The Ten Mudras

The ten Mudra Shaktis and ten Siddhis There are ways of overcoming disturbing influences causing agitations in mind. These are called the "Mudra Shaktis." The attainments that you get by controlling these influences are called the "Attainments" or the "Siddhis". The first mudra shakti is Sarva Samksobini. This means agitation. You are agitated but you transfer your agitation over onto everything else. You interact with everyone. Skhobana actually means interaction, intercourse also. Limited interaction within a circle is possible for any ego bound structure. But can you expand it to include the whole cosmos? How can you be in love with a cockroach? a bird? a swan? a flea? a star? a thermonuclear fusion? a hydrogen bomb? When you have the notion that you love everything, this overcomes your limitations. You realize that the notion of love does not mean trying to possess the thing you are wanting to hold onto but in letting go of the very thing. Love is not imposing your will on others. It is trying to find out what others want and trying to give it to them to the best of your ability. Sarva Samkshobhini Mudra moves you from initial feelings of lust to love. This mudra is the act of expressing love. Love takes different forms according to the object of your love. It is not the same mode in every case. You love fire by not touching it. Embracing a friend is an expression of love. Both are expressions of love. Because I love my child I don't want to give it too many chocolates because I know it is bad for the stomach. Chocolates taste nice, but too much is bad. I know this but the child does not know. So the parent's expression of love to the child includes denying sometimes what the child wants, knowing that it is not good for the child. Similarly Goddess love includes denying what the devotee asks for unless it Is good for devotee. Love is usually confused with sensuality or sex. But it really means all types of interactions where you are trying to give your best to others, where giving is giving what the partner needs, not what you want to; where letting go is letting go of the fruits of your action. Sometimes, your giving may yield your expected result, sometimes no. Love means detachment to the expectation and result both, not detachment to action. The ten hand gestures - the Dasa Mudras We show to Devi ten hand mudras to ask Her to agree to interacting with Her. Nine of these gestures are associated with nine sub-chakras in the Sri Chakra. We are asking Devi through mudras: dram (shabda - Can I talk to you?), drim (sparsha- Can I touch you?) klim(rupa- Can I see you nude?), blum (rasa- Can I kiss you?), sah(gandha- Can I apply perfumes to your body? ) - these are the five sensory modes of perception, plus krom(ankusham- Stop me where you wish to.), hasakhaphrem (Let's forget that we are separate beings and fly together in space out-ofthe-body.) , hsaum (May I place my seed in you? The seed is the seed of knowledge. ), and aim (represents the yoni). In the Lalita Sahasranama it says she is to be worshipped by ten mudras "Dasamudra samaradhya". The krom (ankusham) is saying, "If I am overstepping the boundaries laid down by you, please stop me. In Tantra the woman is the teacher. She is the guru, the leader. She has to decide where to draw that line and the sadhaka should never transgress that line. If she says, you worship my feet only, then he has no right to worship any other part of her body. That is the golden rule. If you violate whom you are worshipping, then it is no longer worship. That is the beauty of the sastra here.

Hasakhaphrem is where you cross your arms and make the yoni mudra. Crossing your arms , exchanging the right and left means if you are Siva you are becoming shakti, and if you are Shakti you are becoming Siva. Your awareness extends into her and hers into you. You become her and she becomes you. You are both Siva and Shakti. Imagine that there is a tube between you and you are shuttling back and forth between Siva and Shakti. That is the experience of the Siva-Shakti samarasya state. Your lingam is projecting into her - and her lingam is projecting into you. It is a two-way union. This is called the Samarasya Swarupam. This projection of alternating energy of bliss which is going back and forth. It comes up to the navel center, then it comes up to the heart to heart center, then to the neck to neck center, then to the eyebrow centers and then the two merge into one. Instead of being an oscillation it becomes a closed circle. This is where the Bhoga becomes Yoga. In the Yoga the Bhoga is still experienced. By showing these mudras you are asking her where to draw the limits. Haskhaphrem is saying, "Let's remember that we are not two separate beings. Let's get out of our body consciousness and move freely in space". When you make the yoni mudra you have three sets of lingas and yonis. The four- petal lotus created by the long fingers forming a triangle with the four fingers projecting into them is the main yoni and lingams. It represents the muladhara and swaddhisthana chakras, the srusti aspects of creation. One set of yoni -lingas represents the manipura/anahata chakra where Lakshmi and Visnu reside, the sthiti aspect. One set of yoni-lingas represents the visshudi/ajna chakras which are the laya aspects. And beyond that is the Sahasrara which merges with the cosmos and has no form. So all seven chakras are found in the Yoni mudra. That is why it is really called the Sarva Yoni Mudra. You show all these mudras and then if she agrees and decides to be your guru, she shows the trikhanda mudra, which is the tenth mudra. It is made like the yoni mudra with the little fingers extended outwards. Let me tell you a story. Supposing there is a man-eating tiger roaming around in a village. There is a woman who hears the roar of the tiger and she is trying to protect herself by running into all the closed doors and somehow finds a little door where she can enter to hide. The next day she is carrying her child and the same tiger comes along. All the doors are closed. There is no way she can escape. What does she do? She keeps the child somewhere else and goes and offers herself as prey to the tiger. This is an expression of her love towards her child. Love overcomes the fear of death. So she goes and offers herself and makes the supreme sacrifice to protect her child. Love has the power overcome fear. Let me give you another example. Recently I saw a video of a young woman in the midst of 7 wild cheetahs. Any one was enough to rip her apart. She loved and understood wild animals. She knew that cheetahs were just cats, they were just big. She walks into them bare handed, playfully teases them, playfully alternately attacking and withdrawing. After a while, she just squats down. One cheetah approaches her cautiously, and starts playing with her, purring peacefully like a cat. How understanding, love and play overcomes fear! Fear is the worst possible enemy that you have got. Your worst enemies are all inside of you, not outside. The enemies of any country are not the other countries, but the fears that the governments have about them. If people could only understand that our enemies are all inside ourselves, we would not need all these weapons, guns, shootings. The words we speak to each other are worse than guns!