
Shakti said:
I shall tell you of the mountain
called Meru
The Shri Mountain, Kailasha
I shall spin the tale of
He that entered it, climbed it
And now resides upon it
with me!
Pashu, the beast-man, awoke
one day and suddenly saw the mountain rising in the distance, at dawn.
Forgetting for a moment his usual routine, something stirred within him
at the sight and he knew that he must travel there.
Why this was so, he could
not say.
After a long, dangerous, arduous journey, Pashu came to the foot of Mt. Meru where two mighty rivers met. There he cast his animal skins into the turbulent waters and, naked, fasted and sat in meditation for thirteen moons.
Transformed, he yet again
felt the urge come upon him and knew it was time to begin climbing the
mountain, though it seemed impossible. Under a full moon, leaving the scented
jungle below, he began to follow a faint animal trail up the mountain for
many leagues until at dawn, it ran straight into a sheer face of the mountain.
All rock, there seemed no way around, so he again sat and meditated.
Closing out the world, he
became calm d found this new center. Soon the sun set and, as twilight
covered the mountain, he opened his eyes. Before him was a cave mouth where
before there had been nothing but gray rock face.
Smiling, he entered the cave. Deep within the Earth he crawled and climbed, over stalagmites and crystals, boulders and burrows, through cracks and wide bat-filled caverns, on he went in darkness. Alternately dry and moist, the path always led slightly upward and deeper into the heart of the mountain. As he scrambled through the mud and the darkness, he began to lose all memories of his past existence, previous attachments and all concerns he held in that past life.
Suddenly, with a final push and spray of mud and a yell that released all his fears, he emerged into a dry cavern filled in the center with flames.
The glowing cavern was huge and bright with the flames of the inner earth and molten rivers of magma. Rubies and garnets glittered from the hot, rough rock walls and a huge monolith of multicolored, shimmering, glowing stones rose from the ever-changing pool of fire in the center of the angular cavern. Pashu approached this and faintly saw through the shimmering heat a symbol carved upon the pillar-like stone surrounded by smoke and flame. It filled him with a strange fiery power, it was this;

The heat of the cavern burnt into his body, caused his blood to boil and set his loins afire. Great and hard his lingum grew, pulsing and swollen in the firelight as he writhed and danced, all muscles straining, skin covered in reddish sweat. Suddenly he felt tremendous ecstasy, climaxing and yelling as the fire rose and billowed and then he heard the Soundless Voice speak, and obeying this, in his blind ecstasy, he leapt into the pit of fire. Suddenly, as his seed had done, he merged with the glowing pillar, the Ling of Flame and so he knew the Limitless Measure of the Earth and the Cosmos above. At the moment of pure, fiery illumination he was propelled by all the force of his actions and he found himself falling through the flames and landing on the other side of the pool of fire, once again somehow in the form of a man, but somehow very different, for his skin was now a reddish hue and he howled like a storm wind.
Recovering his balance, he continued into another nearby cavern that was also alit with dancing light. There lurked my guardian tiger. With skill, cunning and ferocity he fought this tiger for one full moon cycle, sometimes winning, sometimes losing and being scored with tooth and claw, until he finally won the battle, slew the tiger and took for his covering its cleaned and fire-dried skin.
From where I sat I wept, yet I was secretly glad.
He confidently continued
through the cavern until it suddenly ended in a massive wall that
had a narrow slit in it from which pilled a brilliant light. With great
difficulty, he pushed through this crevice and suddenly emerged onto a
small plateau, on an arm of the mountain. The bulk of Meru loomed above
him, jagged cliffs spread below him, all the world, distant and unreachable,
lay about him as far-flung blankets of green and brown and gray. The sunlit
shelf he was on was covered with grasses, herbs and mountain flowers about
which birds and insects flew. The sky was azure; the hot sun shone upon
the small fields and, in the center, sat a deep crystal blue pool of glacial
water with a large glittering stone rising from the center of it. The pool
was fed by a spring gushing from the top of the pillar-like stone. With
great wonder and a growing sense of peace, Pashu strode into the pool where
he drank, washed, rested and played. Soon he noticed that this giant stone
Ling also had a symbol carved upon it. He had not at first noticed because
the glittering stone was covered in flecks and veins of gold so the reflected
sunlight almost blinded him. Wading closer, he studied it, the symbol began
to fill him with great peace and he began to deeply meditate upon it and
again return to the primal center of his being. The symbol was:

Thus he sat, meditating in
peace and joy, in that beautiful place, for twelve full months, as the
rising and setting sun wove a tapestry of gold about him. Finally the day
came when the sun had reached the height of its cycle. It had been exactly
one year since he had emerged. At that moment, again guided by a deep and
powerful Inner Voice, he laughed and leaped into the pool. As he entered
the water, his heart opened and all his emotions, Love, Hate, Joy and Pain,
were made one within the limitless expanse of his heart as he flew forward
and merged with the glittering stone Lingum in the center of the pool.
And so he became the Heart of the World, he absorbed all the feelings and
all the poisons of the world out of his infinite compassion and he flooded
the world with peace as a spring of water flowing forth from a stone fills
a pool. With the strength of Will he flew from this cosmic merging
out past the pool and landed upon the grass, laughing and holding in his
hand a seed. He had changed greatly, and his skin, and especially
his throat, now shone a dusky blue.
He planted the seed he held
in the rich dirt of the field, watered it with water from the pool and
watched. Suddenly there was a stirring and a sprout soon rose from the
earth which soon become a sapling and then became a mighty tree. The tree
quickly matured and came to fruition. As Pashu laughed and danced about
the tree with abandon, a mighty wind howled and the seeds fell from the
tree and rained upon him in his joy. Following his Will, he drew gold from
the pool, gathered up the seeds and fashioned a necklace of power. He used
108 seeds within this necklace, for at night he had seen in his yearlong
meditation that the earth was encircled with 108 Supreme Stars. From this
time on he wore this necklace, for he had encompassed the earth with his
heart as the stars did nightly. Though he longed to linger in this paradise,
the urge within him again bade him GO and resume his journey.
He set out to climb the steep
almost trackless face of Meru that rose above him, and as he climbed higher,
the landscape became more treacherous and the path more dangerous. Fewer
and fewer shrunken plants dotted the wind-swept jagged mountainside and
the stones became sharper. The air began to thin and the heat of the days
more oppressive as the nights became colder and colder. Without rest, without
stopping, he climbed and climbed. He knew that if he once stopped, he would
never move again. This was the worst trial.
One night he climbed and
entered the realm of ice and snow and bitter cold. Though the area was
bleak and lifeless, the stars were shining through the snow flurries and
he was surrounded by great beauty. Soon he climbed above the clouds, the
silver light glittering from the ice and snow all around him. Suddenly
he scrambled around a large outcropping and before him lay an almost lunar-looking
hollow where stood 16 pillars of ice in a circle. The crescent moon rose
above this magick circle and, as Pashu entered it, his shadow fell across
a large black stone monolith in the center and the winds suddenly died
down to silence. This huge stone Ling was taller than he and was covered
in a layer of glistening ice. Intense cold emanated from it. Following
the Inner Voice, he reached out and stuck fast to it. Letting go of all
consciousness, he merged with this imposing cold and it froze him to the
depths of his being and all feeling and awareness disappeared. As he lost
consciousness, the last thing he saw was a symbol inset in silver in the
stone before him. This permeated his mind and he froze in pure void of
meditation fixating on this symbol as he became one with the stone:

Turning his mind’s eye within, deeper, deeper, he traced every thought and concept he had ever had back to its source in the void. Eventually all thinking ceased and TRUE understanding began. All that Was, Is and Will Be lay before his inner eye and it was void. Thus he stood as a pillar of ice and stone for 108 years and from that moment he was released from Time, he was changeless and timeless, he had become one with the source of all.
At the end of 108 years,
suddenly the cosmos became brilliant with his explosive awareness and the
ice of his imprisonment shattered as the stars swirled about him.
With the Beingness of his
Knowledge, he strode forth, yet always remained still. He was Nothing,
yet aware. With newly opened eyes he left the circle of broken ice pillars
in the pre-dawn glow and began the final climb to the peak of Mt. Meru.
With him was the crescent of silver he had taken from the black stone Ling,
it was now bound into his long flowing hair.
Higher and higher he climbed far above everything he had ever seen or known, yet feeling no discomfort for he truly was pure existence. Smiling, he climbed above the very atmosphere until he was surrounded by the unblinking infinity of stars and space. Comets circled him and planets danced about him and still he climbed with a smile upon his lips and I too was secretly glad.
Suddenly, with a last effort,
he was at the top!
He stood and paused and
rested for the first time in 1008 years, staring in awe at the sight of
my radiant form and of the multi-colored glowing stone Yantra upon which
I sat, awake,. yet dreaming. At that moment he was filled with the force
of the centered cosmos, his Third Eye opened and he let loose a howl, the
force of which destroyed the universe in a tearing storm of air, earth,
fire and water intertwined and filled with lightening! In this whirling
chaos only two things remained the wild dancing Pashu and I, slowly awakening.
As the vibrating roar peaked, I joined the sound and, ever so slowly, I
joined the dance with this new mad god. As we danced together, as our energies
wove together, the forces changed and the howl became a song. Together,
as we danced and sang a new song, we brought form from chaos, a world from
our glittering dreams. We came together and he entered me in ecstasy and
delight. In a final orgasmic union of light, life, love and laughter a
new and vibrant Mt. Meru came into existence and with it, a new universe,
a New World.
We basked within the aura of our blissful union, filling the new universe with life in waves of bliss-energy embodied in our creation and so we together spoke the first Word to permeate this new cosmos formed from the endless hum of our co-creation: OM.
So it is formed and always will be embodied in our divine creation. It was then that I pulled from my stone Yantra-throne my gift for him, my love & God. It was a trident I had fashioned from a star and it honored his conquest of the three realms he had braved to reach me. I kissed him and together we planted this symbol of the Three Ways: Knowledge, Will and Action, upon the very peak of Mt. Meru where it shall always remain. Thus our home came into being and within this home the Sun and Moon unite in the Fire or our cosmic passion for all time.
He gave me a new name: SHAKTI,
Power & Life
I gave him a new name: SHIVA,
Most Blessed One
And even today we are one to such an extent that I cannot tell if he is I or if I am he.
And thus SHAKTI ended her tale with a smile.
So it was told to me by the Silent Voice and so do I repeat it here.
Hermeticusnath
Upon Mt. Baker
1984-5
Note:
This Tantra was the result
of a vision/experience that occurred when I was the lone caretaker of a
lodge in the upper Cascade Mountains at Mt. Baker. Though it was presumptuous
of me to write it, I felt compelled to do so. It lay in my papers and now,
almost 20 years later, I offer it to Shiva and Shakti as a lotus of electrons.
OM