Dakini

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Dakini

A dakini (Sanskrit: "sky dancer") is a Tantric priestess of ancient India

who "carried the souls of the dead to the sky". This Buddhist figure is

particularly upheld in Tibetan Buddhism. The dakini is a female being of

generally volatile temperament, who acts as a muse for spiritual practice.

Dakinis can be likened to elves, angels, or other such supernatural beings,

and are symbolically representative of testing one's awareness and adherence

to Buddhist tantric sadhana.

According to legend, members of the Indian royal castes and the wealthy

nobility brought their deceased to the far North to visit the Shrine of the

Dakini (located at the foothills of the Himalaya). Other legends mention a

Tibetan myth which says dakini first appeared in a remote area "pure of man"

Dakini are timeless, inorganic, immortal, non-human beings who have

co-existed since the very beginning with the Spiritual Energy. In some New

Age belief systems, they are angelic. This New Age paradigm differs from

that of the Judeo-Christian by not insisting on angels being bona fide

servants of God.

Moreover, an angel is the Western equivalent of a dakini. The behavior of

dakini has always been revelatory and mysterious; they respond to the state

of spiritual energy within individuals. Love is their usual domain - one

explanation for dakini or angels supposedly living in the sky or heaven.

Manifestations of dakini in human form occur because they supposedly can

assume any form. Most often they appear as a human female. By convention, a

male of this type is called a 'daka'.

In Tibetan Buddhism and other schools closely related to Yogacara and

Vajrayana practises, a dakini is considered a supernatural being who tests a

practitioner's abilities and commitments. Many stories of the Mahasiddhas in

Tibet contain passages where a dakini will come to perturb the would-be

Mahasiddha.

When the dakini's test has been fulfilled and passed, the practitioner is

often then recognised as a Mahasiddha, and often is elevated into the

Paradise of the Dakinis, a place of enlightened bliss. It should be noted

that while dakinis are often depicted as beautiful and naked, they are not

sexual symbols, but rather natural ones. There are instances where a dakini

has come to test a practitioner's control over their sexual desires, but the

dakini itself is not a being of passion. Tantric sex may involve a "helper"

dakini - a human female trained in Tantra Yoga - or an "actual" dakini. Both

increase the level of erotic pleasure for the sexual participants by helping

them focus on a non-physical state of spiritual joy and the physical

pleasure of sex at the same time.

Iconographic representations tend to show the dakini as a young, naked

figure in a dancing posture, often holding a skull cup filled with menstrual

blood or the elixir of life in one hand, and a curved knife in the other.

She may wear a garland of human skulls, with a trident staff leaning against

her shoulder. Her hair is usually wild and hanging down her back, and her

face often wrathful in expression, as she dances on top of a corpse, which

represents her complete mastery over ego and ignorance. Practitioners often

claim to hear the clacking of her bone adornments as the dakinis indulge in

their vigorous movement. Indeed these unrestrained damsels appear to revel

in freedom of every kind.

There is a connection between Dakini goddess energies and all of creational

feminine dieties.

Some people believe the Dakini language is linked to that of Atlantis - the

trilling of the high priestesses in the language of Vril.

Dakini is the Goddess of Life's Turning Points. Distillations of archetypal

emanations, the Dakinis represent those essence principles within the self

which are capable of transformation to a higher octave. Dakinis are 'sky

dancers,' heavenly angels devoted to the truth (dharma), woman consorts of

and partners with the god-creators of India and Tibet. Dakini serves as

instigator, inspirer, messenger, even trickster, pushing the tantrika

(aspirant) across the barriers to enlightenment.

Dakini's wrathful aspect is depicted by the mala of skulls. Her peaceful

aspect is depicted by the lotus frond. Like Hindu goddess Kali, her role is

to transmute suffering. Her left hand holds high the lamp of liberation.

Dakini represent the sky being a womb symbol connoting emptiness, creativity

potentiality. They are objects of desire and also carriers of the cosmic

energies that continually fertilize our human sphere. Dakinis bring us

pleasure and spirituality. They provoke the enervating lust that brings life

into being. They are poetic and cosmic souls, put here to tempt us to

spirituality.

It is said that the Dakinis have the power to instantly entrap mere mortals

with their gaze. The mirror of your mind is the mysterious home of the

Dakini - your right brain - your feminine side. The secret Dakinis guard the

deeper mysteries of the self. Representing upsurging inspiration and

non-conceptual understanding, Dakinis invite you to cut free of all

limitations. They are unconventional, unexpected, spontaneous, dancing in

great bliss, at one with divine truth. In the eastern tradition, a cycle of

64 Dakinis/Yoginis represents a complete cosmogram for the transformation of

the self, embodying the total energy cycle of creation as depicted by the

dance of Gnosis, the wisdom and energy of the divine feminine. In

representing this complete cycle we have the opportunity of evoking not only

the Goddess, but of manifesting the totality of the Great Goddess herself.

Yogini/Dakini temples flourished in India around the 9th through the 12th

centuries. Erected in remote places, especially on hilltops, the temples

were circular enclosures open to the sky. Around the inner circumference

were 64 niches which housed exquisite stone carvings representing various

aspects of the Goddess energy, creating a circular mandala around a central

image of Shiva, symbol of Cosmic Consciousness and the one-pointedness of

yogic discipline.

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