 24 there are 72 thousands of them the principle three nadis are endowed with the
58:22
Speaker A
that do all by them yoginis resorting to the path of yoga yoginio yogamagaga perform the deeds so you see here the reuse of well-known yogi concepts in relation to the urban new related practices as time control paraka prevention
58:46
Speaker A
when the master of mantras while stationed in his own body makes in so he's stationed in his own body and he makes within his own bodies there is some sort of space which is connected to the past and he makes the sound of that and this
59:07
Speaker A
sound is called swara so i prefer to call it syllable here he makes it resort to future it's again it was in his own body then having blocked all nudges in himself he should enter the body of another para
59:21
Speaker A
puran vrajet having joined the future in the body of the other with a syllable swar of the past in himself he will make it one and then he can accomplish all desired so let us jump to actually symbolic passage for upper
59:46
Speaker A
stage of yogini is actually interaction between the yogini or sadaka and the victim so who are the victims jadrata says in this particular part that no female can be a victim and if somebody sacrifice is a girl it will destroy the city
60:06
Speaker A
victim pashu cannot be one who just dies by himself or by herself which is impossible victims should have particular body features so there are various signs of recognition of the victim which are both physical and also the signs that it can be only
60:26
Speaker A
seen in a yogic state yogiana victims who should be younger and have good health the time of death of victim should be normal so basically yoginis or sadikas cannot kill anyone who is not to die by himself within next six months
60:47
Speaker A
so the time of death can be known by the practices given in this part six months before even one year before in some cases the victim should be charmed only by one's own mantras then there is a note that the victims
61:06
Speaker A
should not be killed by arms in this part but they should die by yogic death with chronic and this would crunchy so basically um something that would make him them go up would crumb should be prolonged by yoginio sadaka and it is not because the
61:24
Speaker A
text is sort of shy of describing various hard practices is not shy it describes how to kill animals people in great details and throw throughout its four shortcuts but here precisely we have good grant and most important all these practices
61:45
Speaker A
are done not because sadaka or yogini they want it but it is done on the order of shiva and not otherwise so as a mark of the second stage of the yogini practice we would have human sacrifice that would afford the
62:01
Speaker A
power of light and this would mark realism the second stage so we are now on the top of the green part here again let us get to some well-known text which is outside of the domain of the text of the initiated
62:21
Speaker A
so now we are going to address the chronicle of the kings of kashmir the rajatarangini well-known passage which we can now interpret differently there is a king passed 63 years and 13 days as ruler of the earth then a certain sorceress yogeshwari and
62:40
Speaker A
her name is bhatta and actually bhatt has mentioned intel trusted bhava 16 and i think she is even assigned to lose kashmir at least to himachal religion so mahatma by name having assumed the appearance of a lovely woman
62:56
Speaker A
approached the king one evening losing his sense over her various captivating words he joyfully accepted an invitation to view the wondrous of your sacrificial feast then when in the morning the sovereign came to that place followed by his
63:11
Speaker A
hundred sons and grandsons she made of him a sacrificial offering to the circle of goddesses to this day there is seen on the rook the double impression of peonies showing where on attaining by that supernatural power she has risen to the sky
63:31
Speaker A
so we can reinterpret with the material we have now that the yogini is called bhatta saw that the king has particular body signs or she saw him when she was indiana state so she decided to charm him as he would
63:49
Speaker A
fit as a victim for her sacrifice she sacrificed him and on the spot she obtains the supernatural power another such example uh occurs in the text that we addressed already today sagara book three chapter six versus from one hundred
64:09
Speaker A
forty one hundred twelve here the context is that a girl she sees suddenly her companion fly up in the sky and she wants to have the same capacities and her companions who are all females they explained to her that this as a
64:26
Speaker A
magic power is a witch's spell and they are due to eating human flesh and our teaching this is a brahman woman and a word in sanskrit is actually brahmani known by the name of colorado brahmani he is interesting because
64:43
Speaker A
we would uh the fact that she belongs to a brahmin caste makes little sense here but probably um she would belong to abraham brahmi clan rather as a result in threats under the ball 16. so the author like they've had access to
65:01
Speaker A
some material that was only for initiating however what becomes in 11th century when um was reducted is it is like as if the tradition is already dead and all these tantric elements are used as a sort of spicy decoration of a
65:21
Speaker A
narrative so what happens here when my companion said this to me i being desirous of acquiring the power of a woman that can fly in the air so hatchery but afraid of eating human flesh was for a time in a state of hesitation
65:38
Speaker A
then eager to possess a power i said to those friends of mine caused me also to be instructed in this science and immediately they went and brought in accordance with my request colorado who was a repulsive appearance and here we have actually an initiation
65:56
Speaker A
procedure which is very close to what is described as variance in generation when i fell at her feet after biting and worshiping in nature she made me take off my clothes and perform standing in a circle mandalay a horrible
66:13
Speaker A
ceremony in honor of shiva in his terrific form they worshipping bhairava together after that she had sprinkled me with water gave me various spells known to her mantra nijan interestingly the word nija in tantric context means one of the higher yogic bodies
66:34
Speaker A
so here this is this would means just she gave you one of your own mantras and human flesh to it that has been offered in sacrifice to god so after i had it in men's flesh mahamsa so this is technical term throughout
66:51
Speaker A
under assad bhava and jadha tayamala and have received the various spells i immediately flew up naked i was into the heaven with my friends here you see one of the rare images representing such things it is not coming from an indian sort of
67:10
Speaker A
hindu painting but this is a painting from agbar court where katasari sagara was translated on the top you see various flying beings which many are represented as male and down in the left bottom left corner you see the women
67:31
Speaker A
eating the pieces of human flesh so let us come back to the question of male versus a female so yoginis are represented in this texture as both examples and means for the male sadhakas to reach their cds the only thing that yoginis um actually
68:00
Speaker A
care about in the church the part of the generation that we're discussing is to obtain the substances coming from the subtle genome partial from a human being who is reborn seven times with a set of particular conditions it is like as if yogis would mind their
68:19
Speaker A
own business and they would not care in their normal state about sadhakas at all whatsoever but sadaka would need yoginis in order to progress and his progress is measured by the kinds of yoginis he can encounter so having said all this let us come to
68:39
Speaker A
the question of ontological reality so first of all i will say why i think that all this should be considered as internal practice so what we're talking about is yogic visionary states that are available only after full opening of the central
69:00
Speaker A
channel and kundalini waking so it's really not for everyday normal human beings normal beings would not be able to see the urines then the cruel terms that we discover throughout the tantras can be reinterpreted into something extremely positive
69:19
Speaker A
thanks to the terminology provided for the initiation called diksha and he actually there is essential similarity between guru entering the body of disciple extracting the soul bringing to his own body setting the disciple very high up on the ladder of the tatwas and when
69:39
Speaker A
disciple reaches a high state actually guru gives back the soul to the disciple the difference was a yogini is a minor so yoginis enters the body goes to the heart extracts the soul brings it to her own body and she just
69:54
Speaker A
does not give it back so each aspect of the practice has also a double meaning internal and external and it can be extremely confusing for example we had this already with tantra said baba in kubjica that the lowly tree is actually a
70:13
Speaker A
central channel so practice near a lonely tree practice near your central channel somewhere texts are written by men and for male practitioner so could all these representations of yoginis be just a male projection i would love to hear your opinion on
70:34
Speaker A
this find then the tradition can be considered probably safely dead by the 11th century and becomes rather an anecdote or spicy decoration in already in katasari sagara however coloratory in catastrophe sagara has a pure feminine lineage of disciples then in the tantra
70:56
Speaker A
itself the transmission of power does not go through the texts written by men but through spontaneous visions that can be available to anyone all while by partaking magical substances as my final note i would like to present the following
71:15
Speaker A
so here we have a 19th century account which is second hand account by um major generals lemon who met met a friend somewhere near raipur and his friend tells him a story that happened that the man went to a market
71:34
Speaker A
and a woman there was selling sugarcane so a man wanted to buy one but she asked double price so the man got angry and he grasped one part of the sugarcane and she grasped another then what happens another official
71:49
Speaker A
arrives and he sees the whole thing and he says to the man surprise to release this sugar cane and the man get gets angry and refuses and tries to argue and official without any further conversation cuts this sugar cane into
72:06
Speaker A
two and blood pours from both parts of it and you can see the rest so the fact was that the woman was a sorceress of the very worst kind and was actually drawing the blood from the man through the king
72:20
Speaker A
to feed the abominable devil from whom she derives from the testable powers so let me finish at this note thank you very much for your attention thank you very much indeed olga that was uh masterful i mean the fact that you were working from just
72:40
Speaker A
these two very difficult texts you've really presented us with a a wonderful wonderful overview of the whole yoga tradition i feel i understand it a whole lot better than i did before because it's always so complicated so it
72:52
Speaker A
was a wonderfully clear presentation thank you so much um very much i have various questions are there also quite a lot on the slider i mean we're all i hope you're okay to go on for five or ten minutes
73:04
Speaker A
of questions are you because we normally finish around about now but you okay keep going for a bit for some questions um olga could i ask you to stop your screen chair as well please sure sure thank you so we can see you
73:19
Speaker A
yes um i've already i've got lots of questions but i'll i'll start with just one actually one quite specific one um which is why i wasn't quite clear why you think that there's a a gap a break between the traditions you're
73:35
Speaker A
talking about and the qatar sarat sagara in that which was written in the 11th century because the the jayadratha yamalev we think is ninth or tenth century yeah so it's quite a not that much time between them so just
73:46
Speaker A
running on what grounds you you think now yeah well you see if we take george yama as the videos are still taking very seriously so you cannot pronounce some syllables so you cannot give a video to somebody and actually what somadeva does
74:02
Speaker A
he mentions the names of the videos in the text for non-initiative but it seems like he had access to this because he uh he mentions actually kalasamharshan nvidia in his writing interesting oh yes you know i remember that now yeah because i mean
74:18
Speaker A
i translated bits for it in fact it's an unpublished translation the third volume i would have done had that passage with the entrails being sucked out and i noticed that tawny didn't translate gudena there was a rather nasty aspect of that
74:34
Speaker A
exactly mild translation and interestingly and i mean this was found by alexis andrews there is like a parallel story reusing the same elements uh written by jimmy andres in the text also huge one called bright catamary and there is a parallel passage also on
74:52
Speaker A
this like ducking extracting entrails okay interesting um and so it's sort of related sort of you know if we're trying to answer relate the text to what's going on on the ground uh as it were and this actually links up there's one
75:07
Speaker A
one of the questions sort of links into this but i'm wondering what the relationship is between the traditions you think in the tantrash bhabha and then the ratha yarmula to the yogini temples that we find on the ground and i think maybe i've
75:21
Speaker A
just asked someone's question i'm afraid well maybe we could go to ian alexander because he's phrased he's put a different spin on it one of the one of the questions out there it would be possible to go to him please
75:34
Speaker A
um yes i was wondering um if there was any connection with the various 64 yogini temples that are dotted around india quite a lot of them are circular and hypothermial they're open to the sky so perhaps they let flying yuginis come
75:51
Speaker A
in and commune with the practitioners but it's very unclear what they were doing i noticed you mentioned a horrible circular ritual so i wonder if there's any connection it is very possible i mean at least who analyzed the yogini temple she
76:09
Speaker A
mentions this circle of temples as perceived by locals as some horrible places but we have no proofs about it um if i may continue a little bit on this um i think uh yogini temples they were actually built
76:27
Speaker A
when this tradition from the tradition of the initiated and secret one so something practiced internally for oneself for incremental ground at home but totally secret became the tradition of the king so i think it happens around um probably
76:44
Speaker A
9th to 10th century at the final stage of the reduction of shatsa has rasamita this is where within the kubricka cycle after mullah attacks there is a hazard which reuses the whole mullah but adds a lot of more material
77:00
Speaker A
and so if i believe this is was the earliest text where the yoginis are described as having physical forms to be actually worshipped as such so it would be like a manual to make statues okay so you think so that by the time
77:18
Speaker A
that the the temples appear that they've become a more sort of uh cleaned up cult perhaps and more in the domain of of the royal patronage okay great thank you now next on the list we've got lubamir andrajka has a
77:31
Speaker A
question you can go to him please yes sir good evening many things for you fascinating uh lecture that was really uh amazing but i i would like to ask you hundreds of questions but for now just one technical one you mentioned that in the
77:53
Speaker A
tantrasad bhava the yoginis extract panchamrta these five nectars from the male practitioner and as you know we have various sets of five nectars in various tantric works and i wonder whether tantra sat baba specifies what these five nectars
78:15
Speaker A
are so is it is it specified in this text or it's just a general term so i would have to check the exact recipe but if you like i could get back to you later on i think the best
78:28
Speaker A
study on this is the note 69 yes that's that's the famous sloth okay thank you yeah okay thanks um so we have a few more questions they're all anonymous so i need to read them out but i'm just going
78:47
Speaker A
to jump in actually i'm afraid i'm going to use my chairs privilege once again and another sort of general point that you made is that you thought that all the techs are compo well there's only the two that
78:56
Speaker A
you're really talking about but you think that they're composed in north india and i'm and but you mentioned the sort of relationship for example with the the kubji kamata feeding into the yarmulle and we'd be pretty confident that the kojica mata was
79:09
Speaker A
composing so i'm just wondering what what on what grounds you you place them in the middle so it is just because i have only uh either kashmiri mentions in such text says tantra loka oni police manuscripts i cannot touch so far anything from south
79:28
Speaker A
india but i think there is a scholar i think mikhail karachinski or something like this working on uh grammar traditions touching probably yogini traditions and kerala okay so there's a possibility maybe they yes there might be already i think in some
79:48
Speaker A
of some articles of alexis anderson's it was a suggestion that probably it is coming from karnataka at some point because also uh there are some china texts mentioning extreme tantric practices such as striker and this text are dated to
80:06
Speaker A
11th to 12th century something like this definitely totally unexplored region okay so we go to the one so the first of the anonymous questions we've got here is uh are you able to explain why it should be seven
80:21
Speaker A
lifetimes in order for a yoga knee to become siddha to become perfect oh yogini can probably advance quicker especially if she uses the kaliki points in calendar but somehow seven lives is a very important number in the whole set of
80:39
Speaker A
traditions probably still coming from the vedas because this explanation i could find that um the karmic traces they have influence on this present life through seven previous lives so this was sort of the most coherent explanation and actually
81:00
Speaker A
some of the signs of recognition of the being of the sapta general passion so the being who is reborn seven times to be sacrificed is the fact that he has seven shadows which means seven subtle bodies he has traces of all those bodies
81:15
Speaker A
hanging around okay thanks yeah that the the notion of seven yeah your seven birds is very common isn't it even today yes people talking about in hindi uh okay there's a very general question might be rather difficult do these texts represent a way to come
81:35
Speaker A
to terms with the horrors of the world i mean do you i guess the question is asking for some sort of psychological function of these whole world i believe that there is a very much prominent use of subversion of the
81:54
Speaker A
horror so you go to cremation ground you do the stuff which you don't generally do then you get into some sort of particular state the earth starts trembling as there is like rumbling noise around one clear sounds like somebody speaking
82:11
Speaker A
and actually this marks that the practitioner would enter into some particular psychological state right and then the eugenies appear and then something great happens to him so out of fear appears the beauty if you like so there is this subversion
82:26
Speaker A
all the time but the horror is sort of necessary to have the bigger jump right so it's not not a question of overcoming it's rather embracing it and yeah um another one well i think you kind of this question came in
82:44
Speaker A
about halfway through and then you sort of answered it but i'll read it anyway when the yoginis kill their victims do you have any knowledge of lord yama being i better say annoyed with them for interfering with his work of timing
82:57
Speaker A
people's death as you said later on you pointed out how yogany should only er the time of death is known yeah exactly well i think in puranas in some earlier pranas for example i think it was brahma purana there is a
83:13
Speaker A
notice on dakinis is actually the original servants of the lord of death and they described as having animal heads and they're holding dundas and say torture the sinners in hell so this probably is very early descriptions of what will become
83:30
Speaker A
yogurt okay so they're working with yama to something yeah sort of yes he's not going to get on order of shiva so they cannot do it just by themselves okay [Music] this is a rather technical question can you provide a source or reference for
83:50
Speaker A
the corresponding months in the indian lunar calendar that enhance certain cities is that mentioned in the text yes it mentions there are precise dates yes because it's always dark of the moon isn't it the dark of the moon is
84:02
Speaker A
generally the best time but then there are particular months as well are there but you're not going to tell us the person can contact me we can discuss all right you're reminding me of the discussion we had before as well you
84:17
Speaker A
were saying that perhaps after your lecture people will be less uh keen to call themselves yoginis certainly if i meet anyone who's seen who's witnessed your lecture and then introduces himself as a yoga in the i'll be quite scared
84:31
Speaker A
um okay we've got ali alex alexander fadayev i may have pronounced that wrongly he's got a question so if we could go to him please can we go to him um yeah okay uh hi olga thank you for a great
84:52
Speaker A
presentation i just wanted uh some um quick question to qualify so we're talking about android yeah you describe these three levels of practices practices with your guinea your guineas doing yoga on top yeah and also you mentioned that
85:12
Speaker A
this is uh so that they practice sort of uh yoga is similar to patanjali yoga and they kind of are born with it on this so does it mean that they have they are born with cities or does it imply some sort of ashtanga
85:36
Speaker A
practice they are doing oh no precisely this higher yoginis um not doing any practice so they're born perfect and they're born perfect because they use it's technical terms a taste charo charo is transformative substance here can be of various kinds while being
85:59
Speaker A
inside of the womb of their mom actually so this is actually consuming the magical stuff while being unborn or while your mom is pregnant with you so this is a state where they obtain cities in this text i know i wonder that that made me wonder
86:22
Speaker A
about you know the the meaning of yoga in this context yoga and yoga because sometimes yoga means more like what we would say is magic or something rather than yes yes so perhaps this early understanding of yogani is
86:35
Speaker A
simply that possessing yoga in the sense of you know supernatural power exactly it would mean rather like a procedure to do something right more general terms and linking to the absolute here okay we've only got a well we'll give
86:52
Speaker A
you two more minutes and i think we've got a couple of couple of questions uh anonymous one does the text give any concrete benefits for transforming into the mentioned demigods yakshas or does it assume this to be known
87:09
Speaker A
it's very difficult one and quite fascinating also so there is a chapter in jaidra tayamawa which actually like as if written from the point of view overreactions and the practitioner is supposed to want to become rakshasa it's fascinating
87:28
Speaker A
well throughout the generational practitioner wants to become ketteri or yogini so ketu is and things like this but there is one chapter where one should really desire to obtain a lower state of supernatural interest yeah that's so okay
87:49
Speaker A
and we've got let's see we've got one more um actually we've got two more but uh so maybe a quick one this one is this practice believed to exist anywhere anymore very difficult to say i think large parts of these practices were
88:07
Speaker A
incorporated in tantric buddhism and yeah there are still some references that pills including the substances made of shru are still being distributed so maybe in tibet uh yeah maybe so the sort of the latest reference i have to such
88:28
Speaker A
practices is 1962. okay so it's quite true uh because they keep coming in i keep thinking we're with you hopefully you're very good at answering questions quickly so uh maybe we can try we've got certainly two more can a practitioner of a particular type
88:48
Speaker A
of sadhana see yoginis who are related to a different mandala that's very technical question uh well um there is no such case described from memory somehow they are not classified in this relation according to the mandalas so mandalas would be a particular
89:10
Speaker A
structure related to a particular deity so each mandala would be linked to a particular particular video right so technically from my point of view it would be quite impossible to see the deity of another mandala if you are not doing
89:26
Speaker A
the video of that right but it is very important for practitioner to see the yogini of his own clan so the male practitioners they also have some sort of clan or particular relation to one of the clans of these seven
89:38
Speaker A
matrices and this is defined at the initiation okay great uh is this the concept of yogany we have until the night tradition had female yoganese that made practice not not a very clear question but i think the question is maybe
90:02
Speaker A
whether these yo this concept of yogany is similar to the the human practitioners in the north some pradaya if i've got that right well i think maybe can reply at my place better um i i'm not sure i don't i'm afraid
90:21
Speaker A
that question hasn't it's not very clear so maybe whoever was asking it could email you directly or something to us so now we have got the final question uh are there detailed descriptions of lower yoginis in these texts
90:35
Speaker A
uh yes there are so how to recognize them and they're really precise so a woman should have hair like this and teeth like this and wrinkles in form of treatment for example and things like this and she would wear
90:51
Speaker A
rather black clothes or red clothes and you would find your either listening to war stories or going to cremation ground so there are multiple ways it would be but you can recognize them yes yeah and then you quickly cross to the other
91:08
Speaker A
side of the road okay well thank you very much that's amazing and you're you're the depth of your knowledge you know the as i said the presentation was fantastic incredibly uh clear and comprehensive and then you know your
91:22
Speaker A
depth of knowledge about the subject is is amazing and as you revealed in the questions thank you so much thank you very much you're very kind to me i'm just trying to present a really complicated messy things with i know
91:35
Speaker A
whenever i read any of those bits of those texts i i straight away i'm like this is just too too much but you know now i will return with more confidence i think when i look at those classes let's translate some
91:47
Speaker A
tantric stuff together be good fun okay great well thanks so much um i'll say goodbye i think i'll hand back to theo for the sort of final final goodbye
Topics:Yoginī yogatantric studiestantra sadhavaJayadurga Yamalatantric textsdigital humanitiesmandalasesoteric yogaSanskrit manuscriptsfemale practitioners

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