RE:Photo of Bamakhepa

Somebody wanted photo of Bamakepa. It is here

Regards

-----Original Message-----From: issplist (AT) yahoogroups (DOT) com
[mailto:issplist (AT) yahoogroups (DOT) com]On Behalf Of Jammer wowSent: Saturday,
December 31, 2005 12:22 AMTo: issplist (AT) yahoogroups (DOT) comSubject: [issplist]
Successful vamachari tantrik
Vamaksepa, more than any other teacher in this group of biographies, could best
be characterized as a "mad saint". He was throughout his life continually
violating the normative rules of society and religious practice. He was born in
1837, in the village of Atla near Tarapura (or Tarapith) in Birbhum, West
Bengal, India. He was named Bamacara by his father, a religious man named
Sarvananda Chatterji. He was the second son and had a sister who was later
widowed. Because of his sister's religious zeal, she was called ksepsi, or
madwoman. As a child, Bama (or Vama in Hindi pronunciation) was subject to
tantrums: when the Kali (goddess) image would not answer his prayers, he would
roll on the ground screaming and crying. Thus, even as a child he was
considered mad Bama, or Bama Kepsa. He had little interest in studies, and the
family was too poor to afford schooling for him. His father was a professional
singer, and Bama would often sing songs with him. Bama's father was an
ecstatic, falling into states of bhava (strong religious emotion) while he
sang. While singing, he would sometimes forget who and where he was. Even when
not performing, he spent so much time in bhava that his wife would beg him to
pay some attention to his physical circumstances so they would not starve. Bama
described his father as a yogi. When Bama would role on the ground shouting
"Jaya Tara" (victory to the goddess Tara) his mother became upset, but his
father only smiled. His father also took Bama for his first visit to the
burning ground (a place sacred to the goddess Tara) at Tarapith. Bama took
initiation from his family guru and had his sacred thread ceremony when he was
sixteen years of age. His father died soon afterwards and his mother asked him
to get work, to keep the family from poverty. However, he was absent-minded,
and indifferent towards work and found it difficult to keep a job. He spent
much of his time at Tarapith, the great burning ground and shrine of the
goddess Tara. He spent days and nights there singing before the goddess' image.
In 1864, Brajabasi Kailaspati came to Tarapith as a monk (sannyasi) wearing
sacred tulsi beads, and the red cloth of a renunciant. He violated traditional
purity rules by eating with dogs and jackals. People thought him to be a
powerful monk who practiced black magic (pisaca siddha). When Bama began to
follow him and do as he did, the villagers began to refer to him as one without
caste (he lost his Brahman priest status in their eyes and became an
"outcaste"). Kailasapati was rumored to have brought a dead tulsi tree to life,
walked on the flood-waters of the Dvaraka river, lived under water and flown in
the sky. He was also said to have instructed ghosts and demons. Bama often saw
ghosts and spirits assembled who would jump into trees and disappear into the
dark when he was with his companion. Kailaspati explained that they had done
meditation in this graveyard during their time on earth, but had died afraid
and would come to him seeking advice. Bama's actions became upsetting to the
villagers. He saw a boy on the road who claimed to be the Narayana deity of one
of the nearby houses. The boy asked Bama to take him with him and give him a
drink. Bama dipped the stone idol given him by the boy into the river. Then he
went back to the village collecting all the roadside statues of deities and
took them with him installing all of them on a sand altar at the river's edge.
The villagers were furious that their statues had disappeared, including a
deity that had been inside a house. Bama hid in a hut, and blamed it on
Narayana (the boy-deity he had met). Kailaspati returned the statues to the
villagers who watched their statues more carefully after that. In a dream, Bama
saw the goddess Tara who told him to set fire to the rice paddy near the
village. He set the fire and saw himself as Hanuman setting fire to Lanka (from
the Ramayana). The fire spread through the village, and the villagers spent much
time trying to put it out. In the midst of the flames he saw the goddess Tara,
and he danced in ecstasy before her. He told the villagers he would atone for
the fire by jumping into it which he did shouting "Jaya Tara" (victory to
Tara). They could not find his burnt body, but he was seen later running into
Kailaspati's hut. They wondered if he was a ghost, or somehow alive, or had
learned magic and used it to protect himself from the flames. Bama later said
he felt Tara's hands lift him out of the fire and throw him into the forest.
Bama's mother tried to have him locked up, as she thought him mad, but he
escaped to Kailaspati. She feared Kailaspati and only watched from a distance.
Bama called her "small mother" and the goddess Tara "big mother". Bama took
initiation from Kailaspati and saw a great light condensed into the form of the
Tara mantra, which was his personal mantra. He saw a demoness with long teeth
and fiery eyes, and later the environment was transformed- the bushes turned
into mythical divine figures, and he heard the voice of Tara, who told him she
lived forever in the "salmoni" tree, and that she would be its fiery light. The
tree shot forth flames and he saw a blue light which took on Tara's form.
Wearing a Tiger's skin, she stood on a corpse with four arms, matted hair,
three eyes, and a protruding tongue. She wore snake ornaments, and an erect
snake on her head. She embraced him and vanished at dawn. Some accounts say
that this experience was preceded by a vision of Kailaspati walking on water in
the form of Bhairava. Bama also learned about religion from Vedagya Moksyananda,
who taught him religious texts - the Vedas, Puranas, and Tantras. Bama was
subject to mood swings, alternating emotional love and exhilaration, with anger
and hatred. He would curse the Goddess Tara and her ancestors, throw bones and
skulls, and frighten away visitors. He would call Tara stri meaning earthy
women or prostitute, and said that she was a demoness who had harmed him and
that he would have his revenge by calling down a thunderbolt upon her. He would
rage and then sink into a trance. Bama became a priest at Tara's temple at
Tarapith, and his stay there was marked with confrontation. He roamed around
the cremation grounds happily, making friends with the dogs, naming them, and
sharing his food with them (very unacceptable actions for a Hindu). He would
eat food to be offered to the goddess before the worship ceremony was finished
thus making it impure and unsanctified. The caretakers of the temple were angry
at this and beat him severely. He insisted that the goddess Tara asked him to
take food in this way. After this, the temple owner, the Rani of Natore, had a
dream: She dreamt that the stone image of Mother Tara was leaving the temple at
Tarapith and going to Kailasa. Tara Ma looked very sad, and tears were flowing
down her face, and she wore no mark on her forehead. She was bewildered and
emaciated. Her back was bleeding and full of cuts, and vultures and jackals
followed behind her, lapping the blood from her wounds. In fear, the Rani
asked, "O Ma, why do you show me these terrible things, and why are you leaving
us?" The goddess answered, "My child, I have been in this sacred place
(mahapitha) for ages. Now your priests have beaten my dear mad son, and as a
mother, I have taken these blows upon myself. See how my back is bleeding, I am
in great pain ... For four days I have been starving, because they have not
allowed my mad son to eat my ritual food. So for four days I have refused to
take their offerings of food ... My child, how can a mother take food before
feeding her child? You must arrange for food to be offered to my son, before it
is offered to me, at the temple. If not, I will leave there permanently. Bama
got his priest job back, and people began to visit him, to come as devotees, or
simply to see him. He performed worship after this, and a crowd gathered to see
it. Bama did not follow the traditional rituals; he sat before the image and
said laughingly, "So girl, you are having great fun, you will enjoy a great
feast today. But you are just a piece of stone without life, how can you eat
food?" He then ate all the food that was to be offered to the goddess and asked
an assistant to sacrifice a goat- again without the traditional rites. He did
not say any Sanskrit mantras, only a few in Bengali. He threw some leftover
food to the image saying "there Ma, take that." He took a handful of flowers
marked with sandal paste and stood before the goddess. He cursed her and threw
the flowers at the statue. He wet the flowers with his tears. Although the
flowers were thrown with an attitude of abuse instead of reverence using
mantras, they arranged themselves into a neat and beautiful garland around the
goddess' neck, and the observers were amazed at the mantraless form of worship
of the madman. He then went into trance which continued all day, and he emerged
from it on the following day. He was not a priest who followed schedules- often
the time for worship would have passed and no one could find Bama anywhere. He
would later be seen in trance under a Hibiscus tree, on in the jungle, having
arguments with the goddess. Nilamadhava, a villager, wished to know if Bama was
a saint, so he hired the prostitute Sundari to seduce Bama. On seeing her, Bama
said, "Ma, you have come." He then began to suck her breast so vigorously that
blood came out. In pain, Sundari began to shout, "Save me!" His devotees were
shocked to see a prostitute there and told her to leave. A variety of stories
about Vamaksepa are told by Bengali Shakta devotees. They say that he drank
liquor and ate human flesh from corpses, that he had supernatural powers, that
he was in a continuous state of bhavavesa for his entire life. Perhaps the
story most often repeated was his unique worship of the image in the Tara
temple, when he took his own urine in his hand and threw it at the image,
saying, "This is the holy water of the Ganges". Alternative stories say that he
answered a crowd's protests in response to his actions by saying: "When a child
urinates or defecates while sitting on the Mother's lap, is she defiled? Can a
mother think that she has been defiled by her loving child?" Another story told
by many informants describes his mother's death ceremony: Bamdeb was in the
Tarapith burning ground, amid rain and thunder, meditating. Eight miles away,
over the river Daroga, his mother died. Bamdeb knew instantly, for he heard her
voice as she died. He swam the river during the storm to get her body and swam
back with her body to get her cremated at Tarapith, a holy place. The family
and relatives objected, but he would not listen and shoved them aside, taking
the body. Ten days after her death, there were last rites and food for hundreds
of people. Rain clouds gathered, and a storm broke. But Bamdeb made a circle
with a bone, and no rain fell inside that circle. All around was pouring rain,
but in the circle all was dry. Because of his continuous bhava, normal
etiquette could be rejected. He would share the food offered to him with dogs,
jackals, crows, and low-caste people, all from the same leaf, and would eat
temple offerings on the burning grounds, sharing them with whoever or whatever
wished to eat. He would drink liquor from the broken neck of the bottle, or
from a skull. Yet he became highly respected, and was called Sri Sri Baba
Vamaksepa. It was believed that he had gained spiritual perfection, and had
regained all memories from previous lives. He was harsh to disciples who did
not appear sufficiently dedicated: One person came and asked for initiation,
saying that he wanted to renounce the world. Bama told him to bathe in the
river. When he returned, Bama gave him a kick and told him angrily to leave and
never come back. Bama's disciples protested, and he told them that this man was
still thinking of his business in Calcutta while taking his ritual bath. He
also had unique curing techniques; these stories, too, were told by several
Shakta informants: A person came to Bamdeb with a swollen scrotum. He had no
money and said, "I am in great pain because of this". Bamdeb stared at him and
then kicked him in the scrotum. At first the man doubled over in pain, but then
he was cured.... When a devotee was bitten by a snake, Bamdeb took the poison
into himself, and he turned blue in trance. He cured another patient by
squeezing his throat, although it looked to his devotees as if he were trying
to murder him. His rituals were famous for their sacrilegious (ashstriya)
character, but as they were done in a state of bhava, they nevertheless had
great power- to cure illness, to stop epidemics and natural disasters, to
affect the mood of crowds. At the Calcutta Kalighat temple, while in a state of
bhava, he tried to lift the statue of the Mother and take her on his lap. When
stopped by the priests, he shouted, "I do not want your black Kali! She looks
like a demoness coming to devour [someone]. My Tara Ma is beautiful, with small
feet. I do not want your black Kali- my Akasa Tara is good enough for me."
People would call on him, asking him to pray to their household images, to
enliven them with his bhava. He would fall into trance when he visited their
statues, and often he performed neither worship nor chanting of mantras. He
would loudly call into the air for the Mother, and many observers saw the
statue appear to take the form of a human being. He could create such a
powerful mood that even sarcastic people who came to laugh at him found the
scene impressive. Bama, who practiced a form of kundalini yoga, was interviewed
by Promode Chatterji. The author tells some of Bama's ideas in his book of
interviews with saints: Tantrabhilasir Sadhu-sangha: Ma (the Mother goddess) is
asleep in the muladhara chakra and should be awakened- if she is not awake, who
is there to give one liberation? Only she can do this.... The first sign of the
awakening of Kundalini is that the person does not feel satisfied with the
ordinary state of life- one gets a great urge within to get over this
confinement. The awakening of Kundalini gives men great pleasure, a kind of
pleasure that ordinary men never attain ... as you pass through and move from
one chakra to another, you feel the manifestations of the varied bhavas of
Kundalini Sakti. But what is important, as a result of kundalini Shakti's
functions in every chakra, is the kind of bhava it creates, a different bhava
in each place, and the feeling of these bhavas brings such a state of bliss
that it cannot be described. He felt that the soul departs the body through the
spinal channel at death, through an aperture in the skull, and it enters a state
of emptiness and peace, nirvikalpa samadhi. This is the home of Tara Ma, which
is beyond the material world, the heaven worlds, and the home of Kali. Tara's
grace is necessary to reach this state. Even in later life, he retained the
madness of his youth. He would walk through monsoon rain and thunder, calling
on the Mother or cursing her. At one point, he gathered all the warm clothes
and shawls that he could find, which had been donated by his devotees, and set
fire to them. As the flames rose high up in the air, he began shouting happily,
"See how bright is Tara Ma’s image in the flames." His followers tried to stop
him, but he told them that he was performing the ritual offering fire (homa)
with clothes. Shortly before his death, he became withdrawn and spent most of
his time in trance and meditation. He ceased to talk with his disciples,
speaking only rarely about death and Tara Ma. His love-hate relationship with
her continued until his death in 1911. Bamaksepa was a Shakta with strong
shamanic tendencies, who became the symbol of devotion for millions of Bengali
Saktas. Divine madness was present in him from childhood, when he would have
tantrums because the stone image of the goddess would not speak to him. He was
associated with impurity (sharing food with jackals, eating the flesh of
corpses, refusing to bathe, using urine in ritual, performing corpse rituals,
and daily consuming wine and hashish) and shamanic powers (reading minds,
acquiring knowledge at a distance, perceiving ghosts, spirits, dakinis, and
yoginis, having skill in nature-magic and healing). His healings often
incorporated aggressive acts: one patient was cured by being kicked in the
scrotum, another by being strangled. His techniques of' worship also included
aggressive elements: he would curse both goddess and devotees, and set fires in
which to have visions. Yet he is the saint seen by many Saktas as the ideal
child of the Mother, more faithful to his goddess than any other devotee.
Westerners may find it difficult to understand Indian devotional traditions
where devotion creates both powerful positive and negative emotions. However
from the Indian standpoint, true surrender to the god means total involvement
and dependence on him or her for everything. The acceptance of negative
emotions in devotion along with the positive ones leads to a kind of obsession
where the concentration on the god becomes almost yogic. This same intense
concentration is cultivated by the yogic practitioner but without the strong
emotional component that is normally part of the path of devotion. The erratic
behavior can be interpreted in two ways from a tantric standpoint. The second
or "hero" stage of Tantra where one has passed beyond normal human desires
strives to break free of the moral conventions of society by ritually
performing the five forbidden actions. Such ritual action is normally highly
controlled and disciplined involving concentrated use of mantra and
visualization. However, the mad saint dispenses with the "ritual" performance,
and chaotically violates society's norms in order to break free of the
conventional nature of normal human awareness to encounter the divine reality.
Such strange behavior also has the added advantage of scaring away unwanted
attention from the curious which leaves much time for spiritual practice. A
second interpretation is that the mad saint has entered the third stage of
tantric development (divine bhava) where he is identified with the divine
reality and therefore is beyond the human realm altogether. His behavior
therefore obeys no law or pattern, and appears chaotic to outsiders. Clearly
both stages are dangerous when looked at from the standpoint of societal norms.
The last point that might help outsiders make sense of the actions of a saint
such as Bama is understanding of the primary goal of Tantra. Contrary to many
western writers who believe that Tantra is mostly concerned with sexuality and
sexual ritual, the more important goal of Tantra is to face up to the greatest
spiritual challenge in life- the fear of death. Sexuality is a passion that
tantrics become detached from by spiritualizing sexual activity through complex
ritual behavior. In the same way, the powerful passion of fear whose root is
fear of death can also be controlled through tantric ritual. This is why so
many tantrikas in West Bengal spend time at burning grounds meditating on
corpses, sitting on cadavers at midnight, worshiping liminal goddesses of life
and death (Kali and Tara), and communicating with ghosts. The constant
involvement with death reduces and even eliminates the fear of death. It also
concentrates the tantrika's mind on the fleeting nature of life, and motivates
the tantricka to seek a state of consciousness that is beyond life and death,
and beyond duality itself. Bamaksepa embodies the unorthodox (sometimes
referred to as left-handed) path of Tantra in Bengal. It is a chaotic path that
combines the extremes of passion, and the union of the opposites of hatred and
devotion, sacred and sacrilegious, and life and death.
Yahoo! ShoppingFind Great Deals on Holiday Gifts at Yahoo! Shopping
Attachment: (image/jpeg) bamakhepa.JPG [not stored]

issplist (AT) yahoogroups (DOT) comSubject: [issplist] Successful vamachari tantrik
Vamaksepa, more than any other teacher in this group of biographies, could best
be characterized as a "mad saint". He was throughout his life continually
violating the normative rules of society and religious practice. He was born in
1837, in the village of Atla near Tarapura (or Tarapith) in Birbhum, West
Bengal, India. He was named Bamacara by his father, a religious man named
Sarvananda Chatterji. He was the second son and had a sister who was later
widowed. Because of his sister's religious zeal, she was called ksepsi, or
madwoman. As a child, Bama (or Vama in Hindi pronunciation) was subject to
tantrums: when the Kali (goddess) image would not answer his prayers, he would
roll on the ground screaming and crying. Thus, even as a child he was
considered mad Bama, or Bama Kepsa. He had little interest in
studies, and the family was too poor to afford schooling for him. His father was
a professional singer, and Bama would often sing songs with him. Bama's father
was an ecstatic, falling into states of bhava (strong religious emotion) while
he sang. While singing, he would sometimes forget who and where he was. Even
when not performing, he spent so much time in bhava that his wife would beg him
to pay some attention to his physical circumstances so they would not starve.
Bama described his father as a yogi. When Bama would role on the ground
shouting "Jaya Tara" (victory to the goddess Tara) his mother became upset, but
his father only smiled. His father also took Bama for his first visit to the
burning ground (a place sacred to the goddess Tara) at Tarapith. Bama took
initiation from his family guru and had his sacred thread ceremony when he was
sixteen years of age. His father died soon afterwards and his mother asked him
to get work, to keep the family from poverty.
However, he was absent-minded, and indifferent towards work and found it
difficult to keep a job. He spent much of his time at Tarapith, the great
burning ground and shrine of the goddess Tara. He spent days and nights there
singing before the goddess' image. In 1864, Brajabasi Kailaspati came to
Tarapith as a monk (sannyasi) wearing sacred tulsi beads, and the red cloth of
a renunciant. He violated traditional purity rules by eating with dogs and
jackals. People thought him to be a powerful monk who practiced black magic
(pisaca siddha). When Bama began to follow him and do as he did, the villagers
began to refer to him as one without caste (he lost his Brahman priest status
in their eyes and became an "outcaste"). Kailasapati was rumored to have
brought a dead tulsi tree to life, walked on the flood-waters of the Dvaraka
river, lived under water and flown in the sky. He was also said to have
instructed ghosts and demons. Bama often saw ghosts and spirits
assembled who would jump into trees and disappear into the dark when he was with
his companion. Kailaspati explained that they had done meditation in this
graveyard during their time on earth, but had died afraid and would come to him
seeking advice. Bama's actions became upsetting to the villagers. He saw a boy
on the road who claimed to be the Narayana deity of one of the nearby houses.
The boy asked Bama to take him with him and give him a drink. Bama dipped the
stone idol given him by the boy into the river. Then he went back to the
village collecting all the roadside statues of deities and took them with him
installing all of them on a sand altar at the river's edge. The villagers were
furious that their statues had disappeared, including a deity that had been
inside a house. Bama hid in a hut, and blamed it on Narayana (the boy-deity he
had met). Kailaspati returned the statues to the villagers who watched their
statues more carefully after that. In a dream, Bama
saw the goddess Tara who told him to set fire to the rice paddy near the
village. He set the fire and saw himself as Hanuman setting fire to Lanka (from
the Ramayana). The fire spread through the village, and the villagers spent much
time trying to put it out. In the midst of the flames he saw the goddess Tara,
and he danced in ecstasy before her. He told the villagers he would atone for
the fire by jumping into it which he did shouting "Jaya Tara" (victory to
Tara). They could not find his burnt body, but he was seen later running into
Kailaspati's hut. They wondered if he was a ghost, or somehow alive, or had
learned magic and used it to protect himself from the flames. Bama later said
he felt Tara's hands lift him out of the fire and throw him into the forest.
Bama's mother tried to have him locked up, as she thought him mad, but he
escaped to Kailaspati. She feared Kailaspati and only watched from a distance.
Bama called her "small mother" and the goddess Tara "big
mother". Bama took initiation from Kailaspati and saw a great light condensed
into the form of the Tara mantra, which was his personal mantra. He saw a
demoness with long teeth and fiery eyes, and later the environment was
transformed- the bushes turned into mythical divine figures, and he heard the
voice of Tara, who told him she lived forever in the "salmoni" tree, and that
she would be its fiery light. The tree shot forth flames and he saw a blue
light which took on Tara's form. Wearing a Tiger's skin, she stood on a corpse
with four arms, matted hair, three eyes, and a protruding tongue. She wore
snake ornaments, and an erect snake on her head. She embraced him and vanished
at dawn. Some accounts say that this experience was preceded by a vision of
Kailaspati walking on water in the form of Bhairava. Bama also learned about
religion from Vedagya Moksyananda, who taught him religious texts - the Vedas,
Puranas, and Tantras. Bama was subject to mood swings,
alternating emotional love and exhilaration, with anger and hatred. He would
curse the Goddess Tara and her ancestors, throw bones and skulls, and frighten
away visitors. He would call Tara stri meaning earthy women or prostitute, and
said that she was a demoness who had harmed him and that he would have his
revenge by calling down a thunderbolt upon her. He would rage and then sink
into a trance. Bama became a priest at Tara's temple at Tarapith, and his stay
there was marked with confrontation. He roamed around the cremation grounds
happily, making friends with the dogs, naming them, and sharing his food with
them (very unacceptable actions for a Hindu). He would eat food to be offered
to the goddess before the worship ceremony was finished thus making it impure
and unsanctified. The caretakers of the temple were angry at this and beat him
severely. He insisted that the goddess Tara asked him to take food in this way.
After this, the temple owner, the Rani of Natore,
had a dream: She dreamt that the stone image of Mother Tara was leaving the
temple at Tarapith and going to Kailasa. Tara Ma looked very sad, and tears
were flowing down her face, and she wore no mark on her forehead. She was
bewildered and emaciated. Her back was bleeding and full of cuts, and vultures
and jackals followed behind her, lapping the blood from her wounds. In fear,
the Rani asked, "O Ma, why do you show me these terrible things, and why are
you leaving us?" The goddess answered, "My child, I have been in this sacred
place (mahapitha) for ages. Now your priests have beaten my dear mad son, and
as a mother, I have taken these blows upon myself. See how my back is bleeding,
I am in great pain ... For four days I have been starving, because they have not
allowed my mad son to eat my ritual food. So for four days I have refused to
take their offerings of food ... My child, how can a mother take food before
feeding her child? You must
arrange for food to be offered to my son, before it is offered to me, at the
temple. If not, I will leave there permanently. Bama got his priest job back,
and people began to visit him, to come as devotees, or simply to see him. He
performed worship after this, and a crowd gathered to see it. Bama did not
follow the traditional rituals; he sat before the image and said laughingly,
"So girl, you are having great fun, you will enjoy a great feast today. But you
are just a piece of stone without life, how can you eat food?" He then ate all
the food that was to be offered to the goddess and asked an assistant to
sacrifice a goat- again without the traditional rites. He did not say any
Sanskrit mantras, only a few in Bengali. He threw some leftover food to the
image saying "there Ma, take that." He took a handful of flowers marked with
sandal paste and stood before the goddess. He cursed her and threw the flowers
at the statue. He wet the flowers
with his tears. Although the flowers were thrown with an attitude of abuse
instead of reverence using mantras, they arranged themselves into a neat and
beautiful garland around the goddess' neck, and the observers were amazed at
the mantraless form of worship of the madman. He then went into trance which
continued all day, and he emerged from it on the following day. He was not a
priest who followed schedules- often the time for worship would have passed and
no one could find Bama anywhere. He would later be seen in trance under a
Hibiscus tree, on in the jungle, having arguments with the goddess.
Nilamadhava, a villager, wished to know if Bama was a saint, so he hired the
prostitute Sundari to seduce Bama. On seeing her, Bama said, "Ma, you have
come." He then began to suck her breast so vigorously that blood came out. In
pain, Sundari began to shout, "Save me!" His devotees were shocked to see a
prostitute there and told her to leave. A variety of stories about
Vamaksepa are told by Bengali Shakta devotees. They say that he drank liquor and
ate human flesh from corpses, that he had supernatural powers, that he was in a
continuous state of bhavavesa for his entire life. Perhaps the story most often
repeated was his unique worship of the image in the Tara temple, when he took
his own urine in his hand and threw it at the image, saying, "This is the holy
water of the Ganges". Alternative stories say that he answered a crowd's
protests in response to his actions by saying: "When a child urinates or
defecates while sitting on the Mother's lap, is she defiled? Can a mother think
that she has been defiled by her loving child?" Another story told by many
informants describes his mother's death ceremony: Bamdeb was in the Tarapith
burning ground, amid rain and thunder, meditating. Eight miles away, over the
river Daroga, his mother died. Bamdeb knew instantly, for he heard her voice as
she
died. He swam the river during the storm to get her body and swam back with her
body to get her cremated at Tarapith, a holy place. The family and relatives
objected, but he would not listen and shoved them aside, taking the body. Ten
days after her death, there were last rites and food for hundreds of people.
Rain clouds gathered, and a storm broke. But Bamdeb made a circle with a bone,
and no rain fell inside that circle. All around was pouring rain, but in the
circle all was dry. Because of his continuous bhava, normal etiquette could be
rejected. He would share the food offered to him with dogs, jackals, crows, and
low-caste people, all from the same leaf, and would eat temple offerings on the
burning grounds, sharing them with whoever or whatever wished to eat. He would
drink liquor from the broken neck of the bottle, or from a skull. Yet he became
highly respected, and was called Sri Sri Baba Vamaksepa. It was believed that he
had gained spiritual
perfection, and had regained all memories from previous lives. He was harsh to
disciples who did not appear sufficiently dedicated: One person came and asked
for initiation, saying that he wanted to renounce the world. Bama told him to
bathe in the river. When he returned, Bama gave him a kick and told him angrily
to leave and never come back. Bama's disciples protested, and he told them that
this man was still thinking of his business in Calcutta while taking his ritual
bath. He also had unique curing techniques; these stories, too, were told by
several Shakta informants: A person came to Bamdeb with a swollen scrotum. He
had no money and said, "I am in great pain because of this". Bamdeb stared at
him and then kicked him in the scrotum. At first the man doubled over in pain,
but then he was cured.... When a devotee was bitten by a snake, Bamdeb took the
poison into himself, and he turned blue in trance. He cured another patient by
squeezing his throat, although it looked to his devotees as if he were trying to
murder him. His rituals were famous for their sacrilegious (ashstriya)
character, but as they were done in a state of bhava, they nevertheless had
great power- to cure illness, to stop epidemics and natural disasters, to
affect the mood of crowds. At the Calcutta Kalighat temple, while in a state of
bhava, he tried to lift the statue of the Mother and take her on his lap. When
stopped by the priests, he shouted, "I do not want your black Kali! She looks
like a demoness coming to devour [someone]. My Tara Ma is beautiful, with small
feet. I do not want your black Kali- my Akasa Tara is good enough for me."
People would call on him, asking him to pray to their household images, to
enliven them with his bhava. He would fall into trance when he visited their
statues, and often he performed neither worship nor chanting of mantras. He
would loudly call into the air for the Mother,
and many observers saw the statue appear to take the form of a human being. He
could create such a powerful mood that even sarcastic people who came to laugh
at him found the scene impressive. Bama, who practiced a form of kundalini
yoga, was interviewed by Promode Chatterji. The author tells some of Bama's
ideas in his book of interviews with saints: Tantrabhilasir Sadhu-sangha: Ma
(the Mother goddess) is asleep in the muladhara chakra and should be awakened-
if she is not awake, who is there to give one liberation? Only she can do
this.... The first sign of the awakening of Kundalini is that the person does
not feel satisfied with the ordinary state of life- one gets a great urge
within to get over this confinement. The awakening of Kundalini gives men great
pleasure, a kind of pleasure that ordinary men never attain ... as you pass
through and move from one chakra to another, you feel the manifestations of the
varied bhavas
of Kundalini Sakti. But what is important, as a result of kundalini Shakti's
functions in every chakra, is the kind of bhava it creates, a different bhava
in each place, and the feeling of these bhavas brings such a state of bliss
that it cannot be described. He felt that the soul departs the body through the
spinal channel at death, through an aperture in the skull, and it enters a state
of emptiness and peace, nirvikalpa samadhi. This is the home of Tara Ma, which
is beyond the material world, the heaven worlds, and the home of Kali. Tara's
grace is necessary to reach this state. Even in later life, he retained the
madness of his youth. He would walk through monsoon rain and thunder, calling
on the Mother or cursing her. At one point, he gathered all the warm clothes
and shawls that he could find, which had been donated by his devotees, and set
fire to them. As the flames rose high up in the air, he began shouting happily,
"See how bright is Tara
Ma’s image in the flames." His followers tried to stop him, but he told them
that he was performing the ritual offering fire (homa) with clothes. Shortly
before his death, he became withdrawn and spent most of his time in trance and
meditation. He ceased to talk with his disciples, speaking only rarely about
death and Tara Ma. His love-hate relationship with her continued until his
death in 1911. Bamaksepa was a Shakta with strong shamanic tendencies, who
became the symbol of devotion for millions of Bengali Saktas. Divine madness
was present in him from childhood, when he would have tantrums because the
stone image of the goddess would not speak to him. He was associated with
impurity (sharing food with jackals, eating the flesh of corpses, refusing to
bathe, using urine in ritual, performing corpse rituals, and daily consuming
wine and hashish) and shamanic powers (reading minds, acquiring knowledge at a
distance, perceiving ghosts, spirits, dakinis, and
yoginis, having skill in nature-magic and healing). His healings often
incorporated aggressive acts: one patient was cured by being kicked in the
scrotum, another by being strangled. His techniques of' worship also included
aggressive elements: he would curse both goddess and devotees, and set fires in
which to have visions. Yet he is the saint seen by many Saktas as the ideal
child of the Mother, more faithful to his goddess than any other devotee.
Westerners may find it difficult to understand Indian devotional traditions
where devotion creates both powerful positive and negative emotions. However
from the Indian standpoint, true surrender to the god means total involvement
and dependence on him or her for everything. The acceptance of negative
emotions in devotion along with the positive ones leads to a kind of obsession
where the concentration on the god becomes almost yogic. This same intense
concentration is cultivated by the yogic practitioner but without the strong
emotional component that is normally part of the path of devotion. The erratic
behavior can be interpreted in two ways from a tantric standpoint. The second
or "hero" stage of Tantra where one has passed beyond normal human desires
strives to break free of the moral conventions of society by ritually
performing the five forbidden actions. Such ritual action is normally highly
controlled and disciplined involving concentrated use of mantra and
visualization. However, the mad saint dispenses with the "ritual" performance,
and chaotically violates society's norms in order to break free of the
conventional nature of normal human awareness to encounter the divine reality.
Such strange behavior also has the added advantage of scaring away unwanted
attention from the curious which leaves much time for spiritual practice. A
second interpretation is that the mad saint has entered the third stage of
tantric development (divine bhava) where he is identified with the divine
reality and therefore is beyond the human realm altogether. His behavior
therefore obeys no law or pattern, and appears chaotic to outsiders. Clearly
both stages are dangerous when looked at from the standpoint of societal norms.
The last point that might help outsiders make sense of the actions of a saint
such as Bama is understanding of the primary goal of Tantra. Contrary to many
western writers who believe that Tantra is mostly concerned with sexuality and
sexual ritual, the more important goal of Tantra is to face up to the greatest
spiritual challenge in life- the fear of death. Sexuality is a passion that
tantrics become detached from by spiritualizing sexual activity through complex
ritual behavior. In the same way, the powerful passion of fear whose root is
fear of death can also be controlled through tantric ritual. This is why so
many tantrikas in West Bengal spend time at burning grounds meditating on
corpses, sitting on cadavers at midnight,
worshiping liminal goddesses of life and death (Kali and Tara), and
communicating with ghosts. The constant involvement with death reduces and even
eliminates the fear of death. It also concentrates the tantrika's mind on the
fleeting nature of life, and motivates the tantricka to seek a state of
consciousness that is beyond life and death, and beyond duality itself.
Bamaksepa embodies the unorthodox (sometimes referred to as left-handed) path
of Tantra in Bengal. It is a chaotic path that combines the extremes of
passion, and the union of the opposites of hatred and devotion, sacred and
sacrilegious, and life and death. Yahoo! ShoppingFind Great Deals on Holiday
Gifts at Yahoo! Shopping

pronunciation) was subject to tantrums: when the Kali (goddess) image would not
answer his prayers, he would roll on the ground screaming and crying. Thus,
even as a child he was considered mad Bama, or Bama Kepsa. He had little
interest in studies, and the family was too poor to afford schooling for him.
His father was a professional singer, and Bama would often sing songs with him.
Bama's father was an ecstatic, falling into states of bhava (strong religious
emotion) while he sang. While singing, he would sometimes forget who and where
he was. Even when not performing, he spent so much time in bhava that his wife
would beg him to pay some attention to his physical circumstances so they would
not starve. Bama described his father as a yogi. When Bama would role on the
ground shouting "Jaya Tara" (victory to the goddess Tara) his mother became
upset, but his father only smiled. His father also took Bama for his first
visit to the burning ground (a place sacred to the
goddess Tara) at Tarapith. Bama took initiation from his family guru and had his
sacred thread ceremony when he was sixteen years of age. His father died soon
afterwards and his mother asked him to get work, to keep the family from
poverty. However, he was absent-minded, and indifferent towards work and found
it difficult to keep a job. He spent much of his time at Tarapith, the great
burning ground and shrine of the goddess Tara. He spent days and nights there
singing before the goddess' image. In 1864, Brajabasi Kailaspati came to
Tarapith as a monk (sannyasi) wearing sacred tulsi beads, and the red cloth of
a renunciant. He violated traditional purity rules by eating with dogs and
jackals. People thought him to be a powerful monk who practiced black magic
(pisaca siddha). When Bama began to follow him and do as he did, the villagers
began to refer to him as one without caste (he lost his Brahman priest status
in their eyes and became an "outcaste"). Kailasapati was rumored to have
brought a dead tulsi tree to life, walked on the flood-waters of the Dvaraka
river, lived under water and flown in the sky. He was also said to have
instructed ghosts and demons. Bama often saw ghosts and spirits assembled who
would jump into trees and disappear into the dark when he was with his
companion. Kailaspati explained that they had done meditation in this graveyard
during their time on earth, but had died afraid and would come to him seeking
advice. Bama's actions became upsetting to the villagers. He saw a boy on the
road who claimed to be the Narayana deity of one of the nearby houses. The boy
asked Bama to take him with him and give him a drink. Bama dipped the stone
idol given him by the boy into the river. Then he went back to the village
collecting all the roadside statues of deities and took them with him
installing all of them on a sand altar at the river's edge. The villagers were
furious that their statues had
disappeared, including a deity that had been inside a house. Bama hid in a hut,
and blamed it on Narayana (the boy-deity he had met). Kailaspati returned the
statues to the villagers who watched their statues more carefully after that.
In a dream, Bama saw the goddess Tara who told him to set fire to the rice
paddy near the village. He set the fire and saw himself as Hanuman setting fire
to Lanka (from the Ramayana). The fire spread through the village, and the
villagers spent much time trying to put it out. In the midst of the flames he
saw the goddess Tara, and he danced in ecstasy before her. He told the
villagers he would atone for the fire by jumping into it which he did shouting
"Jaya Tara" (victory to Tara). They could not find his burnt body, but he was
seen later running into Kailaspati's hut. They wondered if he was a ghost, or
somehow alive, or had learned magic and used it to protect himself from the
flames. Bama later said he felt Tara's hands lift him out of the
fire and throw him into the forest. Bama's mother tried to have him locked up,
as she thought him mad, but he escaped to Kailaspati. She feared Kailaspati and
only watched from a distance. Bama called her "small mother" and the goddess
Tara "big mother". Bama took initiation from Kailaspati and saw a great light
condensed into the form of the Tara mantra, which was his personal mantra. He
saw a demoness with long teeth and fiery eyes, and later the environment was
transformed- the bushes turned into mythical divine figures, and he heard the
voice of Tara, who told him she lived forever in the "salmoni" tree, and that
she would be its fiery light. The tree shot forth flames and he saw a blue
light which took on Tara's form. Wearing a Tiger's skin, she stood on a corpse
with four arms, matted hair, three eyes, and a protruding tongue. She wore
snake ornaments, and an erect snake on her head. She embraced him and vanished
at dawn. Some accounts say that this experience
was preceded by a vision of Kailaspati walking on water in the form of Bhairava.
Bama also learned about religion from Vedagya Moksyananda, who taught him
religious texts - the Vedas, Puranas, and Tantras. Bama was subject to mood
swings, alternating emotional love and exhilaration, with anger and hatred. He
would curse the Goddess Tara and her ancestors, throw bones and skulls, and
frighten away visitors. He would call Tara stri meaning earthy women or
prostitute, and said that she was a demoness who had harmed him and that he
would have his revenge by calling down a thunderbolt upon her. He would rage
and then sink into a trance. Bama became a priest at Tara's temple at Tarapith,
and his stay there was marked with confrontation. He roamed around the cremation
grounds happily, making friends with the dogs, naming them, and sharing his food
with them (very unacceptable actions for a Hindu). He would eat food to be
offered to the goddess before the worship
ceremony was finished thus making it impure and unsanctified. The caretakers of
the temple were angry at this and beat him severely. He insisted that the
goddess Tara asked him to take food in this way. After this, the temple owner,
the Rani of Natore, had a dream: She dreamt that the stone image of Mother Tara
was leaving the temple at Tarapith and going to Kailasa. Tara Ma looked very
sad, and tears were flowing down her face, and she wore no mark on her
forehead. She was bewildered and emaciated. Her back was bleeding and full of
cuts, and vultures and jackals followed behind her, lapping the blood from her
wounds. In fear, the Rani asked, "O Ma, why do you show me these terrible
things, and why are you leaving us?" The goddess answered, "My child, I have
been in this sacred place (mahapitha) for ages. Now your priests have beaten my
dear mad son, and as a mother, I have taken these blows upon myself. See how my
back is bleeding, I am in great
pain ... For four days I have been starving, because they have not allowed my
mad son to eat my ritual food. So for four days I have refused to take their
offerings of food ... My child, how can a mother take food before feeding her
child? You must arrange for food to be offered to my son, before it is offered
to me, at the temple. If not, I will leave there permanently. Bama got his
priest job back, and people began to visit him, to come as devotees, or simply
to see him. He performed worship after this, and a crowd gathered to see it.
Bama did not follow the traditional rituals; he sat before the image and said
laughingly, "So girl, you are having great fun, you will enjoy a great feast
today. But you are just a piece of stone without life, how can you eat food?"
He then ate all the food that was to be offered to the goddess and asked an
assistant to sacrifice a goat- again without the traditional rites. He did not
say any Sanskrit mantras, only a
few in Bengali. He threw some leftover food to the image saying "there Ma, take
that." He took a handful of flowers marked with sandal paste and stood before
the goddess. He cursed her and threw the flowers at the statue. He wet the
flowers with his tears. Although the flowers were thrown with an attitude of
abuse instead of reverence using mantras, they arranged themselves into a neat
and beautiful garland around the goddess' neck, and the observers were amazed
at the mantraless form of worship of the madman. He then went into trance which
continued all day, and he emerged from it on the following day. He was not a
priest who followed schedules- often the time for worship would have passed and
no one could find Bama anywhere. He would later be seen in trance under a
Hibiscus tree, on in the jungle, having arguments with the goddess.
Nilamadhava, a villager, wished to know if Bama was a saint, so he hired the
prostitute Sundari to seduce Bama. On seeing her, Bama said,
"Ma, you have come." He then began to suck her breast so vigorously that blood
came out. In pain, Sundari began to shout, "Save me!" His devotees were shocked
to see a prostitute there and told her to leave. A variety of stories about
Vamaksepa are told by Bengali Shakta devotees. They say that he drank liquor
and ate human flesh from corpses, that he had supernatural powers, that he was
in a continuous state of bhavavesa for his entire life. Perhaps the story most
often repeated was his unique worship of the image in the Tara temple, when he
took his own urine in his hand and threw it at the image, saying, "This is the
holy water of the Ganges". Alternative stories say that he answered a crowd's
protests in response to his actions by saying: "When a child urinates or
defecates while sitting on the Mother's lap, is she defiled? Can a mother think
that she has been defiled by her loving child?" Another story told by many
informants
describes his mother's death ceremony: Bamdeb was in the Tarapith burning
ground, amid rain and thunder, meditating. Eight miles away, over the river
Daroga, his mother died. Bamdeb knew instantly, for he heard her voice as she
died. He swam the river during the storm to get her body and swam back with her
body to get her cremated at Tarapith, a holy place. The family and relatives
objected, but he would not listen and shoved them aside, taking the body. Ten
days after her death, there were last rites and food for hundreds of people.
Rain clouds gathered, and a storm broke. But Bamdeb made a circle with a bone,
and no rain fell inside that circle. All around was pouring rain, but in the
circle all was dry. Because of his continuous bhava, normal etiquette could be
rejected. He would share the food offered to him with dogs, jackals, crows, and
low-caste people, all from the same leaf, and would eat temple offerings on the
burning grounds, sharing
them with whoever or whatever wished to eat. He would drink liquor from the
broken neck of the bottle, or from a skull. Yet he became highly respected, and
was called Sri Sri Baba Vamaksepa. It was believed that he had gained spiritual
perfection, and had regained all memories from previous lives. He was harsh to
disciples who did not appear sufficiently dedicated: One person came and asked
for initiation, saying that he wanted to renounce the world. Bama told him to
bathe in the river. When he returned, Bama gave him a kick and told him angrily
to leave and never come back. Bama's disciples protested, and he told them that
this man was still thinking of his business in Calcutta while taking his ritual
bath. He also had unique curing techniques; these stories, too, were told by
several Shakta informants: A person came to Bamdeb with a swollen scrotum. He
had no money and said, "I am in great pain because of this". Bamdeb stared at
him
and then kicked him in the scrotum. At first the man doubled over in pain, but
then he was cured.... When a devotee was bitten by a snake, Bamdeb took the
poison into himself, and he turned blue in trance. He cured another patient by
squeezing his throat, although it looked to his devotees as if he were trying
to murder him. His rituals were famous for their sacrilegious (ashstriya)
character, but as they were done in a state of bhava, they nevertheless had
great power- to cure illness, to stop epidemics and natural disasters, to
affect the mood of crowds. At the Calcutta Kalighat temple, while in a state of
bhava, he tried to lift the statue of the Mother and take her on his lap. When
stopped by the priests, he shouted, "I do not want your black Kali! She looks
like a demoness coming to devour [someone]. My Tara Ma is beautiful, with small
feet. I do not want your black Kali- my Akasa Tara is good enough for me."
People would call on him, asking him to
pray to their household images, to enliven them with his bhava. He would fall
into trance when he visited their statues, and often he performed neither
worship nor chanting of mantras. He would loudly call into the air for the
Mother, and many observers saw the statue appear to take the form of a human
being. He could create such a powerful mood that even sarcastic people who came
to laugh at him found the scene impressive. Bama, who practiced a form of
kundalini yoga, was interviewed by Promode Chatterji. The author tells some of
Bama's ideas in his book of interviews with saints: Tantrabhilasir
Sadhu-sangha: Ma (the Mother goddess) is asleep in the muladhara chakra and
should be awakened- if she is not awake, who is there to give one liberation?
Only she can do this.... The first sign of the awakening of Kundalini is that
the person does not feel satisfied with the ordinary state of life- one gets a
great urge within to get over this
confinement. The awakening of Kundalini gives men great pleasure, a kind of
pleasure that ordinary men never attain ... as you pass through and move from
one chakra to another, you feel the manifestations of the varied bhavas of
Kundalini Sakti. But what is important, as a result of kundalini Shakti's
functions in every chakra, is the kind of bhava it creates, a different bhava
in each place, and the feeling of these bhavas brings such a state of bliss
that it cannot be described. He felt that the soul departs the body through the
spinal channel at death, through an aperture in the skull, and it enters a state
of emptiness and peace, nirvikalpa samadhi. This is the home of Tara Ma, which
is beyond the material world, the heaven worlds, and the home of Kali. Tara's
grace is necessary to reach this state. Even in later life, he retained the
madness of his youth. He would walk through monsoon rain and thunder, calling
on the Mother or
cursing her. At one point, he gathered all the warm clothes and shawls that he
could find, which had been donated by his devotees, and set fire to them. As
the flames rose high up in the air, he began shouting happily, "See how bright
is Tara Ma’s image in the flames." His followers tried to stop him, but he told
them that he was performing the ritual offering fire (homa) with clothes.
Shortly before his death, he became withdrawn and spent most of his time in
trance and meditation. He ceased to talk with his disciples, speaking only
rarely about death and Tara Ma. His love-hate relationship with her continued
until his death in 1911. Bamaksepa was a Shakta with strong shamanic
tendencies, who became the symbol of devotion for millions of Bengali Saktas.
Divine madness was present in him from childhood, when he would have tantrums
because the stone image of the goddess would not speak to him. He was
associated with impurity (sharing food with jackals, eating the
flesh of corpses, refusing to bathe, using urine in ritual, performing corpse
rituals, and daily consuming wine and hashish) and shamanic powers (reading
minds, acquiring knowledge at a distance, perceiving ghosts, spirits, dakinis,
and yoginis, having skill in nature-magic and healing). His healings often
incorporated aggressive acts: one patient was cured by being kicked in the
scrotum, another by being strangled. His techniques of' worship also included
aggressive elements: he would curse both goddess and devotees, and set fires in
which to have visions. Yet he is the saint seen by many Saktas as the ideal
child of the Mother, more faithful to his goddess than any other devotee.
Westerners may find it difficult to understand Indian devotional traditions
where devotion creates both powerful positive and negative emotions. However
from the Indian standpoint, true surrender to the god means total involvement
and dependence on him or her for everything. The acceptance of
negative emotions in devotion along with the positive ones leads to a kind of
obsession where the concentration on the god becomes almost yogic. This same
intense concentration is cultivated by the yogic practitioner but without the
strong emotional component that is normally part of the path of devotion. The
erratic behavior can be interpreted in two ways from a tantric standpoint. The
second or "hero" stage of Tantra where one has passed beyond normal human
desires strives to break free of the moral conventions of society by ritually
performing the five forbidden actions. Such ritual action is normally highly
controlled and disciplined involving concentrated use of mantra and
visualization. However, the mad saint dispenses with the "ritual" performance,
and chaotically violates society's norms in order to break free of the
conventional nature of normal human awareness to encounter the divine reality.
Such strange behavior also has the added advantage of scaring away
unwanted attention from the curious which leaves much time for spiritual
practice. A second interpretation is that the mad saint has entered the third
stage of tantric development (divine bhava) where he is identified with the
divine reality and therefore is beyond the human realm altogether. His behavior
therefore obeys no law or pattern, and appears chaotic to outsiders. Clearly
both stages are dangerous when looked at from the standpoint of societal norms.
The last point that might help outsiders make sense of the actions of a saint
such as Bama is understanding of the primary goal of Tantra. Contrary to many
western writers who believe that Tantra is mostly concerned with sexuality and
sexual ritual, the more important goal of Tantra is to face up to the greatest
spiritual challenge in life- the fear of death. Sexuality is a passion that
tantrics become detached from by spiritualizing sexual activity through complex
ritual behavior. In the same way, the
powerful passion of fear whose root is fear of death can also be controlled
through tantric ritual. This is why so many tantrikas in West Bengal spend time
at burning grounds meditating on corpses, sitting on cadavers at midnight,
worshiping liminal goddesses of life and death (Kali and Tara), and
communicating with ghosts. The constant involvement with death reduces and even
eliminates the fear of death. It also concentrates the tantrika's mind on the
fleeting nature of life, and motivates the tantricka to seek a state of
consciousness that is beyond life and death, and beyond duality itself.
Bamaksepa embodies the unorthodox (sometimes referred to as left-handed) path
of Tantra in Bengal. It is a chaotic path that combines the extremes of
passion, and the union of the opposites of hatred and devotion, sacred and
sacrilegious, and life and death. Yahoo! ShoppingFind Great Deals on Holiday
Gifts at Yahoo! Shopping
Meet your soulmate! Yahoo! Asia presents Meetic - where millions of singles gather