Krishanand Saraswati of Uttar Kashi

According to the Shankaracharya of Dwarka, Swami Svarupanand Saraswati, the Mahesh Yogi used to put up a picture of Guru Dev and give talks, all over India, in his name. Swami Svarup says that Acharya Shree, that is, Swami Brahmanand Saraswati, used to initiate aspirants with the bija mantra of their Ista Devata.

The Guru Dev we are speaking of is H. H. Swami Brahmanand Saraswati, the late Shankaracharya of Jyotirmath, U.P. Himalayas. Swamiji was a member of the Dasanami Sampradaya of the Shankara Guruparampara. Our Guru Dev, by all indications, was a Shankara Adwaita Vedantin.

Based on this information it should be obvious then, even to the casual reader, that our Guru Dev practiced a mantra meditation that is transcendental, and used a non-semantic mnemonic device as a meditation aid, a thought tool sound vibration, just like present-day TMers use in their meditation. It's just obvious.

However, according to some respondents on this newsgroup, our Guru Dev has nothing to do with any TM mantras, including those of Sri Vidya, and no connection to the Maharishi himself. Can you believe that? One respondent even made the claim, apparently based on an exhaustive Google search, that there was not one single temple in all of India where a meditation that is transcendental is practiced, and that there were no TM mantras in the whole of Bharatvarsh. How he would know this by surfing the Internet I don't know.

The fact is that our TMer tradition traces itself to the Shankaracharya, author of the Sutrabhyasa, the one who founded four mathas, the Shankara who was born in Kerala and who lived and taught in the 8th century. So lets go figure.

Shankaracharya, the Adi

Oh! I get it - you're thinking that the historical Buddha lived in 500 B.C. too, and that Shankara lived before that, and that all the rest of human history, on the entire planet, will have to be adjusted BACK over 500 years to fit your agenda, including the birth of Christ and the discovery of the telescope?

According to one particular a.m.t. respondent, Sankara lived over 500 years before the historical Buddha, before Dharmakirti, and Shankara didn't even teach Adwaita in the first place, he taught Bhakti and wrote the Bhaja Govindam! So, someone is obviously confused, as to the facts.

Either that, or the Shankara we're taking about was a much later impostor who put on the ochre robe, took pen in hand and composed a topsy-turvey interpretation of the Brahma Sutra of Badatrayana in order to confuse the people. Is so, Shankara would be classed as a rank crypto-Buddhist who quoted Dharmakirti by retrographitas, and for some strange reason threw out the Srimad Bhagwatam as so much hearsay, adoptding instead the 'appearance-only doctrine' from Shakya the Muni; and that Shankara taught the theory of 'maya' as a deception in order to bring the dualists of India back into the Hindu fold.

The Facts about the TMer tradition

All the TM mantras are found in the Vedic literature. The Ayerveda was revealed to the Rishis by Lord Dhanvantari. Then the Sage Vyasa attached the Mân.d.ûkya Upanis.ad. to the Atharva Veda and the Brahma Sutras to the Vedanta. Our root guru, Sri Gaudapada made comments on the Omkara in Mandukhyakarika. And, we have the Soundaryalahari, which was composed by Acharya Shree.

In addition, we have the Sankhya Sutras complied by Sage Kapila and Maharishi Patanjali nicely compiled Yoga Sutras explaining the Pranava, and thus Shankara, Vyasa, and Vascapati Mishra wrote commentaries for our understanding.

In fact, the great sentence from the Atharva Veda contains the phrase "ayam âtmâ brahma" - this self is brahman, the TM slogan. All the TM bija mantras are listed in the Tantras, Ratnavali, Tantrasara, etc. All these are considered to be Vedic literature.

The bija mantras used in TM are non-semantic sound vibrations - they are not intended to be associated with any particular idea or ideology. They're just thought-tools to be used as aids to meditation. Shakya the Muni and Patanjali both agreed on this.

TM is Tantra and Trika at it's finest

But it depends on what you mean by the term 'tantric' - if by that term you mean someone who practices ritualized magical group coitus, or left-handed basket weaving, he was not. Guru Dev may or may not have possessed a Sri Chakra, as reported by Swami Rama of the Himalayas. But from all reports, our Guru Deva was a Siddha Yogi from Ayodhya, whose original name was Rajaram Mishra. According to my sources, Guru Dev was a nominal member of his family sect, the Ramanandis of Ayodyha.

TM and the Eighty-four Mahasiddas

The TM mantras probably originated with the so-called Eighty-four Maha-Siddas, the Nath alchemists of medieval India. The Sri Vidya cult came much later, following the Gupta age and the age of the sects - Shaivaism, Vaisnavism, Shaktism in the 12th century and Bhakti after Chaitanya, in the 15th century. In my opinion, Guru Dev was following the Nath Siddha path, as well as the path of the Sri Vidya. Guru Dev was a Shakta Tantrist who practiced hatha yoga and was a expert in the Adwaita scriptures. However, I could be wrong.

It is a fact that all the Shankaracharyas agree that the Saraswati Dasanamis worship the Sri Vidya. It is also a fact that the Sri Chakra is ensconced on the mandir at Dwarka, Kanchi, and the Sringeri Mathas. It is also a fact that all the Adwaita Sannyasins claim that Adi Shankara established four mathas as seats of learning and for the worship of Sri Vidya.

Not just another Tantric sect

According to the Shankaracharya of Sringeri, the Adi Shankara placed the Sri Chakra, symbol of Tripurasundari, with the TM mantras inscribed thereon, at each of the seats of learning - Dwarka, Puri, Sringeri, and at Jyotirmath. The mantras of TM are DIRECTLY related to Sri Vidya. It is also a fact that the cult of Sri Vidya was derived from the nath siddhas, tantric alchemists of medieval India, 99% of whom were Vajrayana Buddhists in the line of Nagarjuna!

Works cited:

"Tantra in Practice"
ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr.
Princeton University Press, 2000

"The Alchemical Body"
by David Gordon White
University of Chicago Press, 1996

"Auspicious Wisdom"
by Douglas Renfrew Brooks
State University of New York Press 1992

Other References:

Tibetan and Sanskrit translations of Indian sources on the lives of the Mahasiddhas; such as Abhyabhatta's work and those of Buddhaguptanatha. Second, Tibetan traditions about the lives of the Mahasiddhas.

Indic manuscripts with isolated stanzas of vernacular Mahasiddha songs in them. Some of these songs are called "diamond songs" and some are isolated dohas as in the case of the dohas of Saraha in the Hevajratrantra. A doha is a rhyming couplet akin to a haiku and contained bija mantras.

A single Indic manuscript of caryapada songs in old Brahmi and a Sanskrit and a Tibetan commentary on this text. The name of this language varies according to scholars and is also spoken of sometimes as Old Hindi, or Old Bengali. The term caryapada means songs of action, such as the "Queen dohas" attributed to Saraha which is extant only in Tibetan.