Question on Vajrayana and Hindu Tantra - How to manage practices
Question to all the EX-VAJRAYANISTS out there...
So I found some posts here of people who came from Vajrayana(Tibetan Buddhism), I'm also coming from there.
I would like to know if you still practice some of your old sadhanas you had initiation or it's forbidden after taking diksha in Vimarsha.
For example, someone I know was hospitalized yesterday so I did a Medicine Buddha sadhana for that person(and also for every sentient being), it's also a good feeling to cultivate bodhicitta.
I would like to know how you manage these, are they forbidden?
Sometimes do you still practice your Vajrayana sadhanas?
Yes, I know that after diksha in Vimarsha, our main practice will be the ones given from our guru here, the daily practice will be a hindu tantric practice, I'm not questioning that, I just want to know if we can still use our Vajrayana sadhanas for specific situations like to help someone who is sick or even to do a general practice sometimes to cultivate bodhicitta.


First off, welcome to Vimarsha and the Śaiva-Śākta path of Sarvāmnāya! Sarvāmnāya literally means all the transmissions and so this also includes Vajrayāna. Indeed the Adharāmnāya transmission is of the Vajrayāna deities like Vajrayoginī, Vajravārāhī, and Mahogratārā. Ācārya Abhinavagupta explains that it's good to have curiosity about other traditions and to study them and that when one finally reaches our Trika Śaivism, it's not that the prior ones are abandoned. Rather, we incorporate all their appropriate elements into our final view, so it's about integration, synthesis, and transcendence, rather than a blanket rejection. That's why you'll see such a vast integration of methods and philosophies from across traditions present in the writings. It's like how when you finally find your soulmate, and you look back at your prior relationships that didn't work out, you see how each was a stepping stone that taught you something about yourself, that led you there. Or it's like discovering an incredible flower blossoming whose perfume is so all-encompassing that you can sense its perfume even on other flowers, which may only have traces of its full richness, but have traces indeed.
And there is indeed also the concept of svātantrya: freedom. So here there isn't the talk that you may sometimes here in some Vajrayāna circles about samayabreakers and vajra hell and so on. If you have the freedom, if your curiosity is allowed and encouraged, if your impulse is now to synthesize and transcend rather than to simply reject, then how to exercise that freedom? One is that time is short, and so we cannot practice everything, and so it makes sense to focus on the practices tied to this tradition that will bestow liberation.
On the other hand, if there are some other practices that can help situationally that you already have developed skills in, and don't conflict with what's happening here, then why abandon them completely? You may find in time that there are analogous practices (and indeed there are healing practices specifically in Śaivism). And, of course, sometimes practices that seem to be compatible are actually not exactly so. The notion of bodhicitta for instance is one that, in my understanding, doesn't quite link up compatibility-wise. If we look at its origins, it really came from a belief that there was an "other side" of the shore that after one gets to after enlightenment, there is no coming back. Even as that original idea softened, and saṃsāra and nirvāṇa became seen as two sides of the same coin, rather than distinct realms, the emphasis on bodhicitta was because the capacity of having desires and intentions as a Buddha was impossible. Whereas Śaiva enlightenment is one where icchā, jñāna, and kriyā śaktis (powers of volition, knowledge, and action) are not abandoned but enhanced and divine, most schools of Buddhism would not accept this as these cognitive functions are seen as strictly saṃsāric. What propels the actions of a Buddha forward after the cognitive functions drop out is the vows they took on the path before enlightenment: these vows are what spins the potter's wheel, such that even when the foot is taken off of the pedal that spins it, the wheel keeps spinning. Vows simply don't hold the same soteriological purpose in Śaivism, because it's not that we lose our cognitive capacities to set intentions and decide upon liberation. So too the notion or assumption that one has to hold back one's own complete enlightenment in order to help others therefore doesn't make sense in Śaivism either. Thus, to enter into Śaivism is, in some way, to reject the nexus of assumptions within which the notion of taking bodhisattva vows is meaningful or necessary.
That isn't to say that helping the world isn't part of Śaivism. It is. We just don't accept that one has to make all these extensive vows to do it, as it is a natural consequence of Śivahood (in Śaivism, we are all Śiva, so it becomes as natural to help others as it would be to help oneself; this isn't the case if emptiness is accepted as the ultimate truth, in which case we are not meaningfully all one universal consciousness, so these techniques for compassion must be developed to supplement the wisdom of emptiness).
As Abhinavagupta puts it, so very beautifully in what is how we understand the impulse to help the world, which translate in the Buddhist nexus of assumptions into the bodhisattva vow:
"(The people of) this world exert themselves, intent as they are in some way on their own affairs. They do not act at all for the benefit of others. While he in whom all the impurity of phenomenal existence has been destroyed and identified with Bhairava, by virtue of which he is full (and perfect), has clearly only this (left) to do, namely, (attend to) the well-being of the people of the world." (TĀ 2:39)
There's much in this comment, some of which answers your questions, some of which is maybe a bit extraneous, but I hope somehow, all taken together, this is helpful for you. Welcome here and moreover let US here in Vimarsha know how we can best support you and all other members' journeys from Vajrayāna into Śaivism. We have much to learn from you too!