Verse 3.85
At the time of pleasure conjunction, the male aspirant or female aspirant should do the
continued practice of gradually drawing up, in the correct way, his white sexual seed or her red sexual seed before it is discharged; this is how the hard-weapon-burning energy seal is
The implied meaning of this verse is this: Let the male aspirant or female aspirant not allow the white sexual seed or red sexual seed to be discharged. This is a very difficult task. When men and women become very excited due to sexual desire associated with mental impressions, the downtending vital air becomes very powerful and incites a strong downward dragging of the white sexual seed or red sexual seed. At this point, to draw it upward is to restrain a wild river in the rainy season. Who has not had this experience? An intelligent person, after subtle scrutiny of this difficult problem, will say, 'If, at the time of pleasure conjunction, the white sexual seed or red sexual seed is to be restrained, what is the need of pleasure conjunction? The bliss of pleasure is obtained through absence of resistance. If one resists, one should avoid pleasure conjunction.' To make the downgoing downtending life energy upgoing by means of the technique of yoga – this is called hard-weapon burning; this is the scientific definition of hard-weapon burning.
After hearing this, scriptural scholars and followers of the left-handed path may submit the proposition that the meaning of hard-weapon burning is not only to prevent the white sexual seed or red sexual seed from being discharged, but also 'to pull the white sexual seed along with the red sexual seed, or the red sexual seed along with the white sexual seed, inside oneself by means of the sex organ.' For this very reason, [they say,] pleasure conjunction is indispensable, otherwise how is it to be accomplished?
This is a very great misunderstanding indeed; to search for scientific knowledge in it is like trying to extract butter by churning water. In India, for thousands of years, the left-handed path has gone on, in a hidden or a public form, but as of today there is not a single instance of any male or female aspirant who has achieved the divine body by this means. In [the phrase] 'the left-
handed path' (the reverse path), one meaning of the word 'left-handed' (reverse) is Lord 'Kind Dissolver'; one of the names of Beloved Lord Kind Dissolver is 'Reverse'. He is one who has elevated sexual seed; he burned up desire; therefore, the yogic path taught by him is called the reverse path. There was also a very well-known teacher of yoga named 'Reverse'. He propagated the reverse path that Kind Dissolver told about. A second meaning of the word 'reverse' is
'splendid' (beautiful), that is, 'the highest'. The reverse path is the highest path because, through it, liberation is attained. A third meaning of the word 'reverse' is 'the God of Love'. The reverse path, that is, the path of the God of Love, is the path of becoming one who has elevated sexual seed. A fourth meaning of the word 'reverse' is 'opposite' (contrary, against the grain). The reverse path is the dorsal path; one who takes it becomes 'one who has elevated sexual seed'; therefore it is also called the opposite path. Thus, the word 'reverse', despite having many meanings, has one meaning.
In yoga and in tantra, there have been two kinds of teachers: one complete and the other incomplete. The complete teachers knew these two paths quite well: [the path of] the highest good (final emancipation) and [the path of] fulfilling cherished desires. According to their capacity, they gave initiation in the highest good to seekers of the highest good, and initiation in fulfilling
cherished desires to those seeking to fulfil cherished desires. The incomplete teachers did not know both paths well. Considering all society to be seekers of the highest good, they only gave initiation into the highest good. Because they had their own cherished desires, having attracted prosperous people and rulers of the material world, they set them on the left-handed path in order to attain their desires, and said to them, 'Only one tantric path is a special path in that it simultaneously accomplishes pleasure and liberation.' They were actually utterly unaware of the science of yoga. Of course they knew some doctrines of the science of yoga, but they did not comprehend its secret. These incomplete teachers acquired this teaching through the study of yogic and tantric books, and some of them also acquired this teaching from incomplete teachers. They had had their arousal of the life energy and had acquired yogic experiences, yet they were beginning and intermediate yogic aspirants, not complete yogis who had reached the far shore of yoga. Because they were ignorant of the technique of yoga, they did the continued practice of hard-weapon burning with women [or, if they were female aspirants, with men]. They did not know that the 'natural moving-in-space' of the aspirant of natural yoga who depends on women [or men] does not become accomplished. Without natural moving-in-space, the yogi cannot become one who has elevated sexual seed.
They also did not know that the yoga posture is the inverse of the pleasure posture. How excellent the pleasure posture is, but it is only the pleasure posture; it does not make the downtending life energy upgoing, nor the upheld sexual seed stable. The foremost posture of natural yoga is the accomplishment posture. It is not the posture of unaccomplished aspirants but of accomplished great people. [In] Keeping it stable, it is not possible to practice woman-man intercourse. The accomplishment posture is left behind (is left like grain on the threshing-floor), yoga is left behind; afterward all that remains is pleasure. When there is divinity in pleasure, there is yoga. The divinity of pleasure is a requirement. Through worldly pleasure, there is the delusion of yoga, not yoga.
The hidden secrets of yogic and tantric scriptures are not revealed through grammatical analysis alone. It [grammatical analysis] must be accompanied by familiarity with experiential knowledge and the science of yoga. In any completely unknown path, the advent of delusions is entirely natural because the traveler has no real understanding of its beginning, middle and end. But after surmounting countless delusions, he gets to enter the realm of knowledge. When a scientist investigates a physical phenomenon, again and again he falls into the deep and pitch dark pit of delusion, but because of his custom of making considered and subtle analyses, he breaks energetically out of the pit. As a result of his having experienced delusion many times,
perseverance, power of comparison, and other high qualities are developed in him. In yogic and tantric scriptures, there are verses of a type that give rise to misconceptions in the mind of the aspirant. The verses regarding the hard-weapon-burning energy seal are of this type. After reading them, the male aspirant becomes fixed in thinking, 'I should draw up a woman's menstrual blood along with my discharged semen', and the female aspirant becomes fixed in thinking, 'I should draw up a man's semen along with my discharged menstrual blood'. Both are determinedly deluded. Immortality is not attained through this. At present, there are countless male aspirants and female aspirants of this type, who daily perform this type of activity well, not for one or two years, but for many years; they are complete experiencers of this activity. But if you ask them if they have gone above death, they express despair. Among them are doctors of a high class. They have complete faith in yogic scriptures, but they are totally ignorant of the science of yoga.
Because of false knowledge, even after many years they have not succeeded in throwing out this error. One of the characteristic parts of the hard-weapon-burning energy seal is the moving-in- space energy seal; therefore, a few male and female aspirants, after having cut through the binding tendon under the tongue, insert the tongue into the hollow in the flat bone, but because this is not the natural moving-in-space, there is no particular advantage to it.
Hearing this, a question arises in the mind: 'Is it a mistake, or an unscientific (uninformed) action, for a male aspirant to draw his semen along with a woman's menstrual blood into the sex organ, and for a female aspirant to draw her menstrual blood, along with a man's semen into the sex organ?'
Where there is false knowledge, there can be no correct procedure; it is a mistake. Where there is correct knowledge, there can be a correct procedure; it is a scientific action; unscientific actions are the reverse of this. Suppose the aspirant has drawn his semen, along with a woman's menstrual blood, into the sex organ. One step is completed; now what is the next step? Where does that drawn-in semen and menstrual blood go?
They will say, 'We hear from some experienced people that the drawn-in semen and menstrual blood come out with the urine.'
That there is no particular use for the drawn-in semen and menstrual blood in the body makes it clear that this effort is based on delusion. The drawn-in semen cannot re-enter the seed-bearing ducts, and there is no way that the drawn-in menstrual blood can enter the testicles; in this
situation, how can the conjunction of the two occur? The main fruit of the hard-weapon-burning energy seal is the attainment of the divine body. Yogic and tantric scriptures say that if a man's semen (sperm) and a woman's menstrual blood (ova) become stable in the body, the yogi or yogini gets [divine] body accomplishment along with innumerable other abilities. How does this
Those aspirants who think that the divine body is accomplished through uniting a woman's menstrual blood and a man's semen do not know the science of yoga; this idea of theirs is not scientific, but unscientific, consisting of false knowledge. The accomplishment of the divine body is not brought about through uniting a woman's menstrual blood and a man's semen. Its
accomplishment occurs when the outward flowing glands (the gonads) once again become inward flowing. In this activity, a man's white sexual seed and a woman's red sexual seed are mixed into their own blood. This activity is a scientific one. In The Yoga Chudamani Upanishad, as in The
Goraksha Paddhati, it says, 'The menstrual blood [the red sexual seed] resembling vermilion is in the
site-of-the-sun navel circle; and the semen [the white sexual seed] is in the site-of-the-moon throat region; the conjunction of the two is difficult to accomplish. The semen is Procreator, and the menstrual blood is Divine Power. The semen has the form of the moon and the menstrual blood has the form of the sun; the ultimate realm is attained through their confluence (joining,
conjunction). When the menstrual blood and the semen are united through the vital air
engendered by the divine-power-moving energy seal, the body becomes divine.' (61, 62 and 63.) The uptending life energy is the moon, and the downtending life energy is the sun. Through the uniting of these two, the divine body is formed; this is the science of yoga.
The body of every human is the result of the conjunction of the mother's ovum and the father's sperm. The father's sperm only has the form of a seed; the mother develops it into the form of a body. Whether a body is female or male, it contains both femaleness and maleness. For this reason, a woman can give birth to a son as well as to a daughter, just as a man's semen has the capacity to produce either a son or a daughter. Not only is it true that Lord Kind Dissolver is Half- Woman Dancing Commander, and that Lord Dark One is Half-Woman Dancing Lover, but also that in humans there is a half-woman half-man. This principle also applies to animals and birds. There are two main energy channels in the body – the cooling flow and the fiery flow; the first is a female energy channel, the second a male energy channel. There are two main vital airs in the body – the downtending life energy and the uptending life energy; the first vital air is female – the second is male. When the requisite natural favorable condition is present in the structure of the body, what need is there to use foreign elements? The help of foreign elements is also undesirable and unscientific, because with them the downgoing downtending life energy continues to descend; it does not become upgoing. That is the path of pleasure-seekers, not of yogis. In the body there are two types of glands: inward-flowing and outward-flowing. In childhood, the glands producing sperm and ova are inward-flowing. When subtle desires arise in the bodies of young girls and boys, there is inward flow; and their ova and sperm are mixed into the blood. But, when they become adolescents, these glands become outward-flowing. After stabilizing outward flow, to re-establish a favorable condition for inward flow, this is hard-weapon burning, this is yoga. How is this favorable condition brought about?
Listen, one name of the very kind flow is 'the central path'. It has two branches: the ventral central path and the dorsal central path. The white sexual-seed gland [testis] and the red sexual- seed gland [ovary] also have two paths – ventral and dorsal. By means of the ventral path, there is falling down, and by means of the dorsal path, there is rising up. By means of the ventral path, these glands become outward-flowing, and by means of the dorsal path, inward-flowing. Though there is always a flow from the glands, the outward flow is not mixed with the blood and the inward flow does become mixed with the blood. Yogis and yoginis, time and again, contract (turn back) the downtending life energy moving in the ventral part of the gland complex. That is, again and again, they draw the downtending life energy that has reached the mouth of the sex organ back toward the gland; this is the hard-weapon-burning energy seal. At the end of this continued practice, the course of the downtending life energy is toward the dorsal region, and this solves a very complicated problem of the liberation-seeking yogi; this is the science of yoga. Through this science of yoga, it is established that the divine body is not created by uniting a woman's menstrual blood and a man's semen, because in that there is only worldliness, not divinity.
When, in the state of meditation, sexual desire associated with mental impressions awakens, the yogi mounted on the accomplishment posture attempts to draw (attract) the downtending life
energy upward with the help of the uptending life energy. He remains completely vigilant so that the seed will not be discharged; even so his seed gets discharged, because until the uptending life energy of the aspirant achieves full power, the downtending life energy is continually victorious and the uptending life energy is continually defeated. Before that arousal [of the uptending life energy to full power], this level is unavoidable and insurmountable; it is filled with endless hardship; to bear this is a very terrible penance (burning action). The path of ascent of the
mountain of yoga is quite direct. Under these circumstances, to take only one step is like making a journey of ten thousand miles. In this monumental task, the grace of God, knowledge, valor, devotion to God, faith, steadfastness, and many other divine qualities are required. When, after a long time of uninterrupted continued practice, the uptending life energy becomes powerful to a certain degree, the aspirant attempts to gradually (slowly, slowly) attract the seed before it is discharged. If the seed is discharged [from the ductus deferens into the urethra, from the cervix into the vagina], he doesn't allow it to emerge from the sex organ for a period of time. Thus the capacity to defeat the downtending life energy is born in him. In The Yoga Chudamani Upanishad, it says, 'Like a ball being tossed back and forth, the living soul, which is called the sexual seed, the upheld sexual seed or the life energy, does not remain stable in the swift currents of the uptending and the downtending vital airs (winds). Because of the abundant strength of the uptending and the downtending life energies, the living soul comes and goes, up and down. The downtending life energy draws the uptending life energy downward, and the uptending life energy draws the downtending life energy upward. He who truly knows yoga understands this going up and down!'
In pleasure conjunction between a woman and a man, it is very difficult to turn back
(contract) the downtending life energy, because the touch of the sex organ of another person vastly augments the strength of the downtending life energy; so in the end, there is discharge. At the time of pleasure conjunction, various purifying activities begin in the body of the aspirant who has aroused the life energy; because of this, he has the delusion that he is doing natural yoga. But in natural yoga, the body does not have the support of (depend on) any other body; it is unsupported. In natural yoga the body is independent, free of the control of the mental faculty; and in pleasure conjunction the body is dependent, under the control of the mental faculty.
The Yogic Technique
Verse 3.86
In order to set in motion the vital air that is in the opening of the sex organ, one should blow steadily by means of the auspicious tube.
Some teachers have indicated a yogic technique for the accomplishment of the hard-weapon- burning energy seal. In it, first they have a fourteen inch long, glass, thin rod made, one that can enter the opening of the sex organ. One inch [2.54 cm.] on the first day, two inches [5.08 cm.] on the second day, three inches [7.62 cm.] on the third day, thus one should gradually progress, one inch a day, and finally, having reached twelve inches [30.48 cm.], one should stop. Through this, the channel of the sex organ is cleared.
After that, they have a fourteen inch long, hollow, thin rod made. It is bent up two inches [from the end]. It is gradually inserted to twelve inches. Its bent up part is left out of the sex organ. Then, taking a tube like a goldsmith's tube for blowing on the fire, [and] thrusting the front part of the hollow rod into the tube, one should blow. By means of this, the channel of the sex organ is