• The author clears misconceptions about Tantra that exist online and writes about the dangers of falling prey to unscrupulous Gurus.

Through online streaming platforms and now, through YouTube, one finds a very strange phenomenon: everyone claims to be an adept at Shakta Tantra. Just more than a month ago this author went to Tarapith at Birbhum in West Bengal for the auspicious Kaushiki Amavasya and there he saw hundreds of people claiming they are Tantrics and actively targeting clients. They offer all sorts of remedies: from curing terminal diseases to finding spouses and alas, harming others through black magic. And, enormous sums of money are changing hands there. Further, women are targeted for sadder reasons.

Therefore, there once again arises the need to clear the muck about the lucrative business that Shakta Tantra has become. It is astonishing that there is being spread online through even apps, bogus stuff about Tantric spirituality.

One example will suffice, in a crematorium it is strictly prohibited within Shakta Tantra to ring the puja-bells. But if one visits most crematoria, then one will find unscrupulous women and men posing as Aghoris and Tantrics dressed in black, red, and yellow ringing the puja-bell within the ‘shamshan’ to impress their offline and online clients. Thus, they are brining an evil reputation to Sanatana Dharma whose backbone is Samkhya and whose practical form is Shakta Tantra. This connection between Samkhya and Tantra is reserved for another day. 

According to the ‘Adya Stotra’ one who worships the Divine Mother, Kaali and Her different manifestations becomes dear to Sri Vishnu. So, if one goes to Tarapith which is a Siddhapith, one sees that the entire temple complex which includes the ‘maha-shamshan’ is surrounded by the tombs of Vaishnav Acharyas. 

Often people in their obsession with the occult forget to see what is self-evident. The good which is necessarily not the occult, has few takers.

Shakta Tantra is not a path open to most. It is fraught with dangers and that is why in the entirety of our country there are at the most thirty to thirty-five sadhaks who actually know Shakta Tantra. But they are neither online, nor are they easily known as practising Shakta worshippers offline. They neither wear the black, red, or yellow dress of their tradition unless they have to engage in the rituals of Shakta Tantra. If one is a genuine Tantric, then they are bereft of anger, hatred of others and do not take money to perform Tantric rituals --- their one sole aim is to become one with the One.

Now let us understand the power of Tantra in simple terms. And also let us understand the vocation, which is distinct from a profession, of being a Shakta Tantric in today’s world.

None has the right to be a Tantric --- it is a freely given grace of the Holy Mother and Mahadev. They call the practitioner through the Guru. The Guru is the ‘nimitta matra’; only an agent of Devadidev Mahadev and the Holy Mother. As far as Shakta Tantra goes, no progress can be made without the guidance of the Guru at each step of the sadhana. 

For instance, online it seems everyone is doing sadhanas of every conceivable real or imaginary entities. Now, if one were to meet a Yogini Mother or, a Damru (these are other beings) then in both cases will one be able to control the senses? The Mothers will enter the lives of the sadhakas with so much sensuality that one may forget that one is dealing with one’s Mother and not a girlfriend. Without the help of the Yoginis Mothers, who are manifestations of Shakti, one will simply not make any progress in Shakta Tantra. Remember, the Asuras became intoxicated with the Holy Mother in a few cases and wanted to marry Her. 

The Yogini Mothers test the sadhaka and but for the Grace of the Guru, the sadhaka is destroyed. Instead of ‘mukti’, the person becomes deranged and finally falls to levels inconceivable by even those who lead sensual lives. It is not easy to encounter God as Mother within Shakta Tantra; and then survive to declare online that one had met all sorts of beings including the Mother. 

Either people are lying, or they are hallucinating since many use mind-altering drugs and fool themselves that they are having genuine spiritual experiences. Or, through obsessive reading of occult texts, they have become psychotic. The reality is that systemic evils like child-abuse, domestic violence, crimes against women, financial corruption and a general disregard of science have made us emasculated and generally even demonic entities are not interested in visiting/possessing anyone. Most of us are already within the woof of subtle wrongs. We are so Tamasic that we are no less than demons. Demons cannot possess other demons. This does not mean that there are no supernatural demonic entities. But even these entities have no use for the majority of us since we have already become the living dead. We live for sense-enjoyment and are zombified.

Unless there is Guru Kripa and great compassion of the Holy Mother and the Yogini Mothers; the sadhaka will be destroyed in this life and in lives to come. If one is doing the worship of a certain Mahavidya, then it has to be done with one’s own blood not because the Mother is blood thirsty but one has to be willing to give up one’s own life to gain mukti. It is not a symbolic act, but something that needs to be done. Except one’s Guru none will tell this to the sadhaka. This required sacrifice of one’s own blood is not written down anywhere and neither it is to be found on YouTube. Otherwise, this particular manifestation of the Mother will destroy the sadhaka. 

These need to be done under the guidance of a Shakta Tantric Guru who has the ‘divya bhava’; that is, has herself or himself become a Devata. The sadhaka has to understand that she or he is a ‘pashu’ --- a being with bonds and under the strong influence of the senses. The beginner in this path is, like unto an animal who lives for eating, sleeping and sense-gratification. Only a Guru who has become a Devata can pull out a ‘pashu’ from Tamas. Self-effort can take one only so far in this marga. The rest is Guru kripa. The ‘kundalini’ cannot easily be awakened unless one’s Guru awakes Her. This is again not something that a disciple deserves --- it is something that is done by the Guru through unconditional love for the disciple. A Tantric Guru does everything for the disciple. And it is all unconditional with no strings attached. 

A Guru in this tradition has only one disciple since the Guru takes on the entire burden of the disciple’s wrongs and the karmic load of hundreds of previous births. Gurus in this path do not give initiation to hundreds. They might have hundreds of disciples who are mostly devotees of the Holy Mother without intending to be initiated Tantrics within the Shakta lineage as practised in Bengal, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Assam, and Odisha. 

Without the right Guru one will never know why someone is unfortunately compelled to turn up daily at a crematoria with minced meat. Otherwise, that person will die the day he fails to turn up. In Kolkata, there is the famous Nimtala Mahashamshan adjacent to the Baba Bhoothnath temple. There this man used to come regularly with minced meat every day at the same time and just sat silently there quietly with his offering. It is for good reason that nothing is written about this particular branch of Tantra and nothing of any consequence will ever be written down. This is how it has been from pre-Vedic times and that is how it should be.

The Guru possesses the disciple and teaches everything including the required rituals and mantras without uttering a word. Sometimes both do not meet for months; yet the teaching is completed without any known methods of communication. The Guru literally enters the body of the disciple and teaches everything.

This marga has been perfected for millennia. It is impossible for anyone to humanly know everything about Tantric practises unless this method is followed. Learned seminars and clever discussions on seed syllables or, Beej mantras, are good in themselves but have no connection with the reality of Shakta Tantric practises. There is not a single place where the answer is given why this man had to daily turn up at Nimtala ‘shamshan’ with a cup of meat. Only a Devata like Guru knows the reason and passes on the knowledge to the disciple. Why is it necessary in this path to ritually offer cigarettes to whom and why? Earlier they used other smokable materials. Shakti worship is not Sri Vidya or Kashmiri Shaivism (the Anuttara Trika). Nor does Shakti worship involve sexual deviancy and orgies; ritual ones or otherwise. These are forbidden in Shakta Tantra contrary to what is portrayed in movies. 

Many people lament the lack of Gurus and ask how to find a right Guru. As far as Shakta Tantra goes, this is hubris, pride in oneself. In our Dharma past lives spent in sadhana will prepare the sadhaka for this path. One should trust entirely in the Mother. She will send the Guru at the right time. Searching for Gurus is fraught with danger because many want to pose as Gurus whereas they simple want respect, fan-following, money, and the company of the opposite sex. Also, anyone who seeks to become a Tantric may have malafide intent and wants the Tantric siddhis for personal gains including revenge. They easily find spurious Gurus since like attracts like. Or, they are looking for the miraculous and are on their way to insanity.

The ‘siddhis’ in the wrong hands are like revolvers kept in one’s house. Today or tomorrow, one might shoot someone fatally with them because of some imagined insult done to the sadhaka. Nobody in their right minds wants to have these ‘siddhis’ which are necessary only when our Dharma is facing extinction and all human means of preserving our religion are exhausted. Otherwise, these ‘siddhis’ are gateways to millions of years in various hells. 

This author will not discuss anything written here with anyone and he does not give offline or online interviews about Shakta Tantra.

गुरुर्ब्रह्मा गुरुर्विष्णुः

गुरुर्देवो महेश्वरः ।

गुरुःसाक्षात् परब्रह्म

तस्मै श्रीगुरवे नम: ॥

Translated as The Guru is Brahma, Sri Vishnu, Mahadev, the Guru is the Brahman. I pay my respects to Him. (According to our Shastras the Guru is not a representative of God, if anything, He is above God for His disciple.)

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Subhasis Chattopadhyay has a Ph.D. in Patristics and the Problem of Evil. He delivered the de Nobili Endowment Lecture in 2022. The author wrote for Prabuddha Bharata for over a decade and also for the Catholic Herald. He has formal qualifications in religious studies completed from the Pontifical Atheneum, and has also studied the behavioural sciences.