Tantra Unveiled: Seducing the Forces of Matter and Spirit

by Rajmani Tigunait

There is a third category of tantric practice that combines both ritual and meditation. Some tantrics may undertake the practice of the gayatri mantra, for example, in a purely ritualistic fashion. Then after completing a course of practice (which may consist of repeating the mantra a hundred thousand times, or eleven hundred thousand times, or 2.4 million times), they do a fire offering with sesame seeds and ghee while they continue to repeat the gayatri mantra. Then they go on to the next stage of the practice, which involves doing half of the daily gayatri practice while employing external ritualistic objects and the other half while meditating on the third chakra (the navel center). At this stage surrendering the ego to the fire element at the navel center replaces the offering of sesame seeds and ghee into the external ritual fire. At the third stage of practice they do not incorporate external rituals at all—the practice has become completely internal.