Is red Tara mantra chanting harmful? If not, is there any experience of benefit received while chanting?

Hari Om Namo Narayana!

(Red ‘taara’ is a goddess who has the power to bless her devotees with the qualities of seduction, enchantment and magnetism.)

So, the first thing to understand here is how a ‘mantra’ works and if you don’t have a clue about it and are new to chanting, you are encouraged to check out some of my recent answers on the topic.

• You see, the primary thing to understand about a ‘mantra’ before you start a chanting practice is exactly who the deity is that you are seeking to connect with through the practice. If not a ‘deity’ per se then what ‘energy’?
• Then you need to understand exactly what sort of progress are you in anticipation of ?
• Are you seeking a primarily spiritual goal, or a material aspiration?

As I have explained recently in one of my other answers, there are two ways to approach the science of ‘chanting’:

1. Pick any ‘mantra’ and focus on that and only that single mindedly and even if you have no clue what it really means, it will guide you, lead you and deliver you to enlightenment.
2. Think of it more like a devotion based approach.
3. Second approach is the ‘Tantric’ approach.
4. In this approach you triangulate what you wish to make progress towards and find the best deity and the best ‘mantra’ that can help you manifest the progress that you seek.

As always, for me to best answer this question in a way that helps you understand the true depth of the knowledge you have requested, I need to build a brief base first.

• While ‘Tantra’ is related to Hinduism, ‘Shaktism’ in particular, when we talk about deities such as ‘Taara’, they are part of ‘Vajrayana’ Buddhism. This is a field of study very similar to its Indian counterpart but one that has emerged and propagated mostly in the Tibetan region.
  • From there, it propagated to Nepal towards the south and Mongolia towards the north.
• There are many scrolls of secret texts that are limited to the Tibetan script and therefore have a very limited set of students or ‘subscribers’ so to speak in the literal sense of the word.
• The good thing is that even though having been under persecution by the dominant political forces of China, for over 6 decades, the Tibetan culture is thriving; albeit on an ‘off-shore campus’ here in Himachal Pradesh.
• As a result of that, a lot of monks and students of the monastery reveal to us through their writings and teachings, the nature of energies and powers that human beings early in the cycle of self realization, can seek the benevolent guidance of.

So who is ‘Taara’?

• Well, from the ‘Vajrayana’ perspective, she is who you would call an ‘Avlokiteshwara’. Or more so the feminine counterpart of one.

Who is an ‘Avlokiteshwara’?

• Simply put, he is an Earth born ‘Buddha’. An enlightened soul who has decided to be born on the planet again to fulfill a specific purpose.
• To understand this term better, let us split the word:
  • ‘Ava’: down
  • ‘Lokita’: to notice
  • ‘Ishwara’: ruler, divine,
  • (‘I’ turns to ‘e’ upon joining the words together, as part of a Sanskrit rule of making conjunctions.)
  • The meaning of the word is: The divine being who looks down to notice.

What does he notice?

• The plight of the people here on planet Earth.

And what does he do thereafter?

He manifests in a human form to ease the troubles of people on Earth.

Now, you can see him being represented in many different forms or ‘avatars’ across all the geographical locations where Buddhism spread to.

If you look up the academic meaning of ‘Avlokiteshwara’, everywhere you are likely to find the description that he is “a very important deity and is said to carry within him the power of a thousand Buddhas”.

• But what does that really truly mean?
  • From the perspective of ‘Mahayana Buddhism’ and life as a whole?
    • How do you truly interpret the meaning of ‘Buddha’ and ‘life’?

Now this is where you find a very interesting convergence of the now distinctly separated ideas of ‘Hinduism’ and ‘Buddhism’ but remember, ‘Buddha’ is also considered by many to be the 9th incarnation of ‘Vishnu’.

It makes complete sense even though these two religions off late have sought to clearly separate themselves from each other and establish their own distinct identities.

You can try and differentiate that but the amount of overlap in terms of vocabulary and nature and function of deities is truly fabulous.

There is no way that these philosophies are not concurrent if not continuous.

What separates the path of the ‘Buddha’ from the rest, is embracing the path of inner enquiry.

This is very interesting because from an astrological perspective you see that Mercury (‘Buddha’) and Jupiter(‘Guru’) aren’t planets that work well with each other’s agenda.

Mercury represents the mind, the intellect and an independent understanding of the nature of interactions in this world from speech to code.

Jupiter represents wisdom and knowledge that is flowing down the river in the form of teachings and learnings so on and forth as successive minds and consciousnesses build on top of each other.

• I know these are very advanced concepts to grasp at first but stick with me here.
• What’s interesting is that the idea that mortal beings may over many lifetimes work to develop their intellect sufficiently that it sees through and releases the cycle of death and rebirth, also fits in perfectly with the ‘Samkhya’ scripture.
• This is a scripture by a sage named Kapil, it details that even after the body is no more, our intellect, mind and sense of ‘self’, in some way continue to exist.
• Therefore, every incarnation of the soul is only another session of development of these three entities.

Why do they need development?

• Because the infinite consciousness multiplies itself with each individual consciousness that reaches its highest potential.

Think about it. Makes sense too.

For every human mind that reaches the peak of its potential, the species collectively advances.

The process of spiritual development is the same but instead of ‘human’ minds, it has to do with the ‘consciousness’ of every single living entity.

That basically means, we are just the universe experiencing itself!

Now let’s come back to understand ‘Buddhahood’:

• The world as we know it, the ‘samsara’ is a simulation for the soul to grow and with each incarnation we work on improving our consciousness one step further.
• This can go on and on and your consciousness still not truly grow, unless you became ‘aware’ of the pain that all of existence is.
• At which point, you can decide to completely do away with desire or understand the entire universe to be a process of growth and embrace it consciously and release it completely.
• That final state of being free from the cycle of death and rebirth is called ‘nirvana’.
• The ‘Buddha’ is a fully conscious entity who has become fully realized. He is fully conscious and aware of the futility of desire of any sort.
  • Releasing ‘desire’ by the way is one expansive, almost endless subject! Doctrines such as ‘Zen’ and ‘Taoism’ follow further from it. So I will go deep into them in another answer.

1. A ‘Buddha’ is essentially fully realized consciousness that is no longer impacted by the fleeting nature of the world.
2. Who is an ‘avalokiteshwara’ then, in the true spiritual sense of the word?
   1. He is a fully realized ‘Buddha’ who chooses still to step back on to the material plane, despite complete knowledge and consciousness of how painful and restrictive the true nature of human life is..to help other beings advance their consciousness.

In a way, an ‘Avalokiteshwara’ is like the incarnation of God walking amongst us.

He realizes fully his connection and oneness with the supreme force of the universe and yet he continues to serve humanity as a mortal.

It’s his decision to do so.

• So now, having understood all that, ‘Taara’ is a female ‘avalokiteshwara’ who vowed to ease human beings of their suffering.
• Depending on her forms, she can be protective, fierce, passionate, healing ,lucky and pure.. there are 8 forms in total and you need to go into depth with understanding each of her forms.
• It’s really fascinating because it resembles the 8 different forms of the goddess ‘Durga’. Her powers however are more along the lines of the ‘mahavidyas’ and that’s the secretive element of this knowledge and exactly why you will find most of the knowledge about ‘Taara’ in ‘Vajrayana’.
• Red ‘Taara’ is a form of this ‘goddess’, who has the power to attract.
  • She is said to grant her devotees an abundance of the power of seduction and magnetism; the ability of transmuting passion to focus.

Like her color red, which is predominantly synonymous with passion across cultures around the world, her nature is also described as such.

Now this is where it gets even deeper:

• Some may show her in the usual form with four arms; two holding lotuses and two placed in ‘abhaya’ and ‘vara’ mudra.
• However, in some of her paintings you may see her holding a bow and arrow with two hands and sharp, slightly fearsome features such as claws, fangs and large eyes.
• The more negative aspect of her description has more to do with the hidden parts of knowledge about this deity that have to do with things like enchantment, seduction, hypnosis etc.
• Needless to say, you need a very sound understanding of this powerful deity, her energy and the background of the nature of that energy before you start any chanting practice relevant to her.

Many people just start a chanting practice for Red ‘Taara’ and are not at all prepared for the consequences that follow.

Why?

• This is not a deity to experiment with.
  • Passion, charisma, seduction, attraction, hypnosis, enchantment etc. seem like excitingly taboo topics and maybe even glamourous when you visualize their effects in your head.
  • That’s not really how they work.
  • If your mind is not centered on what is important, you will simply be unable to call that energy into your life. Worse still, you may end up calling in an excess of it and lose yourself in a maze of desire.

So, to answer your question is chanting red ‘taara’ ‘mantra’ harmful?

• Well it certainly can be. It is an advanced practice.

What are the benefits?

• It is said that you will develop powerful abilities of attractiveness, magnetism, charisma and seduction.
• Most importantly, you will learn how to transmute the emotions of lust and desire into creative abundance.

Hope this helps

Hari Om Namo Narayana!