Namaste Stefos,
What you say is true. Although Acharya Maha Bua is not saying citta is the atma, he is saying that the same citta is present in each birth. The closest thing in the pali sutta of the transcendent state free from individuality is in Kevatta sutta where he talks about Viññanam anidassanam or consciousness without any footing in the elements. The cosmology of this sutta is the same as Bhagavatam and other Hindu traditions.
The best place to start how Tibetan Buddhist are linked to shiva shakti tantric practice starts at the 7 main universities of northern India at the time.
http://www.hitxp.com/articles/histor...shila-nalanda/
The picture that I have painted around this time that there was only Dharma, it was not as sectarian and divided although it was diverse. Shramanas were probably yogic groups that practiced all types of forest practices of dhyana and samadhi and other yogic disciplines. They may have been at odds with some of the brahminical ways, but Siddharta taught Brahmins to be better Brahmins via awareness of Dharma. Most of his closest disciples were Brahmins. It was a great time of discovery and the universities were recording and studying according to those discoveries, but these discoveries did not just happen overnight or due to the appearance of Siddharta, it was already inherent in the minds of the people.
I also think it was a very healthy period, as some say that it was a time when Siddharta refuted and denied any Vedic Authority, this I dont accept, he said the highest mantra was Gayatri Mantra, I can give many accounts of the synthesis or even better how they were deeply related and integrated within each other, but I dont really take notes I just follow themes and learn along the way.
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