The Metaphysical Gynecology of Tirumular - Part 11

The Science of Becoming Free of Sexual Desires

The whole of Tantrism of Tirumular is for FREEING the anma from the deeply embedded sexual instinct which is so powerful and which is an expression of Universal Vittu, the Universal Seed that ensures species regeneration. 

Unless one becomes FREE of this powerful force already in nature, one cannot emancipate oneself from the hold of physical and enjoy excursions into the metaphysical and which is the true essence of religious life as understood in Tantrism.

But what is the WAY to become Pure and Free of this immensely powerful and demonic force?

Certainly not abstinence from the enjoyment of sex and hence the WAY is  NOT the Way of asceticism, canniyaasam etc as recommended in the idealistic traditions and monastic orders. 

The WAY to free oneself from sexuality is to ENJOY it in the proper way so that the soul in enjoying thus is also simultaneously FREED by being lifted up  from breathing the normal way into that of Deep Breath, the breathing that takes place when the soul is NOT in the Natam dominated Ida Kalai or Bindu dominated PiGkalai but rather the Suzi Munai where both Natam and Bindu, the inner Sun and Moon are equally present.

More details below.

18.

1941

செய்யும் அளவில் திருநாள் முகூர்த்தமே

எய்யுங் கலை காலம் இந்து பருதி கால்

நையுமிடத்தோடின் நன்காம நூல்நெறி

செய்க வலமிடந் தீர்ந்து விடுக்கவே

உரை:

மேலே கூறியவாறு மகட்பேறு வேண்டியும் அன்பின் வேறு இன்பமாக வேண்டியும், காமக் கலவி செய்யும் அளவில் அதுவே சிறந்த திருநாள் முகூர்த்தமாகும். அதுபொழுது மகட்பேறோ அல்லது கலை ஞானமோ விந்துவின் விருத்தியாக எய்யும் காலமாகும். உவாசமானது சந்திரகலையாகவோ சூரியகலையாகவோ ஓடுவது நைந்து  சுழிமுனை நாடி வழியே செல்லும் போது, அன்பின் வழியே முயக்கென வற்புறுத்தும் நற்காம நூல் விளக்கும் வண்ணம் கலவி செய்க. இது எற்றுக்கெனின் ஆன்மாவை இடகலை பிங்கலை ஆகிய நாடிகளின் பட்டு உயிர்ப்பதைத் தீர்த்து அதனை விடுவித்து சுழிமுனை நாடியில் இருத்தவென அறிக.

18.

1041

ceyyum aLavil tirunaaL mukuurttamee

eyyuG kalai kaalam intu paruti kaal

naiyumidatoodin nankaama nuulneRi

ceyka valamidan tiirntu vidukkavee

Meaning:

When sexual union takes place as described above, that would be actually the most auspicious union. At that point either we attain a child or intellectual productions that are desired. (And to free yourself from this instinctual pressure) you should indulge in sexual union when the breathing is neither the inner moon nor sun dominated but rather the Suzi Munai where both are present in equal measures. The sex can be enjoyed during these moments and all in accordance with way described in the various good Kaama Sastras. This is to draw the anma from existing with right and left hemispherical functioning and usher it into the Cuzi Munai Nadi where both hemispheres are equally activated.

19.

1942.

விடுங்காண் முன் ஐந்து இந்திரியங்களைப் போல்

நடுங்காது இருப்பானும் ஐயைந்து நண்ணப்

படுங்காதல் மாதின்பால் பற்றற விட்டுக்

கடுங்கால் கரணங் கருத்துறக் கொண்டே

உரை:

இவ்வாறு நல்ல காமநூல் வழி கலவிசெய்து மகிழ்ந்தால், சிவதத்துவங்கள் நீங்க எஞ்சியுள்ள 25 தத்துவங்கள் கூட்டத்தையே விரும்பி வாழச் செய்யும் மாதர்கள் பால் எழக்கூடிய காதற்காமம் கழன்று பற்றற விட்டு சுதந்திரம் ஆகலாம். எப்படி முன்பு ஐந்து இந்திரியங்கள் வழி பொறிலியப் பார்வையிலிருந்து கழன்று ஆன்மா மேற் சென்றதோ அதேப்போன்று இப்பொழுது இந்த 25 தத்துவங்களிலிருந்தும் கழற்சியாம். மேலும் இதற்கு மூலமாயது மனத்தை இடகலை வலகலை என்றவாறு நடுக்கத்தில் நில்லாது, கடுந்திறலின் சுழிமுனை மூச்சாகிய ஆழமூச்சு கலவியின்போது ஆகுமா கருத்துறக் கொண்டே கலவி செய்வது ஆகும்.

19.

1942.

viduGkaaN mun aintu intiriyanGkalaip pool

naduGkaatu iruppaanum aiyaintu naNNap

paduGkaatal maatinpaal paRRaRa vidduk

kaduGkaal karaNaG karuttuRak koNdee

Meaning: 

The sexual desires aroused by women who are loved tend to bind the anma towards the 25 Tatvas i.e. excluding the Siva Tatvas from the total 36 Tatvas. Enjoying sexual union prescribed as above and in accordance with good treatises of Sexual union, will help the anma free itself from such an instinctual pressure. Just as earlier the anma managed free itself from the five senses and hence being bound to sensory processes, so is here. The root cause of such emancipation is having sexual union by setting the anmas in Cuzi Munai Nadi and hence without wavering by keeping the breathing neither in the left nor right hemispherical functioning 

Comments:

Tantrism is also equally concerned with the emancipation of the anma from desires, including the sexual and with that attain true FREEDOM. But unlike in the idealistic philosophies where abstinence is prescribed, we have here the saturation of sexual desires through a proper enjoyment of it. There is a WAY of sexual union, which will serve a person to become FREE of sexual desires and with that enjoy sojourning freely in the metaphysical realms.

Tirumular brings out a number of crucial insights here: 

1. First he rescues the notion of the Most Auspicious Time for sexual union from being determined by the ancient astrological calculations to that of psychobiological of the optimum and most psychologically apt times as described in the above verses. The last six days of the growth period of the ovum and first 5 days of decay period are the best for having a child. It is also the case when the sexual union takes place purely as an expression of LOVE, there are six days where sexual desires on the part of women surge forth. Such unions are the TirunaaL Mukuurttam, the most auspicious unions.

2. Secondly he notes the  sexual union in activating the Vittu, the seed in the body and which is expression of the Universal Seed, the Potu Vittu, has TWO different kinds of manifestations. It can result in the normal conception of a child where we have the fertilization of the ovum and its transmutation into a fetus that can grow into a child. Now where sexual union is enjoyed not for this but merely as an expression of LOVE, we have the Vittu, the seed blossoming as  Kalai, various kinds of deep insights that would constitute deep metaphysical insights of the cultural world of the arts and sciences. This is the meaning of the crucial phrase: eyyuG kalai kaalam. 

3. Thirdly he also notes that there are certain subjective conditions that should be taken care of for freeing oneself from the sexual instinctual pressures. The normal breathing is the shallow breathing through the left and right nostrils and which are related to the right and left hemispherical functioning and which in turn has its immediate deep structures the functioning of the inner Sun and Moon and which are the bodily expression of the universal Natam and Bindu. When a person manages to free himself from such breathing and installs himself in the Cuzi Munai Nadi, where there is the joint functioning of both Sun and Moon, the Natam and Bindu, we have a characteristic Deep Breath. When a person has sex with his soul in such a deep breath, he will also FREE himself gradually from the hold of sexual desires and with that enjoy metaphysical adventures without any interferences from sexual pulls that draws him back into the physical world or phenomenal reality.

Loganathan @ Ullaganar

( editing and re-paragraphing by his student )

( photo from https://pixabay.com/ with thanks )

The Hermeneutic Analysis of Religious Experience as Expounded in Jnanamirta Kattalai - Intro Part 6

 The Metaphysical Explanation

Heidegger takes it that the basic question of metaphysics is: Why are there essents rather than nothing? Why are there essents, why is there anything at all, rather than nothing?[17] 

The question is said to loom in moments of great despair, in search of a new meaning for existence when the older ones lose their weight and become obscured. This is the most basic, most comprehensive of all questions for it includes even nothingness, not because it is something but because it is nothing. "This 'why' does not move on any one plane but penetrates to the 'underlying' realms and indeed to the very last of them, to the limit; turning away from the surface, from all shallowness, it strives toward the depths; this broadest of all questions is also the deepest."[18]

In the context of Indian philosophy this question was posed as the basic question of what is meant by 'mukti', 'nirvana', 'samadhi' and so forth. In Saiva Siddhanta, as the author of this text is abundantly clear, this same question is asked as the basic question of existence. But in view of the specific descriptions the system has justified for understanding the being there of the existents constituting the world, this basic metaphysical question is posed with a specific structure of its own.

Why the cosmic activities of Civa-Sakti, the Supreme Intelligence-Power creating myriad of forms out of mayai with births, deaths, pleasures and pains and so forth?

Why are the psyches, countless in number, permeated through and through with anavam? And hence acquire the chaining, delimiting, binding karma and maya?

What is the ultimate meaning of all human (and animal) endeavors, struggles?

Why the Dance of Civa at all?

The concept of paramoksa as purusartta, attempts to answer such metaphysical questions. The objective world is as described. The surface level and deep level structural descriptions which one may call an integrated and coordinated philosophical and scientific (in the broadest sense) descriptions, tell us how the world is. But such descriptions do not unearth the meaning for the world to be and to be thus. The phenomenological descriptions describe the objective world and provide a faultless understanding but since the meaning of existence is not a constituent of the cosmic process, it becomes beyond the power of such descriptions to unravel the meaning of existence. 

The question then necessarily becomes meta-physical, i.e. beyond the descriptive understanding of the world.

But the answer to it could not be independent of how we understand the existents, how we describe the objective world. Yet the 'meaning' of existence is not implied by the objective description - the linkage between the two is not logical. The objective description provides constraints for selecting one among a multitude of possibilities. It provides an insight that allows us to intuit and affirm one among the many possibilities as the possibility for oneself. And this is affirmed when the FUNDAMENTAL INTENTIONALITY is sighted and owned as one's own as well.

The possibility that is affirmed by the author and shared by all who live by Saiva Siddhanta, is the gaining of absolute freedom, liberation from servitude, bondage and so forth that the beginningless permeation of the ego with anavam has brought about by doing things that would increase the flow of Arul from Civa-Sakti into the innermost being of the psyche. The meaning of existence is to liberate ourselves from anavam, that stuff that has been within our psychic constitution throwing us into utter darkness, complete blindness, absolute ignorance. The Dance of Civa is there for enabling us to extricate ourselves from the clutches of anavam, if we so desire. Without that Dance, we cannot learn, acquire knowledge and thereby reduce the hold of anavam bit by bit. Without that Power that manifests itself as Desire, Consciousness and Movement and exercised by Civa, we cannot act and learn and hence acquire knowledge.

Becoming a psyche without karma, maya and ultimately the anava chains with the Grace Power of Civa is the ultimate meaning of existence. 

We can strive towards this absolute freedom, absolute autonomy that only Civa himself has by worshiping Him intensely and thereby transforming our selfhood and assimilating into the 'selfhood' of Civa himself so much so that we become indistinguishable from Him. In this terminal phase of our existence, in 'selfhood' we can become identical with Civa. We can exist without any blemish, completely free and autonomous, without the slightest inclination towards samsara, completely away from the gateway to phenomenality, full of Love for all creatures who are still struggling, endeavoring consciously or unconsciously to liberate themselves.

What the hermeneutic investigations of the world processes disclose to us is this possibility for us to own and appropriate as our own possibility. This possibility which is there in the world is opened up for us, disclosed for us to seize upon and live by it or reject and seek others.

There is no compulsion but only an illumination, a disclosure that an individual can always choose to reject though he would be immensely foolish to do so.

In Saiva Siddhanta, the phenomenological description of the objective world and the metaphysical explanation of the meaning of existence hang together as one piece.

This kattalai, brief as it may be, is a comprehensive literary piece that brings out very clearly the internal coherence that is so distinctive of Saiva Siddhanta.

- end of introduction.


Loganathan @ Ullagananar

( editing and re-paragraphing  by his student )

( photo from https://pixabay.com/en/adler-bird-bird-of-prey-raptor-339128/ , with thanks )

Natural Pedagogy As An Agamic Literature

By Dr Sivakumar of University Of Science, Malaysia