The University of Nalanda c10.233

c10.233

It is not enough theoretically to affirm that identity. Proof must be given of it; and the only real proof anywhere is direct (Pratyakṣa) experience. So to take another instance; the mass of Buddhistic believers may think that Union with the Dākinīs consists in gaining the favour of female-spirits. Esoterically however the adept projects his creative will into the Matrix of the Mother Energies which are the Mātrīs and Dākinīs and there engenders active forms and powers which are indeed himself as such, since all that is without is within. And so also the Buddhas project the Bodhisattvas who create in their turn. But besides all this mysticism which, whether rightly founded or not, is as a system, philosophically profound, there are to be found amongst Buddhist and Indian Tāntrikas inferior practitioners given over to an evil magic which is yet by no means always ‘charlatanism’, as most orientalists aver, and to abuses in connection with what in India is known as the Chakra ritual. The ignorant lay-folk in these and other countries envisage spiritual truths, so grossly that they come to be called superstition. All evil and ignorance is so much by its nature on the surface and affords so apt a subject for adverse judgment that it is readily seized upon, and the more so that it is convenient material for religious polemic. Nevertheless I repeat that we must do credit both to our intelligence and sense of justice by endeavouring to understand any religion in its highest and truest aspect. The Tantras, whether Buddhist or Indian, contain both a profound doctrine and a wonderfully conceived praxis.”¹