हठयोग प्रदीपिका (योगी स्वात्माराम - ज्योत्स्ना टीका सहित सटीक)

46 HAṬHAYOGAPRADĪPIKĀ The term vāruṇī means wine. In the above two stanzas is given an excellent instance of the way in which the Hindu occult writers veil their real meaning under apparently absurd symbols. The principle seems to be this. They thought that the very absur- dity of the symbol and its irrelevance to the subject in hand would force the reader to surmise that there was something behind it and so he should look deeper for an explanation of this absurdity. A misconception of this rule seems to have given rise to many absurd interpretations of really occult symbols, and many pernicious practices that propitiate animal tendencies and passions. Ex- amples of this may be multiplied, such as the relations between Kṛṣṇa and Rādhā and the sixteen thousand gopī-s or cowherdesses; the five Pāṇḍu brothers marrying one woman, Draupadī; the stories of ṛṣi-s marrying wives and begetting children of mature understanding within an inconceivably short time; and the whole mystic terminology of the Tantra-s that has given rise to so many disgusting practices. 50. If the tongue constantly touches the cavity in the palate, making flow the nectar [of the Moon] that tastes salty, pungent and sour, comparable also to milk, honey, and ghee [in taste], all diseases are destroyed, old age is overcome, weapons are warded off, immortality and the eight siddhi-s are obtained and the damsels of the demi-gods (siddha-s) are attracted. 51. He who, with upturned face and tongue closing the cavity of the palate, contemplates the supreme Power (Kuṇḍalinī), and drinks the clear stream of nectar flowing in waves from the Moon from the head into the sixteen-petalled lotus [in the throat] through the control over Prāṇa, during the Haṭhayoga practice, that Yogin, freed from diseases, lives long with a body soft and beautiful as the lotus stem [at its root].