THE UNBORN DESTROYER

The goddess Tara may be understood as the benevolent aspect of the unborn Destroyer, who is but the flipside of the unborn Creator. These two perspectives of the same set of seven cosmic shells represent the descending and ascending forms of cosmic wisdom, respectively.

When awareness descends into creation, it enlivens progressively the seven shells in descending order so that the qualities of the previous higher shell are added to the qualities of the subsequent lower shell. In this way, there is a progressive building of the qualities that give rise to the appearance of creation. In this case, the seven shells may be viewed as the seven aspects of the unborn Creator.

To go beyond the universe, the awareness must ascend through the seven shells. In this case, the reverse holds true. As awareness ascends through the seven shells the qualities that uphold the appearance of the created universe are stripped. As a result, the created reality of the universe appears to undergo progressive dissolution or destruction, rather than progressive creation. The seven shells may then be viewed as the seven aspects of the unborn Destroyer. In order to attain true immortality, the ascending soul must come face to face with the unborn Destroyer. This particular form of God is terrifying even to those enlightened souls that cannot otherwise be threatened by anything in the created universe.

One of the most colorful descriptions of this terrible form of God is presented in the eleventh chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, which is but a small part of a much larger Vedic text called the Mahabharata. In the Bhagavad Gita, the hero Arjuna (representing the enlightened soul) is given a vision of the unborn Destroyer. Here, the monstrous, cosmic form of God, which pervades the space between heaven and earth, is described as devouring mercilessly all the worlds.

With infinite power, without beginning, middle, or end, with innumerable arms, moon and sun-eyed, I see thee, with thy blazing oblation-eating mouth, burning all this universe with thine own radiance. This space between heaven and earth is pervaded by thee alone in all directions. Seeing this, thy marvelous and terrible form, the created worlds tremble, O Great Being.... Having seen thy cosmic form, which has many mouths and eyes, which has many arms, thighs, and feet, which has many bellies, and the mouths of which gape with many tusks,... the worlds tremble, and so do I.... Having seen Thy mouths, bearing many tusks, glowing like the fires of universal destruction, I lose my sense of direction, and I do not find comfort. Have mercy, O Lord of gods, Dwelling of the universe!... As moths enter the blazing flame to their destruction with great speed, so also, to their destruction, the worlds swiftly enter thy mouths.

In one sense, this passage should not be taken literally. The Sanskrit terms translated as “arms,” “thighs,” “bellies,” “mouths,” “tusks,” “eyes,” and so forth have multiple complementary and technical meanings related to the types of reality experienced on the scale of the seven cosmic shells.

Yet in another sense, the description of the dissolution of the universe experienced by the soul is quite literal. As the soul ascends through the seven cosmic shells, it experiences the universe and everything in it as being dissolved or destroyed as if by a great conflagration or flood. All the worlds of light and life that have served as its home for billions of years, as well as all the beings that dwell in those worlds, are witnessed as being consumed by the fiery mouths of God and reduced to oblivion. This shakes the soul to its very core, and makes it tremble in fear.

In the Upanishads, it is said that all of the celestial gods—that is, the planets, stars, and galaxies—stay their course out of fear of God.

Yet the Upanishads also state that all forms of fear are born of the conception of another, which appears to be different from the self. Because the other unborn form of God is viewed as alien to the created appearance of the universe, all of the celestial gods and even the enlightened souls tremble in fear of his presence—for he has the potential to destroy all created souls and reduce them to a state of spiritual oblivion, whether or not they are enlightened. Nevertheless, to achieve true immortality, the enlightened soul must be willing to face its deepest fear and offer itself into the fiery mouth of the unborn Destroyer, at which point the created aspect of the soul is drowned, burned to ashes, ripped to shreds, and reduced absolutely to oblivion. This amounts to a cosmic form of spiritual death or ritual suicide, which results in the death of death itself.