Dream Initiation | & Are We A Legitimate Tāntrik Lineage?

We gave this talk on a special occasion: the amāvasyā (the new moon) that opens the gupta navarātrī period (the 9 nights of the summer goddess festival) and so to celebrate, we reflect upon dīkshā, spiritual initiation & the systems of accountability to ensure the credibility of Tāntrik lineages so that we can better contextualize our place as a community in the midst of all of that. 

Mainly, I want to revisit the validity of intrapersonal mystical experiences like dreams and intuitions as reliable metric for religious authenticity even beyond texts and institutions and to substantiate this claim, we consider 4 important cases: 

1. Vasugupta & the Śiva Sutra

2. Maheśvarānanda & the Mahartha Mañjarī, 

3. Rāni Rasmani & the Dakshineshwar Temple, 

4. Swami Ashokananda's "śaktopaya dīkshā" (to borrow Swami Turiyananda's phrase here) from Swami Vivekananda in meditation & dream experience 

Here is a playlist of talks on our guru-paramparā & thoughts on lineage. And here are some videos on our mission, ideals, manifesto etc.