One of the most important longer mantras, commanding great respect since Vedic times, is the Gayatri Mantra. It can be translated as: May we meditate on the effulgent light (or power) of S/He who is worshipful and who has given birth to all worlds. May S/He direct the rays of our intelligence toward the path of good.

Each of the syllables of the expanded mantra is linked with a deity, a color, a bodily mechanism, and a cosmic principle. The mantra is inscribed in a circular fashion, symbolically integrating a whole mantra-picture of the universe with the yantra form. The colors used in this yantra were taken from those linked to the syllables of the mantra.

Om Hrim. The sound of Om is the most ancient and potent Hindu mantra. It is the primordial vibration that lights the bindu or Center of existence. One source says that the word Hrim denotes the unity of the male and female principles or all opposition. Others suggest that the H stands for Siva, the R for Prakriti or nature, the I for Maya or creative play, the M for the dispeller of sorrow. Hrim is also the seed mantra of the goddesses Tripura-Sundari, and Tripura- Bhuvanesvari, two of the Mahavidyas presented elsewhere in these pages.

Nava Yoni Chakra, or Nine Cosmic Wombs, signifies the creation of the universe by the union of male and female principles represented by three interpenetrating upward and downward-pointing triangles. The resulting nine triangles create the nine Cosmic Wombs. The five triangles pointing downward are said to symbolize evolution, multiplication, and disintegration. The four upward symbolize awakened kundalini and movement toward primordial unity. The yantra may be read from the bindu in the center outward following the path of expanding creation or from the gates inward, the path home to the One. It brings forth the presence of the diety,Tripura-sundari (see the Mahavidyas).

The practice of meditation, realizing and using the energy centers of the body, has evolved from remotest antiquity. There are symbols in the vast natural caves of Paleolithic Europe (c. 20,000 BC) which can be accurately matched with symbols still used today by those involved with Tantric meditation and practice. This yantra was created after studying a number of paintings of the chakras from various centuries. They were made to aid the practitioner by expressly stimulating a special kind of mental activity, and to evoke psychosomatic energetic forces. To look at this image meditatively is to bring forth an esoteric sense of who one truly is, and what is possible. “Tantra has always believed that our failure to grasp time lies at the room of all other human failures. To see the nature of time is to understand the process of Genesis, that ladder of descending stages from the Origin through the evolution of the cosmos. Once we grasp that, we can, so to speak, reverse the machine for ourselves, and climb back up the ladder of Genesis. To reach that summit of intuition Tantra holds to be the worthwhile goal.”

Tantra: The Indian Cult of Ecstasy, Philip Rawson

…..Contemplation of the Sri Yantra can involve gently yet steadfastly focusing on the bindu. This process can allow the bindu to act like the eye of the needle, allowing the viewer the awareness of the baggage to be dropped in order to pass through or into it. As one meditatively focuses and refocuses on the bindu in its primordial feminine triangle, one is aware peripherally of dynamically flickering cosmic play as the content of this yantra unfolds.

….The rush of these impressions in our lives is portrayed in the Sri Yantra by the continual shifting and reorganizing of the geometry to the beholding eye. Composed of nine intersecting triangles, four upward pointing (masculine) and five downward pointing (feminine), each resulting triangle of this configuration has its presiding deity or, one might say, its uniquely patterned energy node. ….. Continued

The Sri Yantra, most revered of all the yantras, manifests the fully created cosmos arising from the union of all opposing energy. This cosmos is our world of multiplicity supported by the essential unity of the primordial bindu at its center. At the very inception of creation, the union of vibrational opposites has spawned continual divine cosmic play (Leela) which we experience as the ever-changing flow of our impressions of and responses to the appearance of phenomena. ….. Continued

The Mangala Yantra, a vessel which accumulates and radiates positive energy, is employed for good fortune and success. Here the central triangle is a powerful blue, focusing the yantra on creative and expressive energy.

This watercolor was developed from a 19th century Rajasthani manuscript. I was atrracted to its dynamic energy as well as to the challenge of discovering and reproducing its geometry.