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].