tion.

"The Divine Mother went out of her way to protect me," the tantric thought when they were gone. "What good is this place in which She has to go through such trouble?" Early the next morning he resigned from the service of the king, as did several of the other tantric pandits; those who remained became apathetic. Before long a series of calamities began - fatal accidents befell the royal family, and diseases and disputes arose among them. Sections of the newly built palace collapsed one at a time, and the section of the palace that remained standing was infested with rats and snakes and overrun by pigeons. Within a few years the family's wealth mysteriously disappeared. I was not yet born when the incident in the temple took place, but I vividly remember the run-down condition of the palace and the misery of the remaining members of the royal family. I found the story of how this came about so intriguing that on several occasions I asked my father, "How do these tantric masters become so powerful? What is tantra?" He usually ignored my questions, and when he did reply his answer was always brief: "Tantra means worshipping the Divine Mother. Tantrics are her blessed children. Whatever they have is by grace of the Divine Mother." This answer was so unsatisfying that it spurred me on to explore the mystery of tantra, and I grew up the fascinated witness of numerous simple tantric practices common in