Guru stuff...again

 

For once, ChatGPT and Gemini agree. Hinduism 101. Or religion 101, frankly.

What is the difference in Hinduism between sattvic, rajasic and tamasic worship?

In Hindu philosophy—particularly as detailed in the Bhagavad Gita (Chapter 17) and various Puranic and Tantric texts—all actions, including religious worship (Yajna, Puja, Sadhana), are governed by the Three Gunas (qualities or modes of nature): Sattva (purity/harmony), Rajas (passion/desire), and Tamas (darkness/ignorance).

The key differences lie in the motive, the attitude of the practitioner, and the methods employed during worship:

1. Sattvic Worship (Sāttvika Yajna / Puja)

Sattvic worship is performed purely for spiritual upliftment, devotion, and the welfare of all beings, without any desire for personal gain or material reward.

• Motivation: Selfless devotion (Nishkama Bhakti), duty, inner peace, and divine union (Moksha).

• Attitude: Calm, humble, meditative, and executed strictly according to scriptural injunctions without ostentation.

• Offerings: Pure, simple, and non-violent items such as fresh water, fruits, flowers, milk, incense, ghee lamps, and silent or focused mantra repetition (Japa).

• Mindset: The worshiper expects nothing in return, viewing the act of worship itself as its own reward and offering the fruits of the action to the Divine.

2. Rajasic Worship (Rājasika Yajna / Puja)

Rajasic worship is driven by personal ambition, ego, and the desire for material or social outcomes.

• Motivation: Wealth, fame, prestige, power, success, or political influence (Sakama Bhakti).

• Attitude: Ostentatious, prideful, and competitive. The focus is often on showing off the scale of the ritual to impress others.

• Offerings: Expensive decorations, lavish displays, grand feasts, loud music, and elaborate public rituals designed to project power or social standing.

• Mindset: Transactional. The practitioner views the deity as a partner in a business deal: "I offer this grand ritual so that you will grant me success, prosperity, or high status."

3. Tamasic Worship (Tāmasika Yajna / Puja)

Tamasic worship is performed in ignorance, often defying scriptural guidelines, and is driven by fear, malice, or delusion.

• Motivation: Harming enemies, gaining coercive power (Siddhi for selfish ends), escaping fear, or fulfilling obsessive, destructive desires.

• Attitude: Disregard for sacred protocols, lack of faith (Ashraddha), sloth, or malice. It can involve extreme self-torture without understanding or practices performed out of blind delusion.

• Offerings: Impure or improper substances, rituals conducted without proper chants/mantras, no sharing of food or charity (Dakshina), or rituals performed while intoxicated or in an unwashed state.

• Mindset: Deluded and harmful. The worshiper seeks to manipulate cosmic forces or deities through fear, force, or ignorance, often bringing spiritual degeneration rather than growth.

Comparison Summary

Aspect	Sattvic Worship	Rajasic Worship	Tamasic Worship
Primary Goal	Liberation, purity, devotion	Material gain, fame, status	Harming others, control, delusion
Core Emotion	Peace, humility, love	Ambition, pride, anxiety	Anger, fear, ignorance
Expectation	No reward expected	Specific material rewards	Selfish or destructive outcomes
Style	Quiet, inward, simple	Grand, lavish, public	Impure, chaotic, improper

What is the lowest form of tamasic worship?

In Tantric and Puranic literature, the absolute lowest form of tamasic worship is categorized under Abhicāra (malicious sorcery/black magic) driven by Kāma (obsessive lust/desire) or Dveṣa (hatred and malice).

While standard tamasic worship might simply stem from ignorance, sloth, or fear, its most degenerate expression actively seeks to manipulate lower astral entities to harm or enslave others.

Key Characteristics of the Lowest Tamasic Worship

1. The Six Malicious Acts (Ṣaṭ-Karma in their corrupt forms)

The lowest level of tamasic rites is performed strictly to execute dark magic against fellow human beings, known in Tantric texts as the negative applications of the Ṣaṭ-Karmas:

• Māraṇa: Rituals performed to cause the death or physical destruction of an enemy.

• Uccāṭana: Rituals performed to drive someone insane, induce unbearable anxiety, or force them out of their home/land.

• Vaśīkaraṇa: Rituals performed to obsessively mind-control or sexually enslave another person against their will.

• Vidveṣaṇa: Rituals performed to create violent hatred and division between friends, partners, or families.

2. Evocation of Lower Astral Entities (Kṣudra-Devatās)

Rather than invoking supreme deities (Ishta-Devata) for liberation or spiritual wisdom, the practitioner makes pacts with or summons low-level, earth-bound astral entities:

• Yakṣiṇīs, Piśācas, and Bhootas: Calling upon unevolved spirits, hungry ghosts, or demonic entities (Kṣudra-devatā) that require blood, raw meat, or vile offerings in exchange for temporary, worldly powers.

• Contractual Enslavement: This form of worship is entirely transactional and binding; the practitioner often ends up spiritually parasitized or mentally destroyed by the very entities they attempt to control.

3. Total Absence of Faith (Aśraddhā) and Purity

• Defying Cosmic Order (Adharma): The worship is done with complete disregard for scriptural integrity, moral boundaries, or the law of Karma.

• Impure State: Performed while intentionally degraded, highly intoxicated, or driven by blind, uncontrolled rage.

The Karmic Consequence

Texts like the Bhagavad Gita (17.19) describe this form of worship as performing austerities "foolishly through self-torture or for the purpose of destroying others."

Because it operates on pure malice and ego, it is considered the most spiritually degrading path in Hindu metaphysics. It traps the practitioner in severe karmic bondages (Karma-bandhana), ultimately leading to psychological breakdown, intense suffering, and spiritual degeneration.

Some guru stuff (part 2)

 

Some entry level (?) stuff you should have learned from your guru. 

What would be the lowest form of tamasic worship?

If by “lowest” you mean the most deeply tāmasic form of worship in the guṇa framework, rather than simply “the most frightening ritual,” I would put the emphasis on ignorance, cruelty, and deliberate misuse of religion.

The Bhagavad Gītā gives us a useful starting point. It describes tāmasic sacrifice as something performed without proper understanding, faith, or regard for the proper purpose of sacrifice. It also describes austerities performed from delusion or to harm oneself or others as tāmasic.

From that perspective, a rough hierarchy would be:

1. Tāmasic through ignorance
   Worship performed mechanically, superstitiously, or compulsively, with no real understanding of what one is doing.
2. Tāmasic through fear and obsession
   “I must perform this or something terrible will happen,” combined with fixation, paranoia, or irrational dependence on the ritual.
3. Tāmasic through selfish destructive intent
   Seeking to use a deity or ritual primarily for revenge, domination, hatred, or harm.
4. Extremely tāmasic
   Deliberately cultivating cruelty, hatred, degradation, or violence while regarding these things as spiritually desirable.

So I would actually put malicious intention lower than merely practicing a frightening or impure-looking ritual.

This is important for Tantra

A cremation-ground practice involving Bhairava, skull symbolism, darkness and fear might look extraordinarily tāmasic from the outside, but it isn't necessarily "low" worship at all.

Suppose the practitioner enters the cremation ground to confront:

• fear of death
• attachment to the body
• disgust
• aversion
• ego
• unconsciousness

and ultimately seeks liberation.

The materials and environment may be associated with tamas, but the purpose can be profoundly spiritual.

By contrast, a perfectly respectable-looking temple ritual performed with:

“May this deity destroy my enemy because I hate him”

could be considerably more tāmasic in its inner motivation.

The real bottom is probably instrumentalizing the Divine for evil

At the extreme end, the problem isn't simply that someone wants something for themselves. Even ordinary worldly requests can be rājasic.

The deeper descent is something like:

ignorance → selfishness → hatred → deliberate harm → identification of that harm with the sacred.

That is quite different from simply saying:

“I am frightened and I need protection.”

The latter may be rājasic or even sāttvic depending on the person's relationship with the deity.

---

There is also a subtle point relevant to your earlier question about seeking a compassionate deity for your own sake.

Self-interest by itself is not the bottom of the scale. A person praying, “Mother, please help me; I am suffering,” is not necessarily deeply tāmasic. That's much closer to the Gītā's category of the ārta, the distressed person who turns toward God.

The much darker case would be:

“I don't care about truth, dharma, or other beings; I want divine power precisely so that I can harm, dominate, or indulge destructive impulses.”

That is where “tāmasic worship” becomes a genuinely strong description.

And this helps explain why Tantric traditions can sometimes work deliberately with tamas without endorsing tāmasic consciousness: the darkness itself can be used as the material of transformation.

At the cremation ground (part 2)

 

So what´s the difference between Ananda Marga´s stints at the cremation ground and that of other extreme sects...or even Buddhists? 

Explain how Ananda Marga's Kāpālika practice compares with the actual Kāpālika tradition, Aghori cremation-ground sādhana, and Buddhist śmaśāna meditation.

Yes. They look similar on the surface—night, death, cremation grounds, fear, skulls, corpses—but they belong to rather different religious technologies. The most useful comparison is to ask what the corpse/cremation ground is doing in the practice.

Tradition	Main setting	What is confronted	Main aim	Role of Bhairava/deity	Corpses/skulls
Ananda Marga Kāpālika sādhanā	Preferably cremation/burial ground, often around new moon	Fear, pāśas (fetters), ripus (mental enemies)	Mental/spiritual mastery and concentration	Tantric background, but not primarily corpse worship	Not the ritual centerpiece
Historical Kāpālika	Cremation ground	Death, impurity, ordinary social/religious boundaries	Bhairava-oriented liberation, powers, transformation	Central; Bhairava is a major focus	Central; skulls and bones are characteristic
Aghori	Cremation ground	Aversion, disgust, duality of pure/impure, fear of death	Non-dual realization of Śiva/Aghora	Central, especially Śiva/Aghora/Bhairava dimensions	Can be extremely important; some advanced practices involve corpses
Early Buddhist śmaśāna meditation	Charnel ground	Impermanence and identification with the body	Vairāgya, mindfulness, insight, non-attachment	Generally not the focus	Corpse is an object of contemplation

1. Ananda Marga: the cremation ground as a psychological laboratory

This is probably the least materially transgressive of the four.

Ananda Marga's Kāpālika practice deliberately retains the old cremation-ground atmosphere, but its stated purpose is to confront the practitioner's psychological obstacles. Scholarship on the practice describes cremation/burial grounds as preferred locations, particularly around amāvāsyā, because they are regarded as places conducive to confronting the pāśas and ripus.

So the logic is approximately:

dangerous/liminal environment → fear arises → maintain meditation → fear loses its power → mind becomes stronger and less bound.

There is no requirement that the practitioner manipulate corpses, consume substances from skulls, summon ghosts, or perform a Bhairava sacrifice.

That makes Ananda Marga's use of “Kāpālika” partly an inheritance of the older Tantric symbolism and partly a reinterpretation of it.

---

2. Historical Kāpālikas: this is much closer to what the name suggests

Here the resemblance to what we were discussing earlier becomes much stronger.

The historical Kāpālikas were Śaiva ascetics associated with Bhairava, cremation grounds, skulls and the mahāvrata. They carried a human skull as an alms bowl; the skull was so characteristic that it gave the tradition its name.

And some of the surviving Tantric material associated with the Kāpālika milieu is genuinely extreme.

For example, the Brahmayāmala describes cremation-ground rites involving:

• skulls arranged on a maṇḍala,
• blood,
• alcohol,
• human bones,
• hair and other bodily materials,
• a corpse as part of the ritual setting,
• and Bhairava.

One described rite uses nine skulls containing blood, alcohol and other substances, with the ritual performed on a corpse.

This is therefore quite different from Ananda Marga.

The Kāpālika isn't merely thinking:

“Death is frightening; I should overcome my fear.”

The ritual is deliberately entering the religious world of Bhairava and the cremation ground, using precisely those things that conventional society regards as impure or terrifying.

And this is where the term transgressive Tantra becomes meaningful.

---

3. Aghori: superficially closest to the Kāpālika, but not identical

The Aghori tradition is probably the one people most readily associate with the stereotypical image of:

ascetic + cremation ground + corpse + skull + Bhairava/Śiva.

There are genuine historical connections between Aghori traditions and older cremation-ground Śaivism, but Aghori should not simply be equated with Kāpālika. The historical Kāpālikas and later Aghoris belong to different historical formations.

The central Aghori idea is expressed by the word aghora: “not terrible,” “not dreadful,” or “without horror.”

The practitioner seeks to overcome the ordinary mind's division between:

pure / impure
beautiful / disgusting
sacred / profane
life / death

That can lead to practices involving substances and objects normally considered profoundly impure.

Some contemporary descriptions of advanced Aghori practice include śava-sādhanā, meditation in direct physical relationship with a corpse in a cremation ground.

This gives Aghori practice a very different emphasis from Ananda Marga.

Ananda Marga:

“Can I remain spiritually concentrated when confronted with fear?”

Aghori:

“Can I directly experience the underlying Śiva-nature without maintaining the conventional distinction between pure and impure?”

Those overlap, but they aren't the same proposition.

---

4. Buddhist śmaśāna meditation is radically different again

This is perhaps the most interesting comparison because Buddhism has a very old and well-documented cemetery tradition.

The Satipaṭṭhāna Sutta describes the monk seeing a corpse in various stages of decomposition and reflecting:

“This body of mine too is of the same nature.”

The corpse becomes a mirror for the practitioner's own body. The meditation proceeds through stages including decomposition, skeletonization, scattered bones and finally bones reduced to dust.

So the fundamental movement is:

“That corpse is me.”

Not literally in identity, but in the sense that my body is subject to exactly the same process.

The point is to undermine attachment to the body and develop insight into impermanence, unsatisfactoriness and non-self.

And historical Buddhist monastics really did practice in cemeteries. Recent scholarship argues that cemetery residence and corpse meditation were not marginal curiosities but could form part of Buddhist monastic life in India.

But notice what is not happening.

The Buddhist meditator doesn't need to:

• invoke Bhairava;
• propitiate a cemetery deity;
• use a skull as a ritual cup;
• obtain supernatural power from the corpse;
• overcome purity rules through transgression.

The corpse is primarily an object of insight.

---

The deepest similarity

All four recognize something like this:

The ordinary human mind wants to avoid death.

The cemetery makes avoidance difficult.

But then the traditions diverge.

Buddhist

Death → impermanence → detachment → insight

Ananda Marga

Death/fear → confrontation → mastery of mental fetters → spiritual development

Kāpālika

Death/impurity → deliberate transgression → Bhairava → transformation/liberation

Aghori

Death/disgust → destruction of pure/impure distinction → Aghora/Śiva → non-dual realization

That's why I'd resist treating all four as variants of “necromantic meditation.”

They are actually four different answers to the same existential problem.

---

There is also a fascinating distinction concerning fear

This is particularly relevant to your earlier questions about Bhairava.

For Ananda Marga, fear itself is something to be mastered.

For Buddhism, fear becomes an opportunity to observe the conditioned mind and the impermanent body.

For Aghori, the deeper target is the dualistic categorization that makes something “horrible,” “impure,” or “untouchable.”

For Kāpālika Tantra, the terrifying environment is also connected with Bhairava's own domain. The practitioner isn't merely trying to become psychologically fearless; the terrifying aspect of reality is incorporated into the sacred.

That last point is why the Kāpālika tradition is particularly interesting alongside Bhairava.

Bhairava isn't merely the deity who protects you from the cremation ground.

In the more radical Tantric imagination, Bhairava is the Lord of the cremation ground itself.

And that is a substantial theological difference from simply using a cemetery as an unpleasant environment in which to test one's meditation.

One final caveat

We shouldn't imagine a neat historical sequence:

Buddhist cemetery meditation → Kāpālika → Aghori → Ananda Marga.

The traditions overlap historically and influenced one another in complex ways, but they aren't simply successive versions of one practice. In particular, the surviving evidence for historical Kāpālikas is fragmentary, and some practices attributed to them come from Tantric texts that scholars identify as closely related to the Kāpālika milieu rather than straightforwardly as surviving Kāpālika manuals.

So the visual similarity is real, but the underlying theology can be dramatically different.

And, interestingly, Ananda Marga is probably the closest of the four to a deliberately controlled “fear-of-death meditation,” whereas historical Kāpālika and Aghori practice go considerably further into the ritual transformation of death, impurity and the body.

At the cremation ground (part 1)

 

Let´s see if ChatGPT is ready for the *really* heavy questions...

What is "Kapalik meditation" within Ananda Marga?

Yes. “Kāpālika meditation” in Ananda Marga is a specialized Tantric practice, but it is quite different from the historical Kāpālika sectarian practices we were just discussing. In particular, Ananda Marga presents it primarily as a method of confronting and overcoming fear and the lower tendencies of the mind, rather than as necromancy or ritual use of human remains.

Ananda Marga's own literature lists Kāpālika meditation as one of five systems of sādhanā, alongside Prārambhika, Sādhāraṇa, Sahaja and Viśeṣa Yoga. It is described as an advanced practice, reserved for practitioners who have already progressed considerably in Sahaja Yoga.

What does the practice involve?

The distinctive feature is the setting.

Traditional descriptions from within Ananda Marga say that Kāpālika meditation is performed in a graveyard or cremation ground, normally during the deep night. One account describes the period as approximately midnight to 3 a.m., with practice at least monthly around the new moon.

The purpose is explicitly psychological/spiritual:

the frightening environment brings the practitioner's latent fears and lower tendencies to the surface, so that they can be confronted and mastered.

Ananda Marga's terminology describes Kāpālika sādhanā as a practice that causes the aspirant to confront and overcome the inherent fetters and “enemies” of the mind.

So the logic is roughly:

cremation ground → fear/death imagery → mind becomes concentrated → fear is confronted → attachment to the lower self decreases → greater spiritual control.

This is why the practice has a very different character from ordinary meditation.

Why a cremation ground?

The cremation ground is essentially being used as an extreme psychological environment.

Ananda Marga's explanation is that under ordinary circumstances the mind can avoid confronting things such as:

• fear of death
• fear of darkness
• fear of ghosts or spirits
• instinctive aversion
• attachment to the physical body
• sexual or other instinctual impulses
• social conditioning concerning purity and impurity.

Put the practitioner in a cremation ground at night, however, and those things become psychologically difficult to ignore.

The practitioner then has to maintain spiritual ideation and concentration despite the fear.

Ananda Marga sources explicitly say that this challenge makes the mind more concentrated and can strengthen renunciation.

It isn't simply “meditating on corpses”

This is an important distinction.

The historical Kāpālika tradition is associated with skulls, cremation grounds, Bhairava and transgressive Tantric practices. Ananda Marga deliberately distances its Kāpālika meditation from the sensationalized image of Kāpālikas as practitioners of black magic, cannibalism, ritual sex, etc. One Ananda Marga account explicitly says that this popular characterization is an injustice to the Tantric tradition.

So although the name and cremation-ground setting deliberately evoke the Kāpālika tradition, Ananda Marga has reformulated the practice around its own spiritual psychology.

Is Bhairava involved?

Conceptually, yes, in the Tantric background; but Ananda Marga's presentation is not simply a Bhairava pūjā.

This is an important difference from the practices we were discussing earlier.

Ananda Marga's founder, Shrii Shrii Anandamurti (Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar), presented Ananda Marga as a modern synthesis of Tantra and Yoga. Its ordinary meditation system is centered on mantra, personal spiritual ideation and realization rather than deity ritual.

Thus you shouldn't imagine the Ananda Marga Kāpālika practice as:

“Go to a cemetery at midnight, put alcohol in a skull, and invoke Bhairava.”

That's not what it means in Ananda Marga.

Rather, it takes the Kāpālika/cremation-ground archetype and turns it into an advanced yogic exercise in confronting fear and the lower mind.

Why is it called Kāpālika, then?

Because kapālika literally relates to the kapāla, “skull,” and the historical Kāpālikas were associated with cremation grounds and radical confrontation with death.

Ananda Marga is therefore drawing on the symbolic and Tantric heritage of the term while giving it a different practical interpretation.

There's actually a striking continuity here:

Historical Kāpālika:
“Confront death, impurity and conventional fear directly.”

Ananda Marga Kāpālika meditation:
“Confront the fear and lower tendencies that arise when you place yourself consciously in the presence of death.”

The second is considerably more psychologically disciplined and less ritually transgressive.

And this makes it particularly relevant to your earlier question

You were asking about necromancy, skulls, Bhairava and cemetery practices. Ananda Marga Kāpālika meditation sits right at the historical boundary between these things—but it shouldn't be classified as necromancy.

The cremation ground is the setting, not the object of worship.

The dead are not being summoned for information.

The skull isn't being used as a ritual drinking vessel.

And the goal isn't obtaining occult power from corpses.

Instead, death is used as an existential confrontation through which the practitioner seeks mastery over fear and attachment.

That is much closer to a cremation-ground meditation / fear-confrontation practice than to Western-style necromancy.

One other fascinating detail is that Ananda Marga's ordinary meditation system consists of six progressively taught lessons, while Kāpālika meditation belongs to a much more advanced category; the organization's own introductory material does not present Kāpālika meditation as something beginners should simply try on their own.

If you're interested, I can also explain how Ananda Marga's Kāpālika practice compares with the actual Kāpālika tradition, Aghori cremation-ground sādhana, and Buddhist śmaśāna meditation—because superficially they look remarkably similar, but their underlying aims are quite different.

Conditions apply

 

You can´t just use *any* human skull for your Kapala Bhairava sadhana. It has to be the skull of a Candala, a Dom or another person who spent a considerable time in the cremation-ground. It can also be the skull of a person who met an untimely death. Then, the spirit is conjured by offerings and certain mantras. The offerings may include alcohol, meat, fish or eggs. 

The point of the exercise is less clear, except that the spirit is supposed to help you in your worship of Bhairava, who at some point will demand the skull itself as sacrifice. The spirit must do all this voluntarily. Many a sadhu forces the spirit to work for him, but that is apparently a bad mistake. The spirit will take revenge, sooner or later...

OK, bro, thanks for warning me in advance.   

The wisest of demons

 

Is the Biblical / post-Biblical demon Asmodeus really a displaced Vedic storm god who entered Middle Judaism through Zoroastrianism?

No idea, and the video above isn´t scholarly, but it´s an interesting idea, to be sure! Note also the peculiar ambivalence towards the Asmodeus character in Judaism. Solomonic grimoire magick, anyone?  

Curse this, vamamargi!

 

- Curse my ass, boy!

Sometimes I wonder where ChatGPT gets its information. Straight from Source?

Is this true? There are four dhyāna verses for Bālā mantra and any one of them can be chosen. Normally, the guru who initiates this mantra decides, as to which is the suitable one, for an aspirant. All the mantras have curses and each of these mantras have different mantras for removing such curses. These curses are made by sages, gods, goddesses, etc. Bālā mantra too is cursed by Devi, which can be removed by reciting Tripura Bhairavi mantra 100 times. Tripura Bhairavi mantra: हसैं हसकरीं हसैं  hasaiṁ hasakarīṁ hasaiṁ. 

Yes, but only with significant qualifications. The passage you found is not simply fabricated: it corresponds almost verbatim to a Śrīvidyā source that has circulated online for years. But it presents one particular Śrīvidyā/Tantric practice tradition as though it were universally authoritative, which it isn't.

1. The four Bālā dhyānas

There really are traditions giving four alternative dhyāna/visualizations of Bālā, associated with different purposes:

1. Wealth/prosperity — Bālā golden in complexion, seated in padmāsana, holding a pomegranate and lotus.
2. Knowledge — Bālā at the brahmarandhra, with varada, nectar vessel, book and abhaya.
3. Healing — Bālā in white, moon-like, with her body visualized as composed of Sanskrit letters.
4. Attraction — Bālā beautifully adorned, holding the noose, in a pleasant form.

This fourfold scheme appears in the source you quoted and is also reproduced in material derived from Vinita Rashinkar's Śrīvidyā writings.

However, "there are four dhyāna verses" needs a little correction. The four descriptions aren't necessarily four verses in the same sense as, say, four independent canonical dhyāna ślokas. They are four prescribed visualizations associated with particular aims. The wording varies considerably between Śrīvidyā manuals.

And the statement that the guru chooses which one is appropriate for the initiate is quite plausible within an initiated Śrīvidyā framework, but I would not elevate it to a universal rule of Śrīvidyā. Different lineages organize Bālā practice differently.

2. The "curses" (śāpa) are a genuine Tantric concept

This part is also real.

Tantric mantra traditions sometimes speak of a mantra being śapta, "cursed," and prescribe śāpa-vimocana / śāpoddhāra, removal of the curse, before mantra practice.

The traditional explanation can involve a sage, deity, goddess, or other sacred figure having placed a restriction or curse upon the mantra. The idea isn't normally that someone literally maliciously "cursed" God's sacred name; rather, it is a ritual-theological explanation for why a mantra requires a particular unlocking or purification procedure.

But again, this is not true of every mantra in every Hindu tradition, and the particular śāpa and its removal vary between traditions.

3. And yes — this particular tradition says Bālā is cursed by Devī

This is the most interesting part of your quotation.

The source explicitly states:

Bālā mantra too is cursed by Devī

and gives:

हसैं हसकरीं हसैं
hasaiṃ hasakarīṃ hasaiṃ

as the Tripurā Bhairavī mantra, to be recited 100 times for śāpa-vimocana.

So your quotation is accurately reporting what this particular Bālā-mantra tradition says.

There is independent evidence that this isn't just an isolated internet invention: the same claim appears in material discussing Bālā mantra and Śrīvidyā practice, including the statement that Bālā will not fructify until the Tripurā-Bhairavī mantra is used for śāpa removal.

4. But don't assume that this is a universal requirement for Bālā

This is the crucial qualification.

I would not say:

"The Bālā mantra is cursed by Devī, and therefore every Bālā practitioner must recite hasaiṃ hasakarīṃ hasaiṃ 100 times."

Rather:

"Some Śrīvidyā manuals and lineages teach that Bālā mantra is subject to a śāpa attributed to Devī and prescribe hasaiṃ hasakarīṃ hasaiṃ 100 times as its śāpa-vimocana."

That's a much more historically defensible statement.

There are Śrīvidyā traditions in which Bālā (Aiṃ Klīṃ Sauḥ) is itself regarded as a foundational or even independently sufficient vidyā. Hindupedia, for example, describes Bālā as one of the principal Śrīvidyā mūla vidyās and notes that practitioners can practice Bālā alone and attain liberation.

That doesn't necessarily contradict the śāpa doctrine: a lineage may regard the mantra as requiring śāpa-vimocana for a particular ritual application, while another lineage may not employ that procedure at all.

5. There's another interesting complication: what exactly is "Bālā mantra"?

The source you're quoting uses "Bālā mantra" rather loosely.

It lists:

Aiṃ Klīṃ Sauḥ

then a six-bīja form:

Aiṃ Klīṃ Sauḥ — Sauḥ Klīṃ Aiṃ

and a nine-bīja form:

Aiṃ Klīṃ Sauḥ — Sauḥ Klīṃ Aiṃ — Aiṃ Klīṃ Sauḥ.

Other Śrīvidyā traditions simply call:

Aiṃ Klīṃ Sauḥ

the Bālā mantra/Bālāvidyā.

So if someone says "the Bālā mantra has a curse," the first question should be:

Which Bālā vidyā, from which lineage/manual, and what ritual context?

That's particularly important with Śrīvidyā, because apparently small differences in mantra formulation can reflect genuinely different transmission lineages.

6. What does hasaiṃ hasakarīṃ hasaiṃ have to do with Tripurā Bhairavī?

This is also worth distinguishing from the better-known Tripurā Bhairavī bīja mantra traditions. The form:

हसैं हसकरीं हसैं — hasaiṃ hasakarīṃ hasaiṃ

is a specifically Tantric formulation associated in this source with Tripurā Bhairavī and śāpa-vimocana.

So I wouldn't casually equate it with every mantra called "Tripurā Bhairavī mantra." There are multiple Bhairavī mantras in circulation, including forms involving Hsaum/Hsklrīṃ/Hsauḥ. The very same source actually gives an alternative form:

ह्सौं ह्स्क्ल्रीं ह्सौः
hsaum hsklarīṃ hsaum (orthography/transliteration varies).

That variation is another indication that we're dealing with lineage-specific mantra-vidyā, rather than a single universally standardized Tripurā Bhairavī mantra.

Bottom line

I'd rate your quotation like this:

Claim	Assessment
There are four Bālā visualizations	Yes, in some Śrīvidyā manuals
Guru may choose the appropriate visualization	Yes, plausible/attested in this tradition; not universal
Tantric traditions have "cursed mantras"	Yes
Different mantras have different śāpa-vimocana procedures	Yes, in traditions that use śāpa doctrine
Bālā is said to be cursed by Devī	Yes, in this particular Śrīvidyā tradition
Hasaiṃ hasakarīṃ hasaiṃ is prescribed for its removal	Yes
It should be recited 100 times	Yes, according to this source/tradition
Every Śrīvidyā lineage requires this	No evidence for such a universal claim

And one thing I find particularly interesting in relation to your earlier questions: Bālā being "cursed by Devī" does not mean that Bālā herself is somehow an inferior or dangerous deity. In the śāpa-vimocana framework, the "curse" is a ritual condition attached to the mantra-vidyā, not a statement about Bālā's divine nature. That's an important distinction.

If you are looking at this because you've encountered Bālā as your accessible/non-initiatory form of Tripurā Sundarī, I would also be careful about taking the 100-repetition śāpa-vimocana procedure from an internet manual and incorporating it into your practice independently: in traditional Śrīvidyā, these procedures can themselves belong to a particular guru-paramparā rather than being generic add-ons.