How to make love to a woman tantra style

Dakini Shima offers profound and unusual guidance on how to make love to a woman. Click on the youtube link. How to make love to a woman

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.

Operation Goddess Temple

Open letter to the Maricopa County Attorney

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Dear William Montgomery

In response to your “Operation Goddess Temple”.

In September 2011 Temples of Tantra in Phoenix and Sedona were defiled. Heavily armed storm troopers caused extensive damage to property and put many lives at risk. Several of the women arrested have told me of violent and sexually abusive conduct on the part of the militarily equipped fellows, the more normal-looking police men, court officials and prison authorities.

Yes and No? :a Seeker's Story

A short story by a student of our school...

The path was easy, worn well and traveled straight from point to point. Along the way I met happy people, each focused on their own journey, moving forward. The Spring morning was crisp and at sunup carried a magic with it that most people on the path didn’t seem to notice. It was a friendly road, people chatting or greeting each other. It was a safe path, a beautiful day and an easy slope. We all traveled the same direction, some of them ran while others walked, but I dawdled for the grass and the trees were too green not to notice. Along the path, set back a bit, was a shady forest, thick and dark. It was the sort of place stories might be told of.

Sexual Awakening for Women

Sexual Awakening for Women
a tantric workbook
By Shakti Mari Malan

Shakti is a truly remarkable woman. Before her initiation into tantra, she had a PhD in anthropology and her own successful consultancy in social sustainability.

By the time she met me, her spiritual life was every bit as well advanced as her career. She had been drawn to initiation in an African tradition and had already started her work of guiding women to a deeper understanding of themselves.

Shakti was one of my first initiates and rapidly gained the capacity, understanding and power that characterises a dakini truly worthy of the title.

Many men and many women have been initiated and guided by Shakti. She has visited much of the planet, meeting seekers in individual sessions and intensive residential retreats.

Her already immense contribution to complete-path tantra is now crowned by the release of “Sexual Awakening for Women”. A truly remarkable book.


Sexual Awakening for Women is available at advaittantra.com and shakti.co.za
Look inside the kindle edition at amazon.

Heart Meditation

Master Atisha said: As you breathe in, take in and accept all the sadness, pain, and negativity of the whole world, including yourself, and absorb it into your heart. As you breathe out, pour out all your joy and bliss; bless the whole of existence.


This technique was taught a thousand years ago by Master Atisha, and the technique itself is possibly a lot older. It is perhaps the centre of the spiritual discipline known in Tibet as Loojong .

Master Atisha had a particular of spiritual intrest: Speed and efficiency. Atisha was all about the most effective methods, most supportive attitudes and spiritual totality in general.

That's why his so concise description of this technique, quoted above, expresses the totality of this technique. The starting point, and the method were taught person to person. The text served as a reminder of the practice and a concise distillation of the full teaching.

This meditation is a key method for growing your heart centre and using it consciously. The core work of this school is the re-development of the Dakini's arts and practices, in ways appropriate to the world as it is now. This practice is one that we treasure as a glowing ember among the ashes of Ancient Tantra, which has contributed greatly to this school's fire, to the heart of this phoenix.

So, don't be daunted by Atisha's words, the scale of the aim he urges. If you're even just tasting, dabbling with the idea of Tantra perhaps being your path, just taste this, dabble with this too. Particularly if you get some knocks along with life's caresses.

Science vs Religion? Science is a religion.

Science is now a full fledged religion. Much of its proselytising has been based on its not being a 'religion' at all. Science claims to be a rational, logical approach to investigating existence.

The early scientists, like the early christians before them were persecuted. Their teachings were demonised and their morality was considered suspect. Over time, the new way gradually replaced the old.

As was the case with early christianity many priests of the new religion hold a dual allegiance, practicing the old forms while being involved with the new. As the numbers and confidence of the new religion grows, allegiance becomes an issue. Peoples and their governments are under increasing pressured to choose.

Science has heroes now. Hitchslap (now deceased) and Dawkins have been aggressively challenging priests in debate.

Over time, Christian priests became part of culture and government. Science has done very well in these areas.

Childhood Insights from Alia

Rahasya's daughter, Alia, shared this piece of writing with us last night.
It shows insight and she agreed to me sharing it here.

Sadistic Bastards

Why are children's story writers such sadistic bastards?

Wait, you doubt that statement?
Seriously? Have you never seen Bambi?
They make this beautiful fun world and just as you have completely fallen for it, want to live in it and be one of the characters in the story, they make disaster strike. They tear this new and beautiful world to shreds and are not satisfied until you cry. Then a few short happy moments later, just enough to stop the tears, and it's over.
But that happy ending isn't what lasts, it's the tragedy that sticks with you, especially at such a young age.

What do you learn from that? I don't know about you but it taught me that when there is joy, sorrow soon follows and shatters your world, then you have to rebuild it, and the cycle continues.
That is a pretty depressing outlook on the world.
Kids shouldn't have such things shoved down their throats; you only need to learn responsibility like that when you're a teenager.

I suppose the happy ending isn't as happy if there isn't some sorrow, but then put the sorrow near the beginning, like in the Lion King, before you have even met all the characters. That movie taught me that everything that happened in the past helped shape who I am now, and not to cling to or run from bad memories, but rather learn and grow from them. It also taught me that tragedies in life help you grow. If Mufasa hadn't died, Simba would never have met Timone and Pumba and never have become the lion that he did.

The point I'm trying to make is, rather teach children how to cope and grow from the potential troubles and tragedies in life, then tell them that tragedy is inevitable.

Wanting

How much of what I think of as my love is my wanting? How much wanting have I done in the name of love?

M Scott Peck says: "Real love is wanting the other person's good. Romantic love is wanting the other person."    

For the last 2 or 3 years I have been deeply challenged in the realms of romantic rejection and watching the beloved love another.

Comparison, jealousy, feelings of deep deficiency and accompanying depression are well traversed territories in me. 

"God, I am so sick of this! I WANT to be WANTED, DAMMIT!!!" I bang my hand on the steering wheel while tearing around mountain pass corners in my little bakkie. My teachers sit squashed on the bench seat next to me on our way back from dinner, taking in my emotive outburst and boisterous driving style with equal equanimous grace. "So your wanting is for a theoretical state in another's mind?", one says. "Look carefully and see if you can find any dharma in that".

The jealousy and hunger for love (not any kind of love, mind you: Very specific love in specific ways from specific people... in what my teacher refers to as Mind Symbols) makes me feel wild, and desperate like some kind of caged creature that is starving to death... and there is that in me which is dying, because it is time for it to die now.

But it doesn't go down without a fight. This desperate place in my unconscious is the spawning ground for all my manipulation, for my clutching onto intimate relationships, my pushing, my forcing, these insistences that arise from my mind, rather than from my being. 

I am gradually learning to make space for the horrible states created by my thoughts- these deficient, heavy states. 

I give up trying to get my external to rescue me from them - all that manoeuvring I have done in the name of Love to try to get others, particularly the beloved, to convince me that it's not true: This horrible self image I have. And I let myself go... into this frightening feeling, these mucky, sticky, heavy, murky depths.  

Yes- I am worthless. 

Yes- I am so small. 

I lack.

I am so deeply deficient.

I am the loser.

I give up trying to fight these things.

My body becomes so heavy that I can't stay upright.

I slump down flat, sinking into the mud...

And then somehow in this surrender, this death, there is a calm. I find myself looking at the thoughts and the feelings with compassion... And find that I am not that.

In my heart there is value. I can see the value of my surrender, the value of that which has chosen this surrender. 

Today a shoot breaks through the surface of the mud... gradually it climbs through the dark muddy water towards the light...

Painting by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law

Thank you dear Wendy and Rahasya for your loving guidance last week during our tantra practitioner training. 

Elitism and the Lightning Path: A Discussion of the Rocky Horror Tantra Book

Following is a quote from the introduction to Rocky Horror Tantra (see previous blog post for more) and ensuing conversation/debate between Rahasya and Anne-Marie Clulow, a tantric practitioner.


Rahasya:

"The first task of any teacher of tantra is to scare you off the idea all together. This is a compassionate measure designed to spare those without the calling, saving them considerable effort, pain and time.

Tantra is also known as the Path of Bliss, the Lightning Path and the Royal Road.
 Bliss, because pleasures and pains are embraced, not avoided. Bliss is the integration, the encompassing acceptance, of life’s pleasure and suffering as one suchness.
 Lightning, because the path is notable for its extreme speed.
The Royal Road, because it is a path designed (at least the Buddhist version) originally for the elite of a culture, who’s worldly involvement and responsibilities make a monastic life impractical.

The personal characteristics that produce achievers in any area of human endeavour are essential to tantra: Ambition, determination, responsiveness and especially hubris."

Anne-Marie:
Hmmm. And scared off I would have been. And run I did. And hide. And fear. And then...
You cannot not do it.
You can send any challenge into the universe.
And you cannot not be it.
I am looking fwd to reading this book, as for so long my inner voice/guide/channel told me to learn through my own experience, not through those of others. That my learning had to be my own, that my path was unique. In my opinion I believe that true of everyone now, and I subscribed differently for a long time. Rahasya, I often do not agree with you, finding many things that you say elitist. Yet, I am so grateful to you. For what would any of this be if we were all in agreement? And what does Tantra teach if not acceptance of everything? Part of my path presently is truly listening to those I do not agree with. If I have gathered anything from your posts, it is that you would not be offended by this at all, that you enjoy a great debate, and that your views on many things do not subscribe to the norm?

And I had to look up hubris!! Hahaha!!!

Rahasya:
A lovely word, Anne-Marie, and it looks to me like you have at least your fair share of it :)

Elitist - absolutely!

Special forces soldiers consider themselves an elite among the military, although 'regular' soldiers could be offended by that idea.
 Tantra is not something 'everyone can do'. It just is so. Just like not every enlisted man has the capacity for special forces work.
 Acknowledging actual differences is not a superiority/inferiority thing though, any more than Inuit are 'superior' human beings because the handle cold that would kill other people.

Tantrikas often would not wish what they have to go through on anyone, even if they have a worst enemy.

Anne-Marie: 
I agree with some of this, and disagree too. False dichotomy... As it is not an either or actually.
I agree that it would be easier to not have this calling which I have perceived through my experience as being a conduit to energy outside of myself as well as using my own sexual energy to specifically channel into another's body, enabling a body experience that leads to many things, emotional release, insight, visions, change in consciousness, increased sexual energy and heightened energy for actual physical healing too. I would have preferred to wear white and meditate a shitload like the Buddhists. Until I saw the hypocrisy of not being able to save a drowning woman because you can't touch a woman, yet completely missing the point of the original precepts of do not kill. Obviously, allowing to die was seen differently. I was
tired of splitting hairs. I wanted something that encompassed all, did not judge, did not deem itself "better than" I wanted to be "holy" not dealing with the nitty gritty of people's bodies.
So I agree with the not wishing it on your enemy, yet I have also known a deeper more connected space in healing than almost any other space. Meditating, singing ( sometimes) and making love are the only other places I have that "flow" although I am wary of terminology as often it leads to dissent if it is not the same as others' .
I do feel that Tantra in the form of opening to self, balancing light and dark, the fullness of the human experience and linking the spiritual journey with sexual energy is not only to be mainstream, but an absolute necessity to the awakening of mankind's consciousness as we move into a new era. Many spiritual teachers in differing modalities are beginning to awaken to the linking of all energies in the body to raise consciousness.
If the folk in the Tantric world keep it elite, and don't share practical ways to open energy up for people to have their awakenings is that not the ultimate separation? Maybe all are not meant to be healers or teachers, but how does keeping it elitist truly share love in its most unconditional form?

Rahasya:

Anne-Marie,
"If the folk in the Tantric world keep it elite, and don't share practical ways to open energy up for people to have their awakenings is that not the ultimate separation?"

One better known example, which means that it is not very well known outside of tantra, is the practice called Mahamudra, aka Sacred Union.
This is commonly (in the greater world of tantra as therapy, healing, sexuality, poly, bdsm, etc) taken to mean 'penis in vagina' sex.
In the old and dusty schools, it is ritualised and has mostly lost its power/function.
The 'elitist, secret' version of this practice is a neurological bonding of the masculine and feminine energies within.
Some of the method is known, some is hinted at in old literature. I have taught 'partial' and 'diluted' versions on what we call 'practitioner level' workshops.

The reason for all the caution is simple. It is a seriously dangerous practice. It has very powerful real-world consequences.
If, for example, someone suffers the usual Western condition of a divided, divisive, mutually antagonistic relationship between their inner masculine and feminine aspects, this practice will add rape, not love to that relationship.
This is likely to make the inner war so intense that it consumes all the person's prana (nerve-system energy). This means they become completely inwardly focused and have no outward energy, no capacity or capability of communicating outside of their own mind. In other words, a psychosis. Likely permanent.

We deal in love and other very powerful energies. It is part of our compassion and responsibility that we are careful in how and when we apply them.

Someone who hides the matches when you are in a room full of dynamite may be your friend.

Anne-Marie:
Rahasya, I can only speak from my own experience and from my inner guide. You have more experience than I. I have much to learn and experience, so even though I don't understand this, I will listen to your book. Yes, I get the concept of passing "dynamite" to those who have methods of dealing with it. Perhaps I saw elitism where there was caution. In my learnings with Taoism that concept of passing down carefully to avoid the misuse of "dynamite" has purpose.
Perhaps I have been guilty of drawing conclusions through vocab and words and for that I apologize :)

Rahasya:
No apology – I enjoy this discussion much.

As people read on, I wait for much more difficult criticism/exploration (wince).
I did find a lot of it very difficult to read aloud. Different from the quiet hours over the last few years, just me and the muse, just writing it down.

My favourite question so far emailed by a listener/reader:

"in your audio book, when you said Wendy had "ruined 3 or 4 men during her training" Were you speaking figuratively or literally? Might I ask what form of "ruin" are seekers likely to face? (The rocket scientist risk calculator is buzzing in my brain.)"

and, yes, he is a rocket scientist.



…  The discussion continues in the Rocky Horror Tantra FaceBook group.


Listen to the Rocky Horror Book Introduction:

Track 1 Track 2 Track 3

Rocky Horror Tantra audio Book release

It took me nearly 5 years to write it, about ten days to record it, a few dozen hours to listen through and edit out the worst of page turning, coughing, retakes and other excitements.

My sound engineer, Gabriel, managed wonders through Josi's summer storms and guided me through the process of audio production.

Some of you know him as the muso who did the cool backing track (or whatever it is called) on a guided meditation CD I recorded a few years ago.

This whole exercise (and what is still to be done for the print version) has been a huge learning for me, alongside the nearly ten years in which I have been learning to teach, guided by those who thought of themselves as students.

The stories I tell are all fictionalised to some extent, some quite a lot. Names have been changed to protect the guilty.

I recommended an age restriction somewhere around 85. I have banned (with her wise and wholehearted agreement after a little explanation) my own mother (91) from reading it. I still have to work out what to do about my father.

A wise friend has advised me to now do as all authors and story tellers must do. The text/tape/CD/mp3 is a created thing. It has its own relationship with its readers/listeners. It even, as I discovered reading it for the audio version, has its own relationship with me now.

I thought I had good reason to believe that I knew what I was in for.

I was wrong about that. I feel well mauled, but in a good way. It is different writing late at night, just me and the Muse, from reading aloud what I have written. Especially when it gets all sexually descriptive.

Strangely liberating, though …


You may now click the following link to have your own relationship with the thing. Good Luck.


RockyHorrorTantra.com

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

Here it begins ~ Yogini Journey

 Here it begins

Hmmm, gratitude...: I fell asleep watching the stars above the southern hills. Now the light is oranging its way up those rocks. A speed boat streaks across the calm sea and cool air comes with its quiet caress on my morning skin. I'm feeling awe at the magical movements in my life.

I stood in my doorway waring my string of Mala beads - a gift to mark my initiation - as Rahasya, my teacher, left yesterday after his month's stay, saying: Goodbye Yogini.
We had decided that I would start practicing.  An hour later I mentioned this to someone on line and they booked a session for yesterday.
I panicked silently... and said Yes. They came and I think it went well...
I love this work.  Awakening consciousness and capacity for love and bliss is the most important thing in my life... I am in my element.

I am a tantrika... Here it begins.
Where will this lead, I wonder. How will this affect me having my own mate and family?
In this territory there are fewer and fewer road signs. I head off into an exquisite wilderness. My guides are stars and orange rocks and instinct and the breath of sea air on skin. The subtle whispers saying This way... That way...
I am an adventurer, an explorer of the Heart Land.

Tantric Touch Q&A

From Yogini Annwen, a touch work practitioner in this school:

Tantric Touch Work ~ Q ‘n A

                Client: So what is tantric touch work, exactly?

Annwen: In this Advaita tantra school, we have two ways of working. From the top down –eroticism, in other words working with the mind’s ideas around sex- and from the bottom up: touch work. Touch work supports the person into expanding their capacity to feel: Learning to feel pleasure, trust the body, love the body- learning how to love themselves and then they can be more qualified to love another.So Shakti Malan, for example, is a Dakini. I am a Yogini. A yogini follows the forms of touch work and works within that structure. Dakinis have less use for structure. They will do whatever it takes to get you to awaken…. They have licence to scare the hell out of you to speed up the process. Touch work may be considered a gentler approach, but it is in fact just as challenging for the one who is holding on tightly to that which has protected him/ her, but now imprisons and prevents intimacy. A Dakini may start with this work and then move on to eroticism work. I will leave eroticism up to the Dakinis… for now.

                Client: So, through touch you experience more... emotional feelings?

Annwen: Yes… and through more deep emotional feeling you experience more physical feeling too

                Client: hmm, does not make sense to me, must be an experiential thing.

Annwen: do you know the term body armouring?...
When experiences happen- especially as children- that are too much for us to feel, we put the experience away for later. We develop this armouring in the body (a holding, a tension- an unconscious pattern) to protect us from that feeling.
In Tantra, Now is Later.
Being supported by having someone see this armouring and work with you to soften and dissolve it will release the blocked feeling…which can be tough... especially when we really resist this happening, as we are likely to do because we're scared. And of course then you have to Feel everything you have been resisting all this time.
But, once this kind of congealed holding is softened and dropped, our capacity to feel bliss deepens. Bliss is our birthright.
From the other direction, when you become willing to feel more emotional depth - like, the tricky, sticky, yikky emotions... you will find, surprise, surprise... that your capacity to feel in the body increases too. This has been my most recent learning

                Client: Aaaaah, OK I get that
                So what are the forms of touch work?

Annwen: The three approaches that I am using are Tantra Massage, Chakra Massage and Tantric Balancing.
Tantra Massage involves developing an awareness of sexuality and love beyond our conventional interpretations.
Chakra Massage addresses resistance, numbness, discomfort, repression, trauma and judgement
Tantric balancing supports integration and inner love making of the masculine and feminine

I will make use of these different approaches as I see the need for them arising.

No-sex Tantra

 

A friend of mine went searching for a particular teacher. He was interested to track the old roots of wild, south Indian preferably Dravidian tantra and advaita.

He found exactly who he was looking for –  a Dravidian advaita teacher of an ancient tantric lineage.

Naturally, the fellow was doing as his ancestors had done, sitting in the shade of a wide banyan tree.

Conversation ensued, and over the next few days, my friend was treated to a feast of ancient lore and deep philosophical discussion.

It was a delight to hear of this lineage. We both enjoyed the traditional and fresh expressions of understanding that he had encountered, ignoring our companions a bit rudely.

At some point, my friend commented that in many general and some specific areas, this taste of an ancient teaching had been remarkably similar to what he had encountered around this school.

"Practice too?" I inquired.

"No." He replied. "That was the one startling difference."

"How so?" I asked, intrigued, always interested to discover new methods.

"No sex."

"None?"

"Well, he spoke of some methods and rituals, but from the moment of his attainment, no sex."

"Did he care to share why?"

"I asked, and he said not all lineages have the same insistence, but in his lineage, it is mandatory. He says that without this condition, the teachings he preserves and continues would have died out thousands of years ago."

There was obviously more to this. I waited in respectful patience, or perhaps hurried him with further questions. Whatever the details, he shared the story.

"The first master of the guru's lineage was apparently a little overwhelmed by his attainment. He was, here and there, a little irresponsible with his powers.

At some point, the Gods got a little annoyed and had a meeting to discuss the issue. Agreeing that something should be done to teach a lesson, but not knowing what lesson, or how it should be delivered, the Gods eventually turned to a Goddess for help.

The Goddess listened to their issue, agreed that a lesson had to be taught and that she would deliver it.

 Appearing before the guru, she danced a dance of sublime seduction. Even though he was past all need, all craving for sex, he was disturbed. This was, after all, a Goddess working him over.

She evoked his arousal and, far far worse, his ejaculation. Just with her dance.

The guru was, as the English would say, unmanned.

From that point on, he taught that no-sex was essential to the survival of his teaching."

I digested this for a while. This variation on a story I had heard often had got my attention.

I knew from my own experience that chastity is a comfortable and perfectly available option once the lean-pig hunger of sexuality stops. Even if sex continues for teaching, fun or any other reason, ejaculation is optional, and some choose to never do that.

I considered what difference it would make to my life and teaching if I had inherited or developed such an insistence myself. My first impression would be that it would be a lot easier.

Easier because … well, because …

Suddenly I saw the why, the reason behind this far away guru's no-sex insistence.

I rejoined the conversation, which had barely paused while i had swum in thoughts.

"So, was he enjoying his irresponsibility?"

"Like what?" My friend, not sharing my particular curiosity, was a little confused.

"Well, you notice the difference between his lifestyle and mine?"

My friend looked around the quaint 3rd world cottage I inhabit. "Not that different."

"Not that, and sure, if we had proper African heat in winter here, I could enjoy a banyan tree too. I mean the difference that comes from his no-sex thing."

He looked at one of the companions we were almost ignoring, a Dakini he has known as long as he has known me. She was smiling, obviously a step or two ahead of us males.

"The difference is…" He said, looking from her smile to mine "You get bossed about by them."

"Yes. They keep me on the straight and narrow." This got a laugh from the Dakini, who then got involved in discussing more interesting things with my daughter.

"According to the Dravidian guru, you are vulnerable to them."

"Yes. When I get irresponsible, they are there to slap me immediately. Hence I do not push things so far that divine intervention is required. At least not yet."

"And he is safe from that kind of trouble …" my friend mused.

"He is safe from much more than that."

"Like what?"

"Well, as you know, I take my direction from the Dakinis." This earned me a derisive comment from one of our unnamed companions, which I choose not to repeat. "More or less, anyway." Another derisive comment which I manfully ignored.

"Your friend in India, however, gets to decide how he teaches, who he teaches, the context that suits him and so on. If he had…" I smiled at the source of derisive comments "If he had such wonderful supports and guides for his teaching, he would do …"

"A hell of a lot more, for sure." My friend replied. "He really has some very cool stuff, and a strong energy, but he is not interested in traveling or being very welcoming. It is kind of a pity …"

"I don't know about that." I interrupted. "He is right about it being essential to the survival of his lineage, to the preservation of knowledge and method."

"But, now, with the world enjoying these teachings, he could do so much more."

"Well, for now at least, his no-sex thing seems to be keeping him safe. I am sure if that has to change, the right Goddess will be there to sort things out."

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

Is Tantra against relationship?

This was received from a student who's wife has not approved of him working with us. He outlines her complaint.

S.. has voiced some concerns about the school which I share to a large extent.

From conversations that S..had with Wendy, it seems like many men who take advantage of the schools offerings services do so behind the backs of their partners. It is difficult to imagine how a sustainable and holistic transformation in people’s lives can be accomplished when this involves people being less than completely honest with those who are closest to them. There is much that is questionable and worthy of review about the institution of marriage, but the fact remains that those women who married the men you are working with have dedicated their lives to them, trust them and raise children with them. This, in each case, is a major responsibility and it seems the school does not do what it takes to make sure that its work does not jeopardize this responsibility. This is all the more important because the school touches people’s lives at such a profound level.

When someone approaches me for a session I do not refuse him or her on the basis that there is some distortion in the sexuality or in relationship. Part of my work as a Dakini is to bring awareness to how the energies are flowing in the person and then to resolve the unconscious aspects so allowing the essential quality to be revealed. If a man comes to me with many constraints and lies to himself and his partner then we will begin to look at the lies and to notice how they are running his life.

The repressed qualities are ultimately a cause of some hurt and misunderstandings about the Truth.

I do not believe that a man not telling his wife he is working with me is wrong as such … it may be he is experiencing the freedom of how his life force flows and his Divine right to move energy where it guides him. When a person is attuned to one's own Being there is trust that whatever wants to flow in the moment can be surrendered to.

Guiding a person to exterior and then interior honesty is an important step on the path. In the pursuit of this it is not unusual for me to suggest communicating what is unfolding for them to their partner. Sometimes I make further sessions conditional around this issue. Wherever possible I will support couples in their lives together. Tantra recognises three major paths and I will work with you whatever your relationship structure.

The quality of devotion that women have to their husbands and children is exquisite and there is understandably an urge to protect it. The fear that comes with thoughts of its loss must be explored and resolved. I guess there is a belief that if a man learns something about himself with other women then the security of the home is threatened. It need not be so. At some point you must realise that using all your energy to keep a man faithful proves exhausting, painful and unproductive. In Tantra we encourage women to use their energy for their own awareness and to assist men to their potential not their constraints.

I am not in objection to what this couple is going through because I see their awareness is growing stronger and they are moving towards deeper intimacy.

Blessings...

Gifts from times past

Tantra is about the catalysis and acceleration of awareness. Tantra is not bound to any particular deity system, philosophy, cultural background or teaching modality.

Tantra is religion at it's liveliest. It has the passionate love of truth that most of the established religions started with. It has standards, views on what constitutes a worthwhile teaching, and ongoing, responsive quality control.

Sometimes, a teaching grows from previous teachings. Sometimes, a patriarchal lineage happens, a disciple or two of each generation completing their path in comfortable timing.

More usually, the appearance, the illusion of a patriarchal lineage and the development/revelation of teachings appropriate to the times has been managed from behind the scenes by Dakinis.

Often, Tantra had to present itself in a form that was alluring or scary to the surrounding culture. Sometimes it had to disappear. Sometimes, it had to infiltrate the prevailing organised religions.

Some branches did not develop, either pruned through losing the support and acknowledgment of Dakinis or just failing to produce capable teachers for a few generations.

Sometimes this was ugly, disciples becoming focused on a particular characteristic of (or attributed to) their historic guru and emulating that characteristic in stupid and excessive ways as only men can. Examples include (in increasing order of severity) ritual mutilation of the penis, obsessions with ejaculation and sexual repression.

Sometimes it was beautiful, the disciples preserving yoga exercises, dances, rituals, books, attitudes and methods for later generations and fresher lineages to borrow from.

The treasures of ancient tantra have been reaching the West for a long time. Gems like the Vigyan Bhairav Tantra and the poems of Rumi . These and the other gifts of history have contributed much to the development of Western Tantra.  Recently, Daniel Odier's Tantric Quest, translating the understanding of Kashmir and Judith Simmer Brown's Dakini's Warm Breath urge a more complete, more mature understanding.

Tantra is always a fresh awareness, an arising of new understanding. Tantra is always at the beginning (a teacher and a few students) stage of development as a religion. One of the oldest and wisest sayings in Tantra is "Stay at the beginning." This applies at least as much in tantric practice and teaching as it does in making love.

The Celibate, the Householder and the Tantrika

Tantric teachings are layered onion style because existence is layered, onion style.

Tantra recognises no distinction between worldly and spiritual endeavor. One's whole life is the path, no part excepted. No need to renounce sex, power or money. Existence can provide the necessary lessons, trials, hardships and challenges in the worldly context at least as effectively as in a monastic setting.

Truth is one. The ways of approaching it are many.

In Tantra, three main archetypes,  directions of approach, are known: The paths of Celibate, Householder and Tantrika. Which one is appropriate to you at any point in time, is probably the one you are doing. This distinction of directions is more about where a student is coming from than where he is going. None of them is inherently superior. All lead to the same truth.


The Celibate

In Christendom, celibacy is more or less synonymous with chastity. Chastity basically means no sex.

Celibacy, in the tantric context means unmarried. Just that. Nothing about regularity or irregularity of sexual activity implied. Celibates are unmarried.

The celibate has particular emphasis on her beloved being existence itself. A celibate does not make demands on a lover's availability, and is not open to demands on her availability.

Refusing the paradigm of marriage and relationship, refusing to own or be owned, the celibate becomes richly aware of the expectations and beliefs inherited from parents and culture.

Living through times of lovers and times of no lovers with no attitude of ownership forces one to face one's fears, limiting beliefs and habits without the luxury of having someone else to blame.

Relating to every lover as a gift from the beloved, from existence itself, challenges one to experience them deeply. It challenges one to engage to one's full depths and capacity. There is no sense in holding back, reserving intimacy, when the beloved is there. Adept celibates enjoy the kind of intimacy that can result from 5 years of marriage… on a first date.

The greatest danger to a celibate is using their celibacy as a way to avoid intimacy, depth and emotions. Keeping encounters with lovers shallow in a counter-productive attempt to avoid pain.


The Householder

The householder's focus is relationship. Whatever the particular relationship form, it has rules, guidelines and a concept of ownership.

The householder explores the truth of attachment, need and ownership through the context of relationship.

The form of a householder's relationship can be conventionally monogamous, poly, open, swinging, gay, hetero or any other variant. However it looks, though, those involved in the relationship agree to rules and guidelines.

The rules of relationship, whatever they are, can teach external, then internal honesty. Submitting to the constraints of relationship with sincerity can ready one for the far greater submission to existence itself.

Householders also often raise children, which is one of the most intensive ways to learn the truths of love.

Relationship is a kind of training wheels for love. Learning to love one person can be far harder than loving an abstract notion like Humanity, or … Relationship. When love worthy of the name happens, the koan of the relationship is answered.

The path of the householder benefits from experimentation/renegotiation between forms of relationship and sexual skills/energy development. The greatest danger is preferring comfort to totality.

The Tantrika

The tantrika's path is the direct exploration of the lessons of tantra, overlapping learning from teachers with learning by teaching.

Tantrikas seldom agree to monogamy, and when they do, their intention is either to complete the relationship dramas they inherited from their own parenting or to help the partner with that work. Sometimes both.

Wherever they are, and whatever they are doing, they are always in school. Always deliberately learning.

Tantrikas experiment in their own lives, trying out ideas like ownership and freedom, living at various times in communality, alone and with partner(s). Their loyalty is always to what they can learn, not to the context in which they find the lesson.

One of a tantrika's particular challenges is discerning between their own current highest understanding, that which they just glimpse  –  and things they know well, and can usefully teach. Another is teaching that which is easy, comfortable or profitable for too long, thus losing their own momentum.

Much of the acceleration of a tantrika's path comes from her willingness to help others. The emphasis of the tantrika is to love existence in meaningful and practical ways. The heat and pressure of this path is the experience of teaching that which one needs to learn – learning by helping.


Commonalities and differences

Most tantric paths fit one of these descriptions, at least for major stretches of their journey. Existence, however has no rigid distinctions. Some tantrikas really look like householders. Some celibates look a lot like tantrikas, some householders seem more celibate than the celibates.

In all cases, the inevitable restrictions and restraints of the path(s) chosen are used as a heat, a pressure, an acceleration and refinement of awareness.

None of them is inherently superior or faster than the others. None of them penetrates to greater truths or produces greater gurus than any other.

There is no choice to make. It is a calling kind of thing. Call it the predestined part of your existence. The choice you have is, as always, to dance with it and welcome it, or endure it in fighting and frustration.

I am perhaps a bit known for harping on about the harshness of the path, so this time, I will try to end things sweetly.

Each path has it's own particular delight. Celibates celebrate freedom. Householders celebrate connection. Tantrikas celebrate celebration, then start planning a workshop on celebration.

Throwing Rocks and Unbounded Teaching

Please note that Tantra was just one of the topics at last year's Sexuality and Consciousness conference. A lot of other useful, healing and generally worthwhile things were discussed, as well as these aspects of tantra.

A lot of ideas exchanged in a short period of time is a bit of a rollercoaster, and it takes everyone a little time to get appropriate perspective on what they have heard, notice the connections and distinctions in what they have heard and so on.

Even then, ideas can get mixed, and incorrect interpolations can be made. Two notions expressed at last year's Consciousness and Sexuality conference got a little mixed, which resulted in a little confusion and misunderstanding.

This is no bad thing of course, and I am sure we will have a higher, wilder ride at this year's conference. The range of arts, sciences, systems and approaches relevant to various levels of consciousness and sexuality related work should be even wider than last year's.

The ideas that got mixed were rock-throwing and boundaries.

Throwing Rocks

Rock throwing is a description from the student's end of things, describing what it is, what it takes to approach a Dakini. The traditional image is that one approaches her cave and tries to get close enough to leave a gift, present her with a gift, engage her in discussion or, ideally, ask for her teaching. She makes this hard, throwing rocks, rubbishing the supplicant's learning to date, rejecting his gifts and so on.

From the Dakini's end of things, the student approaches, and she starts teaching him immediately. What he may feel to be "rocks" … criticism, direction, difficult conditions and so on are his mind-ego's response to her first lessons. It seems to him at first that he advances by overcoming these obstacles and hurdles which the Dakini puts in his path.

It can seem harsh to a student that a Dakini insists on him having no alcohol before a session. It can seem weird that she insists he take a course in basic massage techniques, or insists that he stop taking erection-support or feel-good medication.

A Dakini's more mundane rocks are for the merely curious and the currently horny-and-can-google.

As Shakti puts it on one of her blogs:

I am going to politely send him away or at least question him more:

• If he does not say his name or clearly has to think about what his name is
• if he expects me to be available immediately for a session
• if he wants me to fix a sexual problem but is not interested in inner change
• if he is looking for a 'tantric massage' (which in the South African context usually means he is looking for someone to fulfill a sexual need - not the job of a Dakini)

So altogether, standing alone as a notion in it's own right, this "throwing rocks" thing is a good and useful part of teaching, especially when one has to filter those with the willingness and capacity from those who would be better off elsewhere.

Boundaries and Ethics

Dakinis are not bound by any boundaries, conditions, or, in the conventional sense, even ethics in their sessions work. A very scary notion for some at first sight. It is not a generally appropriate or workable approach to most therapies and healing modalities. These things clearly need boundaries on the part of the practitioner, and helping the student's development/discovery of his own boundaries is sometimes the conscious agenda.

The prevalent view in the culture is that a child needs clear boundaries from his parents, and that boundaries are the foundational expression of parental love.

Dakini Shima describes it in a FB note thus:

When you are little, your parents find your unbounded energy to be dangerous and disruptive. If your energy has no boundary then you may not look before you run in front of a truck.

The regular cultural understanding of ethics and boundaries is that these things are necessary to any conscious interaction. They give a framework for agreement and clarify the context. Their absence implies a lack of caring, safety and compassion.

A Dakini, however, is deeply familiar with unbounded caring, love beyond safety and compassion beyond the realm of conventional ethics. She engages her students at a level beyond the usual agendas of healing and therapeutic work. There are boundaries – the student's boundaries. Awareness of these is  encouraged, developed and, lessons learned, the boundaries are often discarded.

Dakini Wendy uses these lines of Rumi's to describe her sessions work:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field.  I'll meet you there.

Dakinis have renounced the Original Sin described in the Christian book. They make no claim to the divine knowledge of good and evil. They work instead on refining their aesthetic, how they would like things to look. Osho once said that aesthetics would be the ethics of the future.


I look forward to further sharing, exploration, discussion and controversy at the next next Consciousness and Sexuality conference in South Africa, happening in early December 2010.