Why altars?

The word “altar” comes from the Latin altārium, meaning “high,” or a place for sacrifice to what is great. It is also related to adolere, which means to worship and to burn up or sacrifice.

This year, 2021, I turned sixty-five. Seeing me grow older, a student suggested that I write about my life. I’m not very interested in what has already happened, so I wrote the following few words. ~Shambhavi Sarasvati

Because I am this,
I train to see the lights
unfurling like brilliant smoke
reaching from all to all.

I’m writing this just 24-hours before a total solar eclipse. Many people have been asking me, “What should I do during the eclipse?”

In 2016, Shambhavi gave a teaching cycle called 9 Poisons 9 Medicines 9 Fruits.

If you’re a Tantra Geek like me, you have read, or have attempted to read, the ancient texts of the Tantrik traditions. As beautiful, profound and fascinating as these texts called “tantras” can be, they present a number of interpretive problems for sincere, contemporary students.

Siddhasana is a profoundly relaxing and steadying, but also energetically dynamic seated posture. It means “the accomplished pose” or “seat of the Siddha.”

A reader asked about the role of bhakti and karma yoga in Trika Shaivism. According to Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh, “Karma Yoga is performance of actions dwelling in union with the Divine, removing attachment, and remaining balanced ever in success and failure. Karma Yoga is selfless service unto humanity.” Karma Yoga is often called the “yoga of action.”

Many Indian-affiliated practitioners, especially those in Advaita Vedanta traditions, have great affection for closed-eye expressions of ecstatic bliss. Some teachers are revered for their ability to enter such states, rightly or wrongly deemed “samadhi.”

You may never meditate, prostrate, or circumambulate. You may not know asana from ascii, or kriyas from Krispy Cremes. But if you have spent any time at all hanging around Hindu or Tantrik types, you have likely performed achamanam.

Tantra has enjoyed many different forms of expression in many times and places. Various streams of Tantra have been seeding Asian countries for centuries, and Tantra is now becoming a global phenomenon.