Dakinis, Yoginis, Touch and Tantra

In response to recent questions about our different kinds of sessions work:

Yoginis (touch work practitioners) work, at first, with the authority of the school, using techniques taught to them by Dakini Wendy, Yogini Annwen and me. In this structure, their own teaching arises. When they are teaching completely from their own authority, they have embodied the secrets of Tantra and we call them Dakinis.

Dakinis work with addressing all obstacles to awareness and direct transmission of the experiential lessons of Tantra. Addressing all areas of life in which obstacles occur requires a mastery of physicality, mind training, strategy,erotic work, relationship patterns and meditation. Their sessions work is as varied as the needs (not wants!) of their students.

Dakinis also provide guidance, in the sense of holding an overview, of their more sincere students. They also guide those inclined to devotion. They refer these students to touch practitioners when appropriate, and students who do well with the lessons of touch work get referred to Dakinis and me by Yoginis if it looks like their Tantra is something they feel strongly about.

These divisions - descriptions and titles - we use are at best a rough guide to categorisation of our work. They describe the general tendencies, how it generally looks. Also, the general style of sessions.

The Goddess and the Harlot

 “What is the relationship between the harlot and the goddess? I sometimes fear powerful women are untrustworthy as if they’re promiscuous-maybe a lot of powerful women are. I wonder if this is my own fears/projections or if there’s some truth to it.”

Thank you for voicing this. It is a common notion but because we are now encouraged to be so all-inclusive and non-judgemental, it slips into the covert of the culture, rather than being brought out into the light. So much can be written in reply – I hope I have gotten the most important bits here.

To begin: A healthy, unadulterated woman will naturally love or at the very least appreciate sex and sensuality, will likely be tactile and physically demonstrative, will love and trust the wild places both within the human psyche and without, in nature. She will be responsive, exuberant and have keen sensitivity. She will instinctively know that her body is a portal to the Divine and that the power that rises through it as sexual energy is good and wholesome and can be put to use for the health of her own organism and also the health of her family and the community where it can be directed into healing and creativity.

Your question demonstrates the associations that we have picked up from our socialisation, from our culture. The message within the patriarchal system which has dominated for the past few millennia is that the woman I speak of above is dangerous and must be controlled. In the past this has been done with a great deal of violence, particularly by religions like Christianity and Islam and is still in certain parts of the world. These days, within our culture, although it is starting to shift since the feminist movement, it is still very present in the covert attitude and such women are referred to bitterly with words like “slut”/ “harlot” / "whore". The word "Promiscuous" holds the association that for a woman to love sex is an evil thing (where as for a man, it is “normal”).

Can you imagine why such a woman would be threatening to anyone who was wanting to control a society… and why, by extension it was imperative to find ways to make such a one look dangerous? Slowly but surely the oppression of the feminine nature was so effective that even women started to believe that the only way that they could have any power was if it was given to them by a man. Thus, we even began policing each other and routing out those women who did not conform to the status quo, using the weapon of shame for having these very natural wholesome drives, to great and devastating effect, not just for women but for our whole society.

So, the relationship between whore and goddess is in the perception of the culture and also the perception the woman holds of herself. When she has bought in to what the culture has told her about being intrinsically powerless and weak because she is a woman, she may believe that she must manipulate to get power for her survival from the outside and one of her tools is seduction… so sex and intimacy deprivation is used as part of the deal making between men and women, operational within the illusion of scarcity and separation.

... that is when it is in its unconscious aspect. In the conscious aspect there is the ancient roll of the Dakini who's work it is to support you towards your full capacity for awareness, however that looks and whatever it takes, including the tools found within sexuality. 

If your idea of trustworthy is a woman who will consistently behave in a way that makes you feel safe within the illusions held by our culture… (such as those around how love should look) then you are quite right that such women cannot be trusted.

If, however, your soul seeks to awaken into the fullness of your own god-self, then you can  trust the direction of such a women to guide you in whatever needs to be done to shatter the illusions that keep you apart from this. Your fears are those of the ego (that in us which maintains the illusion of duality) fearing for its life and are a good indication of where to aim your rudder if you are ready to let it go.

for more on this topic, see:

http://tantraschool.co.za/sessions.html 

under the heading “Tantric Practitioners: Dakinis And Dakas”

and one of my favourite pieces of writing:
http://www.buddhanature.com/buddha/vajrayogini.html 

Love,

Annwen

What happens in a tantra session?

I am so often asked this question and wonder how can I possibly explain ( or make flat ) the mystery of a tantra session. Every word I pronounce seems a shadow of the experience.

So today I call the land of words to bear you into this mystery.. om namah.

Firstly people arrive at the door for a number of reasons ..

All things sexual

Sexual healing .. Sexual mastery .. Sexual confusion .. Sexual fulfillment (wanting a sexual service).

The relationship dance

Drama ..confusion .. challenges .. ultimately resolving the age old masculine - feminine conflict.

Reclaiming the true feminine

Accessing the goddess and calling the return of the feminine that has been denied for the longest time ever.

Reclaiming the true masculine

Meeting and living from the true masculine and dropping the distortion -replacement of patriarchy.

Wanting to be a better person and live a better life

Wanting to know or understand the true self

Unresolved pain and rage

A dakini can also be a very powerful guide in terms of career and power strategy as she has come to a deep understanding of this energy in herself and she is also an exquisite muse and midwife of all creative endeavours.

What I have come to see as a tantrika or what has been my occult or hidden intent in the session ...

My first love is awareness. I did not always know this. I was interested in money and survival, how to have orgasms and experience bliss and pleasure in my life, how to attract a beautiful man and be in a sweet togetherness, how to get on with others and also be true to myself and always very interested in the mystery of that which is not seen or easily tangible ..existence god soul.These were some of my interests along the way as it is for most human beings.

But what I have come to know is that all of these interests were ultimately teachers and guides of awareness.

So what is awareness? Before I knew awareness in the same way as a lover comes to know her beloved, I believed awareness was about knowledge. If one learnt enough about things and life and people then you would know how or what to do in any given moment or experience, but it is not this at all.

Awareness is a tangible presence; pulsing, alive and fully available in the moment beyond thought or any knowledge.. the delightful, delicious, spontaneous participation moment to moment sans mind.

This is what I teach or share...

This is not to say that a tantra session may not look like an intense exploration of one's sexual healing and or mastery , relationship dynamics and the exploration of the truth of reality but in this exploration there is always and foremost the subtle calling and befriending of awareness.

One finds that yes tantrikas are deeply and sincerely interested in sexuality and tantric sex is beyond all imagination. I would never have known such sex was possible without experiencing it for myself.

But this interest is the carrot of Existence that brings you to awareness and when you taste this awareness then the interest shifts. From super amazing sex to awareness, from delightful relationships to awareness. If awareness is first all that we seek, desire and long for follows. Perhaps not as we THOUGHT it but as it it sweetly is..

If I can assist in calling awareness into your being than you can meet any moment in totality and truth sans the reactive and conditioned state that you currently know as yourself.

Whatever happens in a tantra session the intent is to befriend awareness.

The tantric way is the path of the lover. The dakini guides you into falling in love with your self, your fellow travelers and finally the moment and then awareness is met in the core of your being as your constant lover companion where all else follows.

I offer tantra sessions in Johannesburg to women, men and couples. A session is approximately 2 hours long and much happens in a session. You will be very surprised at what you walk away with. If you remember the scene from Matrix where Neo is hooked up to the computer and information is being downloaded. He looks up and says " I know Kung Fu". Tantra sessions can have a similar feeling.

If you are interested in a session please email me shima@shima.co.za.

I will be offering a tantra practitioner training later this year. If you feel you have the calling for this work or are already in a similar field and would like to bring the tantric understanding into your work please let me know.

Namasté
Shima opening Lotus