User:Goethean/SRK/Bio/Tantra/Vineeth

Bhairavi Brahmani and Tantra

 * See also Views on Ramakrishna's Tantra Sadhana

In 1861, Bhairavi Brahmani, an orange robed female ascetic appeared at Dakshineshwar. Her real name was Yogeshwari and she was in her late thirties. Other details about her life before her arrival in Dakshineswar is unknown. She was well versed in scriptures and was adept in Tantric and Vaishnava methods of worship. When Ramakrishna first met her, he immediately started describing her about his madness for God, his spiritual experiences and his physical symptoms. The Bhairavi reassured him saying that all these physical manifestations come to an ardent lover of God. She quoted from the scriptures and declared that the same things happened to Radha and Chaitanya and that scriptures have recommended cure for such physical symptoms. She then smeared Ramakrishna's body with sandal-wood paste and put garlands on his neck, and the pain Ramakrishna experienced vanished in three days. Ramakrishna accepted the Bhairavi as a teacher and she systematically taught him the practice of the eight-fold methods of Yoga prescribed by Patanjali.

The Bhairavi initiated Ramakrishna into the tantric practices, which expose the sense and spirit to all the disturbances of the flesh and imaginations, so that these may be transcended. Under her guidance, he went through a full course of sixty four major tantric sadhanas. He began with mantra rituals such as japa and purascarana and many other rituals designed to purify the mind and establish self-control. The tantric sadhanas generally include a set of heteredox practices called vamachara (left-hand path), which utilize as a means of liberation, activities like eating of parched grain, fish and meat along with drinking of wine and sexual intercourse. According Ramakrishna and his biographers, Ramakrishna did not directly participate in the last two of those activities, that all he needed was a suggestion of them to produce the desired result. Though Ramakrishna acknowledged the left-hand tantric path as another means of spiritual enlightenment, he did not recommend it to anybody. Later, when Narendra asked him about the left-hand path, he would say, "It is not a good path. It is very difficult and often brings about the downfall of the aspirant."

The Bhairavi also taught Ramakrishna the kumari-puja, a form of ritual in which the Virgin Goddess is worshiped symbolically in the form of a young girl. Under the tutelage of the Bhairavi, Ramakrishna also became an adept at Kundalini Yoga. Ramakrishna completed his tantric sadhana in 1863.

Ramakrishna took the attitude of a son towards the Bhairavi. The Bhairavi on the other hand looked upon Ramakrishna as an avatara, or incarnation of the divine, and was the first person to openly declare that Ramakrishna was an avatara. But Ramakrishna was indifferent and unconcerned about people calling him an incarnation.

The Bhairavi, with the yogic techniques and the tantra played an important part in the initial spiritual development of Ramakrishna.