TERMA

Open Source Earth Wisdom for Kali Yuga

In some respects, writings in the TERMA category of Planetary Tantra within metahistory.org will serve as a disclaimer for the author, myself, but in other respects it will openly present my claims regarding the teachings and proposed practices to be found on this site. Paradoxically, I will disclaim some possible assumptions about this work and openly declare my claims about it at the same time.

One of my claims (see Severed Rose 4) is to have received a "mind mandate transmission" from an unknown Kargyu or Nyingmpa master in Santa Fe in the early 1980s, virtually downloading a huge mass of arcane information on Tibetan Tantra. Such transmissions follow the computer sequence of download, install, run. Installation involves a ZIP-file-like compression of the wisdom treasure sometimes said to be deposited in a cloud for later retrieval. In my case, clouds did indeed play an essential role in the transmission. However, I do not claim any authority or legitimacy due to this transmission. (Photo of clouds over Andalucia by Sabina Bikarska)

Stating my claims outwardly and openly has two purposes. First, to show you right up front what you're getting by commiting time and attention to this site. Second, to make myself as transparent as possible. In this second aspect, I follow indications of the Mahanirvana Tantra, a 11th Century Sanskrit text that anticipates in some ways the emergence of Planetary Tantra one thousand years later. This a foundation text of Hindu Tantra, not Tibetan Tantra. It takes the form of a dialogue between Shiva and Parvati, two deities who represent and model the ideal tantric couple. Addressing his consort, Shiva says:

"When the degenerate Kali Age is dominant, Kalika ways should be practised truthfully and without concealment. Truth is divorced from concealment. There is no concealment without untruth. Therefore the tantrika dedicated to Kali should treat sexual rites with total openness."

To my mind, what the Mahanirvana Tantra says of sexual rites—which belong, properly speaking, to advanced practices of Kala Tantra—equally applies to the elementary rules and practices of the more general access path, Planetary Tantra. There is no mumbo jumbo in my treatment of PT. There is plenty of genuine mystery to be explored without indulgence in mystification. I don't have a hidden agenda. I like to keep my pretences and claims right out in the open. For all of us, time is at a premium at the close of Kali Yuga. The MH Tantra says that in this era the attention span of the average human being becomes reduced to a few minutes at a time. My commitment to everyone who comes to this site is:

I will not waste a second of your time if I can help it. You will know right up front what my claims and pretences are. That way you don't have to hang around and investigate and peruse and ponder for months and years to find out where JLL is coming from. I'll let you know as rapidly as I can and you can take it or leave it, take what you like and leave the rest.

Index of writings in this category.

jll October 2010 Andalucia