The Panchamakara Ritual (5 M's)

[Guest guest]

Dear Shakti Sadhana Friends,

 

There has been some debate back and forth over the nature of the famous

tantric panchamakara ritual (5 M's). To help guide us in sorting through

all this, we can look to those ancient expressions of the Masters: "Know-

ledge is structured in consciousness", and "Knowledge is different in dif-

ferent states of consciousness". That helps explain why this simple, deep

tantric ritual always stirs up apparently conflicting or divers opinions -

because it is being explained by people from many different levels of per-

sonal experience and understanding - some closer to the surface, and some

deeper toward the Truth.

 

A. VARIOUS POSTERS HAVE SUGGESTED:

 

This ritual is aimed at breaking [the hold of] societal taboos.

 

The 5 elements are meant to balance/nourish/heal various ayurvedic

body types (vata, pitta, kapha).

 

It is a powerful ritual to produce a specific effect in the relative

environment (including the bodies of the practitioners).

 

It is performed as an offering to the devas (gods).

 

The 5 M's are purely symbolic or metaphors - meant as a secret tantric

code for some deeper knowledge. [Much of the tantric knowledge was

purposely hidden in "code" to keep it out of the hands of the idly

curious, those who were not properly prepared, or those who would mis-

use it.]

 

Each of these is true from a certain level of experience.

(Please excuse me if I've left a few out, or misstated anyone.)

 

 

B. RELATIONSHIP OF PANCHAMAKARA AND AYURVEDIC DHATUS

 

In the ancient Ayurvedic knowledge (the knowledge of ayu or life), the

body is said to be composed of 7 layers (dhatus) - from #1 (grossest,

congealed material) to #7 (subtlest, most refined material). I've

listed these 7 layers further below, followed by a comparison with the

5 components of the panchamakara ritual. See for yourself if you don't

notice the strong similarity.

 

 

From ayurveda, here are the 7 dhatus (7 vital elements; dhatu = con-

structing element)

 

They are listed from grossest (#1 - most manifest, solidified) to

subtlest (#7 - most ephemeral and powerful):

 

1. Rasa (chyle, lymph, plasma, literally 'sap' or 'juice')

2. Rakta (red blood cells)

3. Mamsa (muscle)

4. Meda (fat)

5. Asthi (bone)

6. Majja (anything inside a bone - bone marrow, brain, spinal cord)

7. Shukra (sexual fluids - reproductive essence)

 

Shukra is vital. It is the foundation for all the six layers

above it. It acts as a matrix through which new creations

manifest; it is the clay which creative intelligence shapes into

the forms. When individual ego (ahamkara) couples with shukra

calmly and collectedly, the newly created substance remains within

the body and solidifies the link between the physical, mental/emo-

tional, and spiritual components. This substance is called 'ojas'.

It creates wholeness.

 

 

From tantra, here are the five (pancha) M's (makaras) that form the

elements of this ritual:

[The one-word, contemporary interpretation of each is listed to the

far right.]

 

1. MADYA Wine Wine

2. MAMSA Literally "flesh" or "muscle". Meat

3. MATSYA Fish Fish

4. MUDRA Cereal wafer (a grain recipe with Grain

a hidden inner filling)

5. MAITHUNA Sexual union in a ritual context Sex

 

 

Now, let's put these 5 together with the 7 ayurvedic dhatus:

 

1) MADYA Wine

1. Rasa (chyle, lymph, plasma, literally 'sap' or 'juice')

2. Rakta (red blood cells)

 

2) MAMSA Literally "flesh" or "muscle".

3. Mamsa (muscle)

 

3) MATSYA Fish

4. Meda (fat)

 

4) MUDRA Cereal wafer (a grain recipe with a hidden inner filling)

5. Asthi (bone)

6. Majja (anything inside a bone - bone marrow, brain, spinal cord)

 

5) MAITHUNA Sexual union in a ritual context.

7. Shukra (sexual fluids - reproductive essence)

 

A pretty close fit, and a more profound understanding of the depth that

panchamakara was designed to elicit in the student prepared in both ex-

perience and understanding to benefit from this pointer - nothing less

than the transcendence of the physical, or its expansion to its subtlest,

most powerful, most divine possibility, Goddess Shakti herself.

 

 

C. LET'S LOOK A LITTLE DEEPER INTO THIS:

 

This strong similarity or parallelism reveals that the panchamakara ri-

tual is designed to take us from the grossest to the subtlest level of

the body - to refine and expand the body (the relative field of life) to

its ultimate reality.

 

And since the individual human body is just a microcosm of (or reflector

of) the unbounded cosmic body (the body of Goddess Shakti), the goal of

the panchamakara ritual must be to lead us to that cosmic, Shakti body

which is the source of, the very culmination or essence of, all this rel-

ative existence.

 

So this ritual is nothing short of a direct doorway to her. Isn't that

the goal of tantra - to expand, or refine ourselves, out to our vastness,

out to our unbounded divine nature as God/Goddess? To delve deep into

the relative, the field of Shakti, and to see how much of her power, her

love, her intelligence, her life force we can "conduct" through us, how

much of her ecstasy we can embody, how much of her we can live? To ex-

pand from our bound, limited, relative, congealed, tiny reflections of

Shakti to our real nature as her divine reflectors, her embodiments,

her very Self?

 

Any ritual that leads us from the surface of her realm to the depth

(even symbolically in our own body), from the gross to the subtle,

from the bound to the unbounded, from her congealed solidified sur-

face to her expanded abstract deep mystery - that ritual is true tan-

tra. If it shows us how big we are, how expanded, how unbounded, how

divine - that ritual is true tantra. Whether that ritual breaks soci-

etal taboos, or balances/heals various ayurvedic body types, or pro-

duces specific effects in the environment, or nourishes the gods...

all these are more or less worthwhile and beautiful things, but all

these are secondary to the real purpose of tantra: to bring the seek-

er from Self-realization to God-realization, to expand the seeker out

to realize his or her reality as the living embodiment of the ultimate

value of Shakti. To let go of his/her relative limitations and expand

out to become one with her.

 

Unfortunately, the deep, ancient meaning [of both this ritual and of

tantra in general] has become obscured over the long passage of time

(thousands of years), as kali yuga descended on Earth, and as the es-

sence of all true teachings gave way to more superficial interpreta-

tions based on lack of deep, clear experience of consciousness.

 

 

D. FURTHER ENTERTAINMENT

 

(Merely as an aside, and not to dilute the main points above.)

For further entertainment, let's put these together with The Last

Supper & Christian Communion:

 

1) MADYA Wine

1. Wine - "my blood"

Present at The Last Supper - preserved in Holy Communion

 

2) MAMSA Literally "flesh" or "muscle".

Present at The Last Supper

 

3) MATSYA Fish

Present at The Last Supper

 

4) MUDRA Cereal wafer (a grain recipe with a hidden inner filling)

2. Wafer - "my body"

Present at The Last Supper - preserved in Holy Communion

Possibly incorporates Mamsa, Matsya, and Mudra?

 

5) MAITHUNA Sexual union in a ritual context.

3. Holy Communion - "union of the physical with the spiritual"

Present at The Last Supper - preserved in Holy Communion

 

So was Holy Communion originally a symbolic panchamakara ritual?

Did they know something back then that's been "erased" from today's

version of that tradition?

 

 

E. CONCLUSION

 

Has the modern tantric interpretation of this ritual also lost some

of its profound depth, and over the course of thousands of years of

Kali Yuga (a time of deep ignorance) been interpreted in more and

more superficial, physical, cultural ways?

 

Is it really merely a ceremony of confronting traditional spiritual

taboos and challenging the attachments of the individual ego? Or

is it a step-by-step instruction for transcending the gross physical

and actually becoming God/Goddess in ecstatic eternal cosmic commu-

nion?

 

That's an investigation worth pursuing.

That's an experience worth having.

 

Namaste,

 

Michael

 

PARA - The Center for Realization

The Relationship Institute

Michael Dean Goodman Ph.D., D.D., Director

Boca Raton FL * 641-919-3700 * tantra

Fairfield IA, Chicago IL, Washington DC, Baltimore MD, San Francisco CA

 

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[Guest guest]

Welcome and Namaste to you Michael!!

 

I have always enjoyed your posts in the TM group (though not

necessarily agreeing with them :-)).

 

Your comparison of the 5M and The Last Supper-Communion was really

interesting; but I have to say that one can always find a

relationship between various seemingly unrelated things such as

Patanjali's astanga yoga, the life of Lord Krishna...AND 5M; does not

mean they are related but is food for thought for the serious thinker.

 

I do not think that the meaning of the 5M has been lost; this is

meant for a very advanced practitioner as is exemplified by the life

of Sri Bhaskarayya, who is revered by all shaktas. Bhaskarrayya

publicly adhered to vaidika dharma and practiced Vama in secrecy, as

it has great promise in corrupting the average person instead of

being a doorway to Shakti

 

And thank you very much for that voluminous and luminous post on the

significance of 5M.

 

-yogaman

 

, Michael Dean Goodman

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